Status
Available
Collection
Publication
New York : Pantheon Books, 2008.
Description
A Best Book of the YearSeed Magazine * Granta Magazine * The Plain-DealerIn this fascinating and utterly engaging book, Carl Zimmer traces E. coli's pivotal role in the history of biology, from the discovery of DNA to the latest advances in biotechnology. He reveals the many surprising and alarming parallels between E. coli's life and our own. And he describes how E. coli changes in real time, revealing billions of years of history encoded within its genome. E. coli is also the most engineered species on Earth, and as scientists retool this microbe to produce life-saving drugs and clean fuel, they are discovering just how far the definition of life can be stretched.
User reviews
LibraryThing member bragan
Carl Zimmer takes readers in for a close look at the humble, much studied, surprisingly diverse microbe known as E. coli, huge populations of which are living happily inside your gut right now. Which really doesn't sound like an exciting or entirely pleasant subject for a book, but Zimmer truly
Don't think of it as just a book about E. coli, though. This really is a book about life.
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does portray E. coli as a microcosm of biology as a whole, using it as a central point from which to explore the amazing complexity of cells, the intricacies of evolution, the controversies of genetic engineering, and even (briefly) the possibility of life on other worlds. He does it very well and very clearly, too, which is no mean feat. I took a college class in molecular biology once, and by about the third day I felt like that kid in the Far Side cartoon, the one raising his hand and asking, "May I be excused? My brain is full." But here the reader is given just the right amount of information at just the right times to make it all sufficiently comprehensible.Don't think of it as just a book about E. coli, though. This really is a book about life.
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LibraryThing member jasonlf
An outstanding book, highly recommended. I loved his Parasite Rex years ago and this is much better than that book -- or at least than my memory of that book. It is an intensive look at E. coli, everything from the details of how we have learned about it, how it functions, how it has evolved, what
All along the way you get to feel like you know E. coli (albeit with a bit too much anthropomorphizing at times) and are getting an illuminating window into a number of subjects, some familiar and some unfamiliar. Much more successful than many "how the tricycle changed the world" types of books.
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we understand about it genetics, the role it plays in normal human functioning and human disease, how it is being used to produce new proteins and provide the basis for synthetic life. All along the way you get to feel like you know E. coli (albeit with a bit too much anthropomorphizing at times) and are getting an illuminating window into a number of subjects, some familiar and some unfamiliar. Much more successful than many "how the tricycle changed the world" types of books.
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LibraryThing member hailelib
Microcosm is an interesting and fairly up to date look at how and why E. Coli became the 'lab rat' of the microbiologist. Zimmer gives us lots of facts in this easy to read (and understand!) book about E. Coli, evolution, and genetics. I found the anecdotes about the various researchers and their
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experiments helped enliven the narrative. Recommended for non-microbiologists interested in the life sciences. Show Less
LibraryThing member C4RO
Blimey, my 1995 Biology degree is now a bit dated!- if we knew back then that Shigella is basically E.coli then I didn't remember it before coming across it in this book. I'm not sure I can pick apart how much prior learning helped me find my way around this book. Details such as how restriction
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enzymes really work, promotor/ supressor and feed-forward loops, even parts of it like knowing about all the different RNA types may have helped a lot. Zimmer writes so very well though that maybe I'm just flattering my memory and instead the credit should go to him for an excellent job. There is lots around the genetics of the bacterium focus here- E. coli- lots of very clear and excellent descriptions of critical experiments and what was found, more than I expected related to evolution- both on the components/ origins of the genes carried (proving Darwin rather than Lamarck where it is random selection, not directed selection; virus and other bacteria origin genes), the rapid life cycles allow evolution process to even be watched as it occurs. There are interesting pieces on the flagellae; I was not aware that creationists had used this feature as a proof of a designer. After evolution there is a long section on the process and ethics of genetic modification; such as growing insulin in large fermenters. The book ends with a short chapter on the searching of other planets and outer space for life. Very detailed, well referenced, well indexed and definitely 5/5. Show Less
LibraryThing member satyridae
Zimmer writes clearly and well. I've been reading his blog for some time and was glad to pick this up when it came out. It's a huge subject, and Zimmer does a fine job of giving enough information about many facets of the science happening around E. coli without swamping one in data. He's engaging
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and obviously passionate about his subject. I learned a lot about genetic engineering from this book. Highly recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member nosajeel
An outstanding book, highly recommended. I loved his Parasite Rex years ago and this is much better than that book -- or at least than my memory of that book. It is an intensive look at E. coli, everything from the details of how we have learned about it, how it functions, how it has evolved, what
All along the way you get to feel like you know E. coli (albeit with a bit too much anthropomorphizing at times) and are getting an illuminating window into a number of subjects, some familiar and some unfamiliar. Much more successful than many "how the tricycle changed the world" types of books.
Show More
we understand about it genetics, the role it plays in normal human functioning and human disease, how it is being used to produce new proteins and provide the basis for synthetic life.All along the way you get to feel like you know E. coli (albeit with a bit too much anthropomorphizing at times) and are getting an illuminating window into a number of subjects, some familiar and some unfamiliar. Much more successful than many "how the tricycle changed the world" types of books.
Show Less
LibraryThing member ogroft
If I had to teach biology, this book would offer an important insight into the history of the field. I could assign portions for students to read about and report on.
LibraryThing member DoingDewey
Microcosm is a history of E. coli but more than that, it’s a history of modern biology. So much of what we do in the lab today depends on these little bacteria that looking at biology through the lens of E. coli lends itself well to discussing almost all of modern microbiology. It also includes a
I picked up Microcosm in part because the description compares the book to Lives of a Cell, which I loved. So when they Microcosm turned out to be less elegantly written, less thoughtful, and clunkier in its transitions from philosophy to real world observations… let’s just say this book and I started out on the wrong foot. Fortunately, the rest of the book, while different from what I expected, was still able to mostly win me over.
Some of the introductory material was explained very well, with analogies that captured the important information without implying anything inaccurate. Although I can’t be sure, I felt like other parts of intro weren’t explained well enough for someone without a science background to pick up on the important things. However (and this is the part that makes this a 4 star reviews) the more cutting edge information and all of the fun facts later in the book were very well done. I already know something about the basics of E. coli and I still learned all sorts of new things about how they function and about how they contribute to science. I also thought it was brilliant and unusual to include some details of the lab work which involves E. coli. For that reason, I would particularly recommend this to someone considering work in microbiology, since it gives some insights into what that’s like.
This review first published on Doing Dewey.
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few philosophical musings and, at the other end of the spectrum, some practical insight into the job of a microbiologist.I picked up Microcosm in part because the description compares the book to Lives of a Cell, which I loved. So when they Microcosm turned out to be less elegantly written, less thoughtful, and clunkier in its transitions from philosophy to real world observations… let’s just say this book and I started out on the wrong foot. Fortunately, the rest of the book, while different from what I expected, was still able to mostly win me over.
Some of the introductory material was explained very well, with analogies that captured the important information without implying anything inaccurate. Although I can’t be sure, I felt like other parts of intro weren’t explained well enough for someone without a science background to pick up on the important things. However (and this is the part that makes this a 4 star reviews) the more cutting edge information and all of the fun facts later in the book were very well done. I already know something about the basics of E. coli and I still learned all sorts of new things about how they function and about how they contribute to science. I also thought it was brilliant and unusual to include some details of the lab work which involves E. coli. For that reason, I would particularly recommend this to someone considering work in microbiology, since it gives some insights into what that’s like.
This review first published on Doing Dewey.
Show Less
LibraryThing member DoingDewey
Microcosm is a history of E. coli but more than that, it’s a history of modern biology. So much of what we do in the lab today depends on these little bacteria that looking at biology through the lens of E. coli lends itself well to discussing almost all of modern microbiology. It also includes a
I picked up Microcosm in part because the description compares the book to Lives of a Cell, which I loved. So when they Microcosm turned out to be less elegantly written, less thoughtful, and clunkier in its transitions from philosophy to real world observations… let’s just say this book and I started out on the wrong foot. Fortunately, the rest of the book, while different from what I expected, was still able to mostly win me over.
Some of the introductory material was explained very well, with analogies that captured the important information without implying anything inaccurate. Although I can’t be sure, I felt like other parts of intro weren’t explained well enough for someone without a science background to pick up on the important things. However (and this is the part that makes this a 4 star reviews) the more cutting edge information and all of the fun facts later in the book were very well done. I already know something about the basics of E. coli and I still learned all sorts of new things about how they function and about how they contribute to science. I also thought it was brilliant and unusual to include some details of the lab work which involves E. coli. For that reason, I would particularly recommend this to someone considering work in microbiology, since it gives some insights into what that’s like.
This review first published on Doing Dewey.
Show More
few philosophical musings and, at the other end of the spectrum, some practical insight into the job of a microbiologist.I picked up Microcosm in part because the description compares the book to Lives of a Cell, which I loved. So when they Microcosm turned out to be less elegantly written, less thoughtful, and clunkier in its transitions from philosophy to real world observations… let’s just say this book and I started out on the wrong foot. Fortunately, the rest of the book, while different from what I expected, was still able to mostly win me over.
Some of the introductory material was explained very well, with analogies that captured the important information without implying anything inaccurate. Although I can’t be sure, I felt like other parts of intro weren’t explained well enough for someone without a science background to pick up on the important things. However (and this is the part that makes this a 4 star reviews) the more cutting edge information and all of the fun facts later in the book were very well done. I already know something about the basics of E. coli and I still learned all sorts of new things about how they function and about how they contribute to science. I also thought it was brilliant and unusual to include some details of the lab work which involves E. coli. For that reason, I would particularly recommend this to someone considering work in microbiology, since it gives some insights into what that’s like.
This review first published on Doing Dewey.
Show Less
Subjects
Awards
LA Times Book Prize (Finalist — Science & Technology — 2008)
Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize (Longlist — 2009)