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.

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 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. ( )

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 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. ( )

Referenced in an article by Zimmer in BBC Knowledge magazine about Richard's Lenski's work with E.coli bacteria. He set up 12 identical lines in separate flasks 21 years ago and then watched them evolve. Some really interesting stuff happened including one line's ability to use citrate for sustenance something E. coli could not do. His work is giving the creationists fits because it's living proof of the mechanism of evolution and natural selection.

Full article in Mar/Apr 2009 issue of BBC Knowledge "Evolution in Action"

References:http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/lenski.html

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 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. ( )