Sign-In
Cart
The Viral Machine: How Viruses Hijack Cells to Replicate and Evolve
Paperback
Publisher Price: $34.99
Publisher: Hitex Press
Published: Oct 27 2026
Pages: 352
Weight: 0.90
Height: 0.73 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
What is a virus, exactly: a living thing, a chemical package, or something stranger? The Viral Machine answers that question by showing viruses not as vague enemies but as exquisitely efficient molecular systems that survive, invade, copy themselves, and evolve. General readers fascinated by biology, medicine, and the hidden workings of life will find here a vivid guide to the entities that have shaped ecosystems, genomes, and human history.
Readers will discover how a virus is built to endure the outside world, recognize the right cell, and slip through its defenses. They will see how tiny genomes use astonishing tricks to do more with less, how viral polymerases race and err to generate swarms of variants, and how the immune system and viruses engage in a relentless molecular chess match. Along the way, the book connects the physics of capsids, the logic of infection, and the speed of evolution to outbreaks and vaccines.
What makes this book distinctive is its central idea: a virus is best understood as a machine made of information, one that only comes alive as a process inside a cell. Clear, elegant, and grounded in modern molecular biology, it turns complex virology into a coherent story about how viruses work, why they matter, and what they reveal about life itself.
Also in
Biology
The Age of Living Machines: How Biology Will Build the Next Technology Revolution
Hockfield, Susan
Paperback
History by a Hair: Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings & Solving a 200-Year-Old Mystery
Kurin, Richard
Hardcover
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
Sheldrake, Merlin
Paperback
The World Beneath Our Feet: The Hidden Life of Soil and Why It Matters to Us All
Ashwood, Frank
Hardcover
Hidden Creatures: Luscious Leeches, Bashful Botflies, and the Wondrous, History-Shaping World of Parasites
Martins, Dino
Hardcover
National Geographic the Photo Ark: One Man's Quest to Document the World's Animals
Chadwick, Douglas H.
Sartore, Joel
Hardcover
Beyond Inheritance: Our Ever-Mutating Cells and a New Understanding of Health
Khamsi, Roxanne
Hardcover
Togetherness: Symbiosis and the Hidden Story of Life's Greatest Collaborations
Hooper, Rowan
Hardcover
Go Forth and Forage: A Guide to Foraging Over 50 of the Most Common Edible & Medicinal North American Mushrooms
Johnson, Whitney
Paperback
The Biology of Trauma: How the Body Holds Fear, Pain, and Overwhelm, and How to Heal It
Apigian, Aimie
Hardcover
Cells at Work! Picture Book 1: The Great Bacteria vs. White Blood Cell Battle!
Makimura, Kumi
Hardcover
The Power of Life: The Invention of Biology and the Revolutionary Science of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Riskin, Jessica
Hardcover
Princeton Review AP Biology Premium Prep, 29th Edition: 6 Practice Tests + Digital Practice Online + Content Review
The Princeton Review
Paperback
Ernst Haeckel's Art Forms in Nature: A Visual Masterpiece of the Natural World
Haeckel, Ernst
Hardcover
Fungi Decoded: Adventures in the Mycosphere--Encounters with Thirty Fungi
Bunyard, Britt A.
Paperback
Peterson Field Guide to Mushrooms of North America, Second Edition
McKnight, Karl B.
Rohrer, Joseph R.
McKnight Ward, Kirsten
Paperback
The Whole Truth: The Hidden Agendas Behind Decades of Health Misinformation--And What to Do about It
Campbell, Nelson
Campbell, T. Colin
Hardcover
Night Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark
Henion, Leigh Ann
Hardcover
Bioinspired: How Nature Made Us Modern, Drives Today's Technological Innovation, and Inspires a Future Worth Inventing
Stier, Samuel Cord
Hardcover
The Molecular Diet: Precision Nutrition to Repair Your Genes and Supercharge Your Health
Gubler, Dan
Hardcover
Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide: A Handbook for Psilocybin Enthusiasts
Oeric, O. N.
Oss, O. T.
Paperback
Food Intelligence: The Science of How Food Both Nourishes and Harms Us
Belluz, Julia
Hall, Kevin, PhD
Hardcover
All That Remains: A Renowned Forensic Scientist on Death, Mortality, and Solving Crimes
Black, Sue
Paperback
Forbidden Facts: Government Deceit & Suppression about Brain Damage from Childhood Vaccines
de Becker, Gavin
Hardcover
A Year with the Seals: Unlocking the Secrets of the Sea's Most Charismatic and Controversial Creatures
Morris, Alix
Hardcover
To Be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death
O'Connell, Mark
Paperback
VAX Facts: What to Consider Before Vaccinating at All Ages & Stages of Life
Thomas, Paul
Hoover, Deedee
Paperback
Fungi of Temperate Europe: Keys to the Basidiomycotes
Læssøe, Thomas
Petersen, Jens H.
Frøslev, Tobias G.
Hardcover
The Big One: How We Must Prepare for Future Deadly Pandemics
Olshaker, Mark
Osterholm, Michael T.
Hardcover
True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author's Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil's Paradis
McKenna, Terence
Paperback
The Aesthetic Revolution: Embracing Vanity and the Future of Fitness to Unlock Your Healthiest Self
Israetel, Mike
Hardcover
Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast: A Comprehensive Guide to the Fungi of Coastal Northern California
Siegel, Noah
Schwarz, Christian
Paperback
The Gut-Brain Paradox: Improve Your Mood, Clear Brain Fog, and Reverse Disease by Healing Your Microbiome
Gundry MD, Steven R.
Hardcover
The Art and Science of Foodpairing: 10,000 Flavour Matches That Will Transform the Way You Eat
Langenbick, Johan
Coucquyt, Peter
Lahousse, Bernard
Hardcover
Psilocybin Mushrooms: A Comprehensive Guide to Growing and Using Psychedelic Mushrooms
Madden, Michael
Paperback
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
Sheldrake, Merlin
Hardcover
The Little Book of Mushrooms: An Illustrated Guide to the Extraordinary Power of Mushrooms
Dorr, Alex
Hardcover
Mushrooming: An Illustrated Guide to the Fantastic, Delicious, Deadly, and Strange World of Fungi
Borsato, Diane
Hardcover
Regents Exams and Answers: Life Science: Biology, Second Edition
Barron's Educational Series
Paperback
The Contagion Myth: Why Viruses (Including Coronavirus) Are Not the Cause of Disease
Cowan, Thomas S.
Fallon Morell, Sally
Hardcover
Mushrooms of Cascadia, Second Edition: An Illustrated Key to the Fungi of the Pacific Northwest
Beug, Michael
Paperback
The Mushroom Hunters: A Hidden World of Food, Money, and (Mostly Legal) Adventure
Cook, Langdon
Paperback
From These Lands: Sharing Our Natural and Cultural Heritage
National Museum of Natural History
Hardcover
Field Guide to Wild Mushrooms of Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic: Revised and Expanded Edition
Russell, Bill
Paperback
Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes
Lents, Nathan H.
Paperback
Superconvergence: How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions Will Transform Our Lives, Work, and World
Metzl, Jamie
Paperback
How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi: Collected Quirks of Science, Tech, Engineering, and Math from Nerd Nite
Balakrishnan, Chris
Wasowski, Matt
Paperback
The Life Machines: How Taking Care of Your Mitochondria Can Transform Your Health
Rosen, Emanuel
Mochly-Rosen, Daria
Hardcover
Gut Check: Unleash the Power of Your Microbiome to Reverse Disease and Transform Your Mental, Physical, and Emotional Health
Gundry MD, Steven R.
Hardcover
National Audubon Society Wildflowers of North America: The Complete Identification Reference to Wildflowers--With Full-Color Photographs; Updated Rang
National Audubon Society
Hardcover
Field Notes from a Fungi Forager: An Illustrated Journey Through the World of Pacific Northwest Mushrooms
Rodriguez, Ashley
Hardcover
The Mycocultural Revolution: Transforming Our World with Mushrooms, Lichens, and Other Fungi
McCoy, Peter
Hardcover
The Ocean's Menagerie: How Earth's Strangest Creatures Reshape the Rules of Life
Harvell, Drew
Hardcover
The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health
Montgomery, David R.
Biklé, Anne
Paperback
The Serengeti Rules: The Quest to Discover How Life Works and Why It Matters
Carroll, Sean B.
Paperback