Full name: The Trembling Mountain: A Personal Account of Kuru, Cannibals, and Mad Cow Disease

Author: Robert Klitzman Year: 1998 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Science, Non Fiction Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9780738206141 0738206148

Kuru, like Mad Cow disease, is caused by a rare, infectious crystal protein that invades and colonizes human cells, destroying the nervous system of its victims. There is no known cure. It flourished in one of the remotest places on earth, Papua New Guinea, among the Fore, a people living in the Stone Age, who until recently practiced ritual cannibalism, consuming the brains of their forebears during funerary feasts. Robert Klitzman helped establish the links between these rituals and kuru. What he discovered has provided keys to understanding the mysterious Mad Cow Disease, which may become the world's next major epidemic. Robert Klitzman was 21 years old when he was invited by the Nobel prize-winning scientist Dr. Carleton Gajdusek, then at the National Institutes of Health, to conduct original research on kuru. Seizing the chance to travel to the other end of the world, Klitzman embarked on an adventure that would change his life.     Similar books: QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by Richard P. Feynman Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku Black Holes and Time Warps by Kip S. Thorne Quantum Field Theory for the Gifted Amateur by Tom Lancaster Nightwatch by Terence Dickinson The Character of Physical Law by Richard P. Feynman Einstein and the Quantum by A. Douglas Stone The Singularity Is Near by Ray Kurzweil Universe by Martin Rees The Machinery of Life by David S. Goodsell The Music of the Primes by Marcus du Sautoy Theoretical Physics by Georg Joos Murmurs of Earth by Carl Sagan Understanding the Universe by Don Lincoln Power, Sex, Suicide by Nick Lane The Ocean World by Jacques-Yves Cousteau Every Day On Earth by Steve Murrie The Tangled Web by Michal Zalewski Nature's Building Blocks by John Emsley