Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life
by Carl Zimmer
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Book Summary Information
Author: Carl ZimmerEdition: Hardcover
Published: 2008-05-06
ISBN: 037542430X
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Pantheon
Book Reviews of Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life
Book Review: A Tale of E.coli
Summary: 5 Stars
In Microcosm, Zimmer has eloquently condensed a century of scientific study surrounding Eschericia coli into an accurate and flowing story readable by anyone with even just a modest understanding of biology.
As Zimmer points out, E.coli has held a central role in microbiology since its first description by German pediatrician Theodor Escherich in the 19th century. This simple bacterium and its various strains have always been there since we first started looking for the microbes involved in human disease. E.coli's normal and pathological roles in the animal body have taught us volumes about the inventive potential of life.
The theme running throughout is that E.coli is a microcosm for understanding all of life. Zimmer reinforces this theme with repeated mention of a Jacques Monod quote, "What is true for E.coli is true for the elephant. Most pointedly, E.coli populations offer clues into the nature of cooperation and competition, altruism and spite.
And of course no book on E.coli would be complete without re-tracing its role in molecular biology. A long series of discoveries, made with E.coli as the experimental system, have elucidated the mechanisms of DNA replication and transcription, regulation of gene expression, and basic metabolism.
Even genetic engineering techniques were pioneered in E.coli, which Zimmer describes in the chapter on "Playing Nature" - a nice twist on the old saying "Playing God," that is actually more appropriate.
Then there's the story of E.coli's vast evolutionary potential - from antibiotic resistence to immune evasion tactics, the simple and rapid replication cycle of bacteria have enabled natural selection, ecological niches, and population divergence to be studied over the course of tens of thousands of generations.
In the process of his story, Zimmer explains how the bacterial genome is more of a palimpsest rather than an instruction manual - a book that's been written and re-written many, many times. It's that palimpsest that serves as both a history book of how it has been modified from its ancestors, but also as an example of "Open Source" text available to modification by its descendents and accessible to horizontal gene transfer.
My only complaints with this book are the obvious: This book presents one perspective, focused on one type of microbe. As such, it misses out on much of bacteriology in favor of molecular genetics, barely mentioning Pasteur and Robert Koch not at all. If Zimmer had included those items in his history lesson, it wouldn't be subtitled "*E.coli* and the New Science of Life" then, would it?
Summary of Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life
•Within days of being born, we are infected with billions of E. coli. They will inhabit each and every one of us until we die. E. coli is notorious for making people gravely ill, but engineered strains of the bacteria save millions of lives each year.•Despite its microscopic size, E.coli contains more than four thousand genes that operate a staggeringly sophisticated network of millions of molecules.
•Scientists are rebuilding E. coli from the ground up, redefining our understanding of life on Earth.
In the tradition of classics like Lewis Thomas's Lives of a Cell, Carl Zimmer has written a fascinating and utterly accessible investigation of what it means to be alive. Zimmer traces E. coli's remarkable history, showing how scientists used it to discover how genes work and then to launch the entire biotechnology industry. While some strains of E. coli grab headlines by causing deadly diseases, scientists are retooling the bacteria to produce everything from human insulin to jet fuel.
Microcosm is the story of the one species on Earth that science knows best of all. It's also a story of life itself--of its rules, its mysteries, and its future.
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