Author of The Heartbeat of the Wild (2023), Breathless (2022), Spillover, The Song of the Dodo etc. Journalism for National Geographic, The New Yorker etc.
Why are Black men in prison for selling a few ounces of marijuana while the Sackler family walk free? You start to wonder as you read
#EmpireofPain
, another superb book by
@praddenkeefe
Here's the best, most sagacious & authoritative thing on
#COVID
ー19 & the coronavirus causing it that I've seen so far, putting alarm into context:
@EcoHealthNYC
@PeterDaszak
I'm guessing it's uncommon for first copy of new book to arrive same day for two authors in one household. Rare for us too. But when it happens, like last week, we drink a little outdoor champagne with friends.
It was indeed a great day, a great event, a milestone.
Montana State University now has 811 Native American students, and a wonderful building and program to serve as a gravitational center. We are lucky in Bozeman to share in this community.
What a joyful day!
@montanastate
opens the American Indian Hall, celebrating
#Indigenous
peoples and the amazing cultures of Native communities across the country! So gorgeous.
The
@nytimes
in their generous wisdom invited me to write these few words abt our ambivalent relations with, our debts to, bats—our chiropteran sisters & brothers:
Who are the authors of "Evidence SARS-CoV-2 Emerged From a Biological Laboratory in Wuhan, China," web posted, April 16, 2020? "We are an anonymous group of researchers." Please identify yourselves. I'd like to talk with you.
Salutes to your ongoing work,
@PeterHotez
, and that of your genuinely scientific colleagues. What a pathetic day for the US Congress. Thanks for valor and clarity under fire, Dr. Fauci.
At some point mainstream media must accept we have a half-dozen articles in the world’s best scientific journals on the natural origins/zoonotic spillover of SARS-2 that emerged just like SARS, whereas 0 papers on GoF/lab leak bc it never happened:
21st Century Piltdown Man
Zoonotic diseases remind us that humans are animals—just one species among many, healthiest when we live with some sense of proportion, humility, balance. Pandemics show us the cost of ignoring that truth.
@PeterDaszak
And I don't predict. I report on scientists who predict.
@DavidQuammen
correctly predicted in his 2012 book, "Spillover:Animal infections and the Next Human Pandemic" that the next pandemic would be a respiratory disease likely transferred from bats to humans.
It's
#WorldPangolinDay
. Take a moment and contemplate 1) how incredibly cool & charming these critters are, and 2) how outrageously, catastrophical punished by illegal trafficking they are.
Schuppentiere sind streng geschützt, gelten aber als die am häufigsten illegal gehandelten Säugetiere und sind daher extrem bedroht. Wir fordern mehr Kontrollen & ein schärferes Vorgehen gegen Wilderei. 👉
#WorldPangolinDay
"Breathless" by bestselling author & prize-winning journalist
@DavidQuammen
Coming 10/4
The story of the worldwide scientific quest to decipher the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, trace its source, and create the vaccines to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.
This just in:
#Hydroxychloroquine
does not cure stupidity, cynical obduracy, or congenital lying. Preliminary results, small clinical study, n = 1. Side effects still indeterminate. Stay tuned.
The likelihood of your getting Lyme disease does not depend on the abundance of deer. It correlates with the abundance of small mammals that host the baby ticks, which correlates with absence of middle-sized predators, which correlates with fragmented, not intact, ecosystems. 1/2
@MeanGirlGremlin
@OracleNil
Deer are a big problem. They are everywhere where I live. Already got Lyme disease once from a deer tick. Deer hunting is big in PA. Not sure yet if/how covid could spill over into humans from deer. I would suspect the butcher would be in trouble. Maybe
@DavidQuammen
can answer!
David Quammen:
«Evoluzione è prevedere»
Dopo aver anticipato tutto in
#Spillover
, nel suo “Senza respiro”
@DavidQuammen
torna sul Covid. Avverte che non sarà l’ultima pandemia e ci invita a sostenere politici che credono nella scienza
@gcatozzella
Celebrating publication day for my book Breathless. Participatory. But I know how lucky I am compared to so many others. I'm vaccinated and Paxlovided. I join you in mourning those lost.
#COVID
-19 fatigue? Go outside (if you have the blessing of going outside) & see in the darkness (if you have the blessing of darkness) the planet Venus, rising high in the western sky, twd its highest elongation (if I've got this right) from the sun. Wow.
Bigger things than us.
Acc to
@ProMED_mail
, there's a new outbreak of MERS-CoV among camels in Marsabit County, northern Kenya. Sobering reminder that we live in a world of viruses, incl many coronaviruses, & nothing we can do abt that except 1) be careful & 2) tread lightly upon the rest of nature.
A modest proposal: Seems to me only way out of our deep natl tunnel of rabid delusion & partisanship is: teach critical thinking, starting 5th grade. More important even than readinwritinrithmetic: thinkin. Say to our youth: Here's an idea. What are the arguments, pro & con? 1/n
There is a day each autumn in Montana, if luck is good, if beauty and peace get a moment, when we have yellow leaves falling on fresh white snow.
This is that day.
Yike: I've just seen the news that 3 sick grizzly bears euthanized here in Montana (autumn? but just announced) tested positive for avian flu. No mention whether H5N1, but seems to be the assumption. That bird virus keeps knocking on the mammal door.
#ViralChatter
Killing snakes on sight is like crushing mushrooms on sight or slapping children on sight: an instinct of the pathologically negativistic, oppressive, and fearful.
It is notable that today's select subcommittee hearing on the origins of the coronavirus will include three witnesses, none of whom is a virologist who has worked on the origins of the coronavirus:
Ed Wilson will indeed be greatly missed. A brilliant scientist, a vastly important voice on biological diversity and diversity losses, an elegant writer, and a very nice, very generous man. Double hit: Tom Lovejoy and EOW in two days. Aaak.
We all calibrate joy differently. For me, best day of year today: book done, mag deadlines met, donations mailed, then x-c skiing alone at 0 degrees on velvet snow. Home to loving wife, 2 young dogs, healthy cat. Martini, Ron Chernow's "Washington." Happy Old Year, my friends.
Update of "Spillover"? Thanks for asking, JM. Not an update but a whole new book, on SARS-CoV-2. Just finished, now in pipeline at
@simonschuster
. Here's where I've been (besides in a book cave in Bozeman, Montana, and on Zoom) the past year:
Wrong. Evolution does *not* necessarily nudge a respiratory virus twd less virulence. Its Darwinian success is measured in tranmission & reproduction, & what it does to an individual host after transmission (annoys, sickens, kills) is usually immaterial to natural selection. 1/2
Grazie, Mauro. I will not update the book but, rather, write an entire new one. Covid-19 actualizes all the principles & warnings of Spillover. Now it's the story itself.
Knowing what we knew, why were we so unready?
Consigli letterari 2.
Libro del 2014, ma tremendamente attuale pensando alla pandemia (
@DavidQuammen
: you could maybe update the book!).
Documentato e nonostante la mole leggibilissimo.
Pesante nei contenuti, leggero nei toni.
Da leggere.
Thanks for asking. I'm not writing an updated version; I'm writing a new book. I suppose it will be sort of a companion piece: how the principles & predictions of
#Spillover
are playing out in
#COVID19
. But of course more too: we're now in a unique zone.
Just finished Spillover by
@DavidQuammen
. One of the best books I’ve ever read, especially The Chimp and the River chapter. Could not put it down. Will you be writing an updated version for the Covid-19 era?
Is civilization about to end? Probably not but, just in case, my dear wife bought a big bag of rice, five lbs of bland cheddar cheese, 4 lbs of alcohol wipes, & $900 worth of dog food. Priorities.
#COVID
ー19
#COVID
@betsygquammen
@ejeancarroll
You all be careful out there.
Whenever I see an add offering "14 Must-Have Gadgets for the Holiday Season," I want to barf & despair of the human species. Consumption is a problem, excess consumption is bad, but trivial mindless waste is maybe our deepest Western sin.
I've been rubbing
#CBD
oil, in ointment, into the surgical scars on my knees. As far as I can tell, so far, it has all the same analgesic value and magical curative powers as duck fat.
"Eu previ que a próxima pandemia seria causada por um vírus de um animal selvagem. Não porque sou um profeta, mas porque ouvi cientistas", diz
@DavidQuammen
no
#RodaViva
.
Gottlieb? I've seen. I read that he "noted that the origins of related diseases were usually identified at this point following the initial outbreak."
Really? SARS-1 took 14 years. Spanish influenza H1N1 took 49 years. Ebola reservoir still not identified. 1/n
Most interesting & notable thing happening on the Covid origin topic right now is not any new evidence but the feeding frenzy of editors asking journalists & others: Give us a lab-leak story! Thanks,
@PeterHotez
, yours is the most sensible & expert.
Evidence? We all want more.
Three New York Times reporters lament decreases in global human pop growth rate, deploring "population stagnation & a fertility bust." Are they out of their minds, or just myopic?
Good reminder: Immunology is not a discipline of human medicine; it's a broad evolutionary field that includes the Tasmanian devil, 8 species of pangolin, & your grandmother.
@WildImmunity
There are three types of people:
1. Those who read
@DavidQuammen
’s “Spillover” before the
#COVID19
#pandemic
;
2. Those who read “Spillover” during the pandemic;
3. Those who still haven’t read “Spillover.”
People in category (3): What the hell is wrong with you?
Forthcoming book? Thanks for asking, Aviv. Now in edit pipeline
@simonschuster
, tentative pub date Oct 2022. Title "Catching the Virus." Subect: the origins, evolution, & fierce journey of SARS-CoV-2 thru the human population, as seen by the scientists who study it.
Do you live in northern hemisphere, from Dakotas west? Have a clear sky? Then rush outside fast, now, & see Venus, big & yellow, high in western sky straight above setting crescent moon. Venus: beautiful, sublime, inspirational, & utterly indifferent to us. But it's one universe.
A magnificent, dark-maned African lion known as C-Boy, a survivor, featured by Nick Nichols & me in our 2013
@NatGeo
article on Serengeti lions, has died. In fullness of time, age 14. Here's my epitaph (& Nick's great portrait):
#Marburg
virus, yes: interesting, important case. It took scientists 41 years to identify the natural host of the virus, the reservoir host. But they found it. In a species of African bat. Cf Towner et al. (2009). Pierre Rollin, senior author.
Cover photo, of the lion called C-Boy, by the great Nick Nichols.
Oh, and the book is dedicated to Nick and to Mike Fay. These two guys I got to know during some interesting outings for National Geographic.
@betsygquammen
@eatguineapigs
@DavidQuammen
Arrived yesterday. And then I burned dinner last night because I could NOT put it down and tried to cook and read simultaneously. Incredible.
People everywhere are wondering what happened to make Italy so hard hit by
#COVID19
. Italians are wondering too.
@StellaLevantesi
and I discussed that, plus other aspects of it, here:
Dear, magnificent Italy,
#PleaseKeepSinging
.
The story of emerging viruses, including this one, is always a story of ecology & evolutionary biology. & that is always a story of people, engaged in the incremental knowledge-seeking process we call science. Science writing is *so* close to writing mystery novels.
#SARSCoV2
"Breathless" by bestselling author & prize-winning journalist
@DavidQuammen
Coming 10/4
The story of the worldwide scientific quest to decipher the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, trace its source, and create the vaccines to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.
Just finished reading this erudite work. Highly comprehensive yet lucid history of zoonotic diseases.
@DavidQuammen
any plans to add a new chapter called "I told you so" ? ;)
This
@highcountrynews
story makes very important point: some roots of violent insurrection in DC lie in the West, cowboy ethic vs community values, Bundy scofflaws being acquited, rampant privatizing of public lands, etc, as noted by some, e.g. (disclosure of bias)
@betsygquammen
On my desk here sits a beat-up paperback copy of
#Catch22
, inscribed by Joe Heller: "To Dave Quammen, best wishes for the future--and the present," dated 50 years ago today. At Yale, where he was teaching us a seminar. Very nice man.
Some paperbacks are worth keeping 50 years.
In this Sunday's
@nytimes
Magazine, just up, an excerpt from my new book
#TheTangledTree
, describing the revolution in molecular biology that has reshaped our understanding of life's history.
@simonschuster
Michael Soule, one of the preeminent founders of conservation biology, a scientist of rigor and insight and heart, a deeply sweet and steady man—this is a big loss.
Thank you deeply. This is a point of passion with me: nonfiction can be every bit as artful, surprising, humane, vivid, elaborately structured, & narrative as fiction—and yet also deliver some factual enlightenment.
@Iggy59687530
@DavidQuammen
Funny you say you don’t read fiction. I recently tried to entice a young woman just starting her university biology studies to read ‘Spillover’ and ‘The Tangled Tree’ by saying they read like good mystery novels. It worked! She loved them!
Great glorious near-full moon over Bozeman (& probly other places) tonight. Took picture w my eye & memory; phone pictures don't do justice. The dogs & cat had to listen to me, on our walk round the block, extolling its amazingicity. Sun over down there, moon up here, reflection!
#Omicron
We humans have conquered Earth, 8 billion of us, living & going everywhere, consuming everything. Now viruses are discovering that the best of all evolutionary strategies, reached by good old Darwinian natural selection, is to infect humans. "What a piece of work"—Hamlet
The
#mink
cull in Denmark is indeed regrettable, but not bcz of 1) mutation threat of
#Covid19
or 2) 15K animals killed to prevent spread. Remember: These mink werent being raised as pets or destined to live long happy lives & die of old age. Mink farming itself is the issue. 1/2
There's often a silver lining somewhere in the darkest cloud. For instance, 2020: Trump got dis-elected, and I made it through the year on one tank of gas.
It bears watching. Seven humans infected, mild symptoms, I gather, on a Russian poultry farm. No human-human transmission. The really concerning thing w bird flu is not the first human case somewhere, but the second case, IF it's human-human transmission. Flu is serious.
If you happen to know anything abt the Okavango Delta, or you don't, & care abt elephants, or abt local people, or abt wildlife on the African landscape generally, this will boil yr blood:
@NatGeo
#Okavango
1/2
Monkey pox is a warning and a drill. Don't waste time worrying; urge leaders to better prepare. And think about avian flu. Earth has (corrected current number, I think) 26 billion chickens. Billion.
Spring '68, outrage and carnage: I remember like it was yesterday. It's RIDICULOUS and shameful that African Americans are still suffering the same abuses & inequities. How long can you expect a community of our fellow citizens to scream their rage peacefully into a pillow?
Pangolins. Alas their story. Endangered and now entangled in the
#Covid
-19 origin narrative. I have a piece coming on that too, next week, in the
@NewYorker
.
Here's a wonderfully clear, sober piece from
@edyong209
on the basic reproduction number, R-nought, of the Wuhan virus—explaining the concept & the current data:
Understanding R-nought is crucial to understanding the progress of an epidemic.
Here's a valuable commentary, from Dr. David Wilcove, on how endangered species dilemmas and linked to wildlife trade, which is in turn linked to outbreaks & epidemics of emerging zoonotic viruses, such as
#NovelCoronavirus
:
The "game changer" drug
#hydroychloroquine
: Woo, it works on malaria. Trump: "I am a fan." Fauci: Not so fast.
And does Trump even know that the malaria parasite is not a virus?
"The Tangled Tree"—it was a little like a reckless, drunken wager with myself: "I bet you can't write a readable, page-turner, narrative book, with a few dry laughs, about the history of molecular phylogenetics." I bit. Up to others to judge if I won.
@Dan_Donachie
@DavidQuammen
Absolutely agree. Plus, if you have finished reading that book, also read 'The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life'. Again a very interesting read, even if you're not at home in (molecular) biology!
Revisiting this text in 2020 is quite eery. Fantastic work by David Quammen on zoonotic disease. I highly recommend this real-life “thriller.” Curious to read his next book whenever that may be.
#spillover
@DavidQuammen
Thanks, LH., but, well, no, not "literally no one anywhere paid attention" to
#Spillover
when first pubd. It had one week on the Times bestseller list, won three book awards (US, UK, Italy), & was finalist for five others. But more "in vogue" now, yes, you're right.
@wwnorton
Prevention versus reaction. $20 billion/year versus $3.7 trillion cost just to the US, and a million Americans, just Americans, dead. It's not inscrutable math. And it's much more than math.
#Extinctions
. Just out, loudest alarm of the year: If you think politics in DC is depressing, read this
#IPBES
report. Biggest challenge in our lifetimes is to remain active, determined, in light of such news of biodiversity-&-its-services losses.
@NatGeo
But if this cluster in the Beijing market represents a new animal-human spillover, rather than human-human spread (with red-herring evidence on salmon cutting-board), it's huge news. The genomes will answer that question, &
@arambaut
&
@edwardcholmes
will be among first to know.
My next book (thanks for asking) is •The Heartbeat of the Wild,• to be published next month.
@NatGeo
Books. From 20 years of writing and thinking abt conservation of wild creatures and places.
Here's a constructive idea for Trump's future: Morocco doesn't extradite to the US. Marrakech, 200 mi. SW of capital, Rabat, has ten golf courses, incl Royal Golf Marrakech. King of Morroco caused a sand trap to disappear bcz he hit into it 3 days in a row. DJT's kind of guy. 1/2
@sciencewithtyus
@davidghamilton1
Here's a devil I saw last week, which Regi Broeren (releasing) was kind enough to name after my younger sister. It's "Sallie."
🚨Our vaccine development partners Public Health Vaccines have announced that their Nipah vaccine has entered clinical testing💉
First identified in 1999, Nipah is one of the deadliest pathogens known to infect humans (🧵 1/5)
Several days ago, walked past house where long ladder was tilting toward 2nd flr dormer. Screens off, storm windows on? I thought: Neighbor, if you're old like me you shldn't climb up there. Then realized: This is house of my pal
@conrad_anker
. Yep, I think Conrad can handle it.