Greg Bear - Darwins Radio

Greg Bear's powerfully written, brilliantly inventive novels combine cutting-edge  

science and unforgettable characters, illuminating dazzling new technologies -- 

and their dangers. Now, in Darwin's Radio, Bear draws on state-of-the-art biological and anthropological research to give us an ingeniously plotted thriller that everything we believe about human origins and destiny -- as civilization confronts the next terrifying step in evolution.

A mass grave in Russia that conceals the mummified remains of two women, both with

 child -- and the conspiracy to keep it secret... a major discovery high in the Alps:

 the preserved bodies of a prehistoric family -- the newborn infant possessing 

disturbing characteristics... a mysterious disease that strikes only pregnant women,

 resulting in miscarriage. Three disparate facts that will converge into one 

science-shattering truth.

Molecular biologist Kaye Lang, a specialist in retroviruses, believes that ancient 

diseases encoded in the DNA of humans can again come to life. But her theory 

soon becomes chilling reality. For Christopher Dicken -- a "virus hunter" at the

 Epidemic Intelligence Service -- has pursued an elusive flu-like disease that strikes down expectant mothers and their offspring. The shocking link: something that has slept in our genes for millions of years is waking up. Now, as the outbreak of this terrifying disease threatens to become a deadly epidemic,

 Dicken and Lang, along with anthropologist Mitch Rafelson, must race against time to assemble the pieces of a puzzle only they are equipped to solve. An evolutionary puzzle that will determine the future of the human race... if a future exists at all.