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7f48dc3
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What you're suggesting is that Hezekiah's elixir caused epigenetic changes. Such changes can and do get passed down the generations. Environmental poisons are the leading cause of epigenetic changes.
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Douglas Preston |
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ef148eb
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chest. Everything looked strange and slow. Vernon bent over him. He felt him give his chest a big shove, and he felt his arms being raised. All at once the pressure seemed to break, and he coughed violently. Vernon rolled him to his side. He coughed, coughed again, felt a blinding icy headache take hold. Reality returned with a vengeance. Tom struggled to sit up. Vernon put his arms under his shoulders and supported him. "What happened?" "T..
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Douglas Preston |
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f0740a4
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The Maya built with stone, while this region had been extensively settled by a separate, sophisticated culture that built great earthen mounds. This was an entirely new culture. Even as Strong's work showed definitively that Mosquitia was not part of the Maya realm, however, his discoveries raised more questions than they answered.
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Douglas Preston |
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651fe67
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You could tell a lot about a person by meeting his brother.
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Douglas Preston |
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fd57e01
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I hate crew cuts.
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relatable
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Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child |
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629ae47
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Not only eating Lieutenant, but slobbering over the food as well. Clearly, he, she, or it has no manners.
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preston
pendergast
scary
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Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child |
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3abba3a
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the shudder of fear is as sensual as the shudder of pleasure, if not more so.
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Douglas Preston |
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d95961e
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The dangers of exploring Mosquitia go beyond the natural deterrents. Honduras has one of the highest murder rates in the world. Eighty percent of the cocaine from South America destined for the United States is shipped through Honduras, most of it via Mosquitia.
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Douglas Preston |
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eff1a3b
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The great tragedy of science is the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.
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Douglas Preston |
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17164bd
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This inferno of contagion destroyed thousands of societies and millions of people, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from California to New England, from the Amazon rainforest to the tundra of Hudson Bay. It is what destroyed T1, the City of the Jaguar, and the ancient people of Mosquitia.
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Douglas Preston |
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df77ba1
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Peloponnesian
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Douglas Preston |
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435bb49
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Criticism is a profession which allows one a certain license to be vicious outside the bounds of normal civilized behavior.
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Douglas Preston |
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184a0f3
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As is typical of Maya inscriptions, not a single one at Copan mentions a commoner. Working folk had to build all those buildings. Farmers had to feed all those laborers along with the holy lords and nobles. This type of class division usually works when everyone believes they are part of a system, with each person occupying a valued place in society and contributing to the vital ceremonies that maintain the cosmic order.
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Douglas Preston |
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497f5bd
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his face. Fenton was never one to like a slow day. The look was enough to tell Barnaby that something big had just come down. "Hutch?" "Hmmm?" Fenton went on, breathlessly. "The Broadbent place was robbed. I got one of the sons on the phone now." Hutch Barnaby didn't move a muscle. "Robbed of what?" "Everything." Fenton's black eyes glittered with relish. Barnaby sipped his coffee, sipped again, and then lowered his chair to the floor with ..
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Douglas Preston |
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64d855a
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like having death poke his stinking mug into your face to make you think about things.
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Douglas Preston |
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c15cfcb
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He had reached an age where he found the best way to deal with unpleasantness was to pretend it didn't exist.
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Douglas Preston |
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1ada798
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Hezekiah Pendergast," Constance continued, "was the great-great-grandfather of Aloysius--and a first-rate mountebank. He began his career as a snake-oil salesman for traveling medicine shows and, over time, devised his own 'medicine': Hezekiah's Compound Elixir and Glandular Restorative."
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Douglas Preston |
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217e49b
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J. P. Morgan once said, "If you want something too much, you will not succeed in getting it."
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Douglas Preston |
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ed7c4bf
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The point of a cruise ship is the cruise itself. But an ocean liner's job is to transport people on a schedule. The
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Douglas Preston |
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1fdfbfd
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Everything he did, he did well, and as a result he was an accomplished asshole indeed.
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Douglas Preston |
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29727f8
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words, it gave a rather convincing impression of trying to elude pursuit." The dry, faintly ironic delivery"
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Douglas Preston |
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ff7b848
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Perhaps the ghastliest disease endemic to mosquitia is Mucocutaneous Leishmaniasis, sometimes called white leprosy, caused by the bite of an infected sand fly. The Leishmania parasite migrates to the mucus membranes of the victim's nose and lips and eats them away, eventually creating a giant, weeping sore where the face used to be.
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face-eating
honduras
horrific
insect-bites
sand-fly
parasites
gross
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Douglas Preston |
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38924a8
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irascible
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Douglas Preston |
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345e95e
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He had done the right thing and that was what counted. That was the best you could do in life. How others took it was beyond his control.
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Douglas Preston |
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094c79e
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specimens, wait until they've been examined, then put them back." "Bone librarian--a most apt description. How many visiting scientists"
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Douglas Preston |
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805c0e4
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imprecation
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Douglas Preston |
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c8eabd8
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God bless the disgruntled employee--no one does more to bring openness to government.
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Douglas Preston |
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1e12bf4
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talus
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Douglas Preston |
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10d12cc
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So I'm in the American Secret Service? Damn." "It was all reported in the press the next day."
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Douglas Preston |
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750631c
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The town had a faint air of benign neglect that only added to its charm: a seaside village with white clapboard buildings, seagulls wheeling overhead, uneven brick sidewalks and local shops. They
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Douglas Preston |
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a59db32
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She's more a daiquiri and margarita drinker.""We all have our flaws," said Pendergast."
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Douglas Preston |
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71953a9
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the Mosquitia civilization vanished everywhere all at once--in a sudden, civilization-wide catastrophe.
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Douglas Preston |
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b921a4d
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as corrie was about to hang up, stacy said, "i hope he shoots at my car. i've got a couple of black talon rounds just itching to explore his inner psyche."
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Douglas Preston Lincoln Child |
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2da46c0
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because it's not enough to have a dream--you need financing.
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Douglas Preston |
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dd603cf
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Mitochondrial DNA is completely separate from a person's regular DNA. It's a bit of genetic material residing in the mitochondria of every cell in the body, and it is inherited unchanged from generation to generation, through the female line. That means all the descendants--male and female--of a particular woman will have identical mitochondrial DNA, which we call mtDNA. This kind of DNA is extremely useful in forensic work, and separate da..
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Douglas Preston |
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5337eed
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There is an old French curse: may your fondest wish come true. If this treatment is cheap and available to everyone, it will destroy the earth through overpopulation. If it is dear and available only to the very rich, it will cause riots, wars, a breakdown of the social contract. Either way, it will lead directly to human misery. What is the value of a long life, when it is lived in squalor and unhappiness?
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Douglas Preston |
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fcedb5e
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Moby Dick is my favorite book --I've been rereading it every year since I was sixteen. 'Call me Ishmael' is the greatest first line in a novel ever written.""I, myself, am not fond of animal stories."
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Douglas Preston |
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4c97906
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I am indeed sorry to say this, but I fear your microscopic problems do not interest me.
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Douglas Preston |
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d7e8f87
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A striking man stood in the doorway behind him: perhaps sixty-five, with a great shock of white hair. The hair was the only thing that looked at all old about him; he was close to six and a half feet tall, with a craggy, handsome face bronzed by the sun, a trim, athletic bearing, wearing a blue blazer over a crisp white cotton shirt and tan slacks. He radiated good health and vigorous living. His hands were massive.
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Douglas Preston |
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c8bf8ed
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As I get older, Vincent, I have come to prefer a quiet evening at home to a bracing exchange of gunfire in the dark.
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Douglas Preston |
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8c4d5e7
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When all else has been discarded, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
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Douglas Preston |
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49185f0
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In his groundbreaking book Guns, Germs, and Steel, biologist Jared Diamond poses the question: Why did Old World diseases devastate the New World and not the other way around? Why did disease move in only one direction?* The answer lies in how the lives of Old World and New World people diverged after that cross-continental migration more than fifteen thousand years ago.
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Douglas Preston |
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a0a64be
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Fire is often the weapon of choice for the insane.
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violence
insanity
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Douglas Preston |
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5d30b46
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They had camped on a sandbar and built a fire. Bruce cut the meat into strips, but as he laid it on hot stones to cook, he "heard a loud screaming growl." He grabbed his M16 and turned just in time to see an animal charging them; he had the weapon on full-auto and sprayed it with "at least twenty rounds"; it dropped five feet from him: a huge, seven-foot jaguar."
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Douglas Preston |