The Economist - The aliens among us (phrases)

Part 1: Sentences and phrases

1. Viruses cause pandemics. They also shape the world.
   pandemics: an occurrence of a disease that affects many people over a very wide area.

2. Humans think of themselves as the word's apex predators.
   apex: noun, the highest point

3. Hence the silence of sabere-tooth tigers, the absence of moas from New Zealand and the long list of endangered megafauna.
   This sentence is so beautiful and efficient. Hence connect the previous sentence, causal relationship.

4. Viruses has caused a litany of modern pandemics, from covid-19, to HIV to the influenza outbreak in 1918-20, which killed many more people than the first world war.
   a litany of: have heard of something many times before, and you think it is boring and insincere.
   outbreak: suddenly starts to happen

5. *Before that, the colonisation of the Americas by Europeans was abetted - and perhaps made possible - by epidemics of smallpox, measles and influenza brought unwittingly by the invaders, which annihilated many of the original inhabitants. *
   to abet sth., especially something bad or undersirable, means to make it possible
   epidemics: if there is an epidemic of a particular diseases somewhere, it affects a very large number of people there and spreads quickly to other areas. (synonyms: outbreak, plague)
   unwittingly: do sth without realizing it
   annihilate: destroy sth. completely

6. The influence of viruses on life on Earth, though, goes far beyond the past and present tragedies of a single pieces, however, pressing they seem.
   pressing: urgent

7. Recent research puts them at the heart of an explanation of the strategies of genes, both selfish and otherwise.
   at the heart of: be the core of

8. For one group of brainy bipedal mammals that viruses that helped create - they also present a heady mix of threat and opportunity.
   brainy: clever and good at learning
   bipedal: having two feet
   → bipedal mammals = human beings
   heady: exciting, thrilling

9. • They strip down life itself to the bare essentials of information and its replication. *
     strip down = strip: remove everything that covers it
10. • The world is teeming with them.*
      a place is teeming with people or animals: the place is crowded and the people and animals are moving around a lot

11. Far outnumbering all other forms of life on the planet.
    outnumber: has more people or things in it

12. *Ecologically, this promotes diversity by scything down abundant species, thus making room for rarer ones.
    scythe: cut

13. *Evolution's most enthralling insight is that breathtaking complexity can emerge from the sustained, implacable and nihilistic competition within and between organisms. *
    enthralling: holding the attention completely; fascinating; spellbinding
    implacable: have strong feelings of hostility or disapproval which nobody can change
    nihilistic: do not trust political and religious authority and place their faith in the individual

14.The fact that the blind watchmaker has equipped you with the capacity to read and understand these words is in part a response to the actions of swarms of tiny, attacking replicators that have been going on, probably, since life first emerged on Earth around 4bn years ago.
equip someone with the capacity to read and understand sth.

15.* This starts with the miracle of vaccination. *
to start with: at the very first stage of an event or process

16. A virus-free existence is an impossibility (that is) so deeply unachievable and its desirability is meaningless.

17. In any case, the marvelous diversity of life rests on viruses which, as much as they are a source of death, are also a source of richness and of change.

18. Marvellous, too, is the prospect of a world where viruses become a source of new understanding for humans - and kill them than ever before.
    prospect: possibilty