Author:Carl Zimmer
In 1946, a twenty-year-old medical school student called Joshua Lederberg decided to find out whether microbes make love. Lederberg was motivated not by a displaced libido, but by scientific ambition. At the age of seven, he had declared that he hoped to become 'like Einstein' and to 'discover a few things in science.'
The 'few things' Lederberg discovered would revolutionise modern science and earn him a Nobel Prize. He chose to observe the breeding habits of a certain bacterium called Escherichia coli, better known as E coli. His experiments used defective E coli strains lacking the essential molecules to reproduce by cloning which should, by rights, perish in the petri dish. But slowly, a few colonies of survivors began to spread accross the dishes. The only possible explanation for their survival was that they were a product of sex. Not only had Lederberg proved that bacteria have sex, he had also proved they have genes.
Since then, a bacterium that was once nothing more than a humble resident of the human gut has become our best guide to what it means to be alive. Most of us might only know E coli for its lethal strain that causes food poisoning, but Zimmer uses E coli as a prism to understand what life is, what it was, and what it will become. We learn how E coli microbes talk to each other, how studies of their evolution represent the most powerful evidence in support of natural selection, and how they might just explain life on other planets...
elegant and engaging ... if you want to get a clearer idea of the sort of nature that science can now play with, this is the book for you.
—— Sunday Timesa thought provoking book
—— GuardianIt is a powerful account of the dynamic, complicated and social world we share with this ordinary yet remarkable bug.
—— New ScientistSprackland has a wonderfully curious eye
—— Financial TimesSimply gorgeous ... One of the finest piece of writing, nature or otherwise, to emerge this year
—— Big IssueIf a book can have the appeal of a really good long walk, this one does
—— Daily MailLovely travelogue
—— MetroElegant
—— EconomistA delightful book
—— Sally Morris , Daily MailThis book may be exactly what's needed to increase science literacy for readers of all ages
—— Publishers WeeklyThis book is primarily aimed at teenagers, but plenty of adults will get a kick out of it too...McKean's drawings bring the text to life brilliantly ... Dawkins writes convincingly about everything from chemistry to statistics
—— Independent on SundayDawkins uses a simple, brilliant technique highly appealing to young and old
—— The Washington PostFew scientists manage to reach a huge popular audience. Even among them Richard Dawkins is distinctive for the clarity and elegance of his prose. The Magic of Reality... will be appreciated by inquisitive children while illuminating much for the adult general reader.
—— The TimesThis is not a book about the end of the world but about an imagined beginning ...The results of this huge thought-experiment are both fascinating and surprising. Fascinating for what they tell us about the impermanence of the works of man, and surprising for the simple reason that it soon becomes clear that our world would carry on regardless, indifferent to our demise
—— Daily MailWeisman's gripping fantasy will make most readers hope that at least some of us can stick around long enough to see how it all turns out
—— New York TimesEngrossing
—— New York MagazineAn idea that is so lateral and clever, so powerfully evocative and masterfully executed that the only appropriate response is fervent envy
—— New StatesmanA wonderful idea ... a hugely enjoyable and thought-provoking book
—— ScotsmanFascinating, absorbing
—— Good Book GuideA quick, absorbing read - a summer beach book with brains
—— BloombergIf you can stomach only one end-of-the world-as-we-know it story this summer, none is more audacious or interesting than Alan Weisman's The World Without Us
—— The Boston GlobeHis is an extraordinary story laced with tragedy
—— Mail on Sunday[Root's] life story, vividly related here, is crammed with incident and adventure. Curious, creative and fearless, he has diced with death on numerous occasions and been mauled several times in his efforts to capture the daily lives of everything from silver-back gorillas to leopards in the wild on film. A gripping account of a life well lived
—— Good Book Guide
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