Emperors of Gaia: Invisible empire: The natural history of viruses

In this fascinating book the author unravels the mysterious ways in which viruses orchestrate the cycle of life on Planet Earth, writes Anil Thakore Invisible empire: The natural history of viruses Pranay Lal Penguin Random House Rs.799 Pages 278 In January 2020, news emerged of a mysterious fever in China. Until it was identified as the SARS-CoV-2 or Covid-19 virus, it had spread globally and by November, an estimated 122 million individuals worldwide were infected by it. Latest figures suggest that 600 million people have been infected and the Covid-19 death count is estimated at 7 million worldwide, of which 5 million — against the official death count of 520,000 — could be in India. As panic, fear, death, and economic disruption sweep across the world, virus has become a dread word. This is not warranted, says Pranay Lal, a biochemist, caricaturist, animator, journalist and environment sustainability campaigner and author of Indica — A Deep Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent (2016), which has won plaudits and several international awards. According to Lal, most viruses are benign and beneficial for humankind. In this fascinating book with excellent illustrations, he unravels the mysterious and miraculous ways that viruses (aka microbes) go about their lives, and how they orchestrate every activity in the cycle of life on this planet. The existence of any species on earth would not be possible without viruses. As Lal tells it, six billion years ago, a bacterial phyllum, Cyanobacteria and other photosynthesizing organisms, multiplied profusely and produced so much oxygen that our planet froze into a ball of ice heralding the Ice Age. It took another virus — cyanophage — over 200 million years to curb and kill the growth of Cyanobacteria, and restore the planet into a habitable environment which kick-started the evolutionary process of all species that inhabit Planet Earth currently. Broadly categorised under the umbrella of microbes, i.e, organisms that can be seen only under a microscope, viruses are the world’s most abundant life form and are not only the engines of evolution, but also digest, produce, process, ferment, breakdown, recycle, reformulate and synthesise all chemicals that make this planet habitable for the species living on it. The discovery of viruses — perhaps the first inhabitants of this planet — as a distinct species happened less than 100 years ago. In 1939, the first microbe — the tobacco mosaic virus — became visible following invention of the electron microscope. Thus, virology is in its infancy. The word virus is derived from the Sanskrit vish, denoting venomous poison. The numbers and species of viruses are inestimable. Trillions upon trillions live in the human body (and in the bodies of all species), performing miraculous functions that make life possible. Only an infinitesimal fraction of microbes makes us sick, even fewer have power to kill us. Most simply pass through us, and a few use us as a substitute to make more of their kind. “They usually don’t bother us in the least and some, in fact,…