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Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > Science, technology & engineering
'Since I was a child, I've been interested in dead bodies. When I
was eight years old, I dug up the remains of my pet budgie Zazbut.
He had been buried for about eight weeks in a patch of grass
outside our house in Dasmarinas, a fortified village in Manila, in
the Philippines. 'The first exhumation was the beginning of my
intrigue with death, which has persisted. As a journalist, I've
written about graveyards, funerals and death doulas. I always visit
the local cemetery wherever I am in the world. But one thing that
has largely been hidden from me in this death trip is the dead
body.' Dissection might not be a normal topic to contemplate but
when both your paternal grandparents donate their bodies to science
it does intermittently cross your mind. This is the story of how
Jackie Dent's grandparents-Ruby and Julie-gave their bodies to
science when they died. No one in her family seems to know why, or
what really happened with their bodies afterwards. Were they avid
science buffs? Was it to save on cremation costs? How do scientists
tackle the practicalities and ethics of cutting up the dead for
research? And who are body donors generally? Weaving the personal
with the history of anatomy and the dissected, Jackie Dent explores
the world of whole-body donation - all the while looking for
answers as to what happened to her grandparents.
'Long, thin, and cool as hell' was how parasitologist Thomas Platt
described the new genus and species of trematode (Baracktrema
obamai) he named in honor of the 44th USA president and his 5th
cousin, Barack Obama. The story of Baracktrema was picked up by
over 200 news outlets worldwide, providing a fitting swansong to an
illustrious career revisited in this part-personal and
part-scientific memoir.Platt's road to success was not initially
smooth. Faced with a brutal tenure rejection at the start of his
career, he was told that 'You are not the type of person we want to
invest in for the next 30 years.' After a brief stint in the
business world, Platt bounced back in spectacular fashion by
embarking on a successful 28-year career at Saint Mary's College in
South Bend, Indiana. He traveled extensively in search of new
species of parasitic worms, from neighboring Costa Rica to the
far-flung reaches of Australia and Malaysia. His love of turtles
and their parasites led to the discovery of 30 new species, 11 new
genera, and international recognition. He provides perspectives on
the places and people encountered along the way, details of
interactions with wildlife, as well as interesting and accessible
insights into parasite behavior in the external environment and
with their hosts.SMALL SCIENCE is an inspiring story of an
unexceptional high school student's path through college, graduate
school, the academy, and a successful research career in 'small
science' - the science of parasites, and the science of work
accomplished in the margins, in the time carved out from a heavy
teaching load, committee assignments, and mentoring dedicated
undergraduate women in the joy of scientific discovery.
‘Brave, compassionate and inspiring – it left me in floods of tears’ Adam Kay, author of This Is Going to Hurt
For more than twenty-five years, David Nott has taken unpaid leave from his job as a general and vascular surgeon with the NHS to volunteer in some of the world’s most dangerous war zones. From Sarajevo under siege in 1993, to clandestine hospitals in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, he has carried out life-saving operations and field surgery in the most challenging conditions, and with none of the resources of a major London teaching hospital.
The conflicts he has worked in form a chronology of twenty-first-century combat: Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Darfur, Congo, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Gaza and Syria. But he has also volunteered in areas blighted by natural disasters, such as the earthquakes in Haiti and Nepal.
Driven both by compassion and passion, the desire to help others and the thrill of extreme personal danger, he is now widely acknowledged to be the most experienced trauma surgeon in the world. But as time went on, David Nott began to realize that flying into a catastrophe – whether war or natural disaster – was not enough. Doctors on the ground needed to learn how to treat the appalling injuries that war inflicts upon its victims. Since 2015, the foundation he set up with his wife, Elly, has disseminated the knowledge he has gained, training other doctors in the art of saving lives threatened by bombs and bullets.
War Doctor is his extraordinary story
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