Innholdsfortegnelse for Nov-17-14 i The New Yorker

HOW EBOLA OPERATES Richard Preston’s piece did much to explain the Ebola virus (“The Ebola Wars,” October 27th). Yet when Preston writes that “the virus is a parasite” he’s characterizing Ebola in language that some physicians and scientists would not readily use. Although a virus can be considered a cellular parasite, in that it uses its host cell’s reproductive machinery to duplicate itself, a virus is not a parasite, nor is a parasite a virus. Parasites are living organisms that feed off of other organisms; viruses are unique sequences of genomic material which can cause a disruption or aberration of normal biological function. Sometimes these viral invaders turn cells into incubators for more virus particles, which then propagate from cell to cell, causing a variety of symptoms and, ultimately,…

To deal with all the sensational loss I like to interface with Earth. I like to do this in a number of ways. I like to feel the work I am exerting being changed, the weight of my person refigured, and I like to hang above the ground, thus; hammocks, snorkeling, alcohol. I also like the mind to feel a kind of neutral buoyancy and to that end I set aside a day a week, Shabbat, to not act. Having ceded independence to the sunset I will not be shaving, illuminating rooms, or raising the temperature of food. If occasionally I like to feel the leavening of being near a much larger unnatural tension, I walk off a Sunday through the high fields of blanket bog, saxifrage, a few thin…