Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life | 
 enlarge | Author: Carl Zimmer
Publisher: Pantheon
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 23384
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.1
ISBN: 037542430X
Dewey Decimal Number: 579.342
EAN: 9780375424304
ASIN: 037542430X
Publication Date: May 6, 2008
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Product Description
•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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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 The Wonderful Earth and It's Creation September 21, 2008
Carl Zimmer explains with clarity what is E. coli and how we cannnot survicd without it, as it is one of the bases of all our genetic makeup: aniumcal or plant. Should be consider as required reading for all schools.
Read it even if you don't like little critters September 21, 2008
Carl Zimmer is a terrific writer. I picked this book up because I enjoy his blog and online articles so much. Although I majored in Biology as an undergrad, I have to admit I was never terribly fired up about anything that was smaller than I could see with the naked eye. Too bad this book wasn't around back then, or I might have gone on to grad work in microbiology, genetics, or cell biology!
Along with a most facinating study of E. coli, Zimmer takes us from the micro to the macro, explaining how E. coli fits into the grander scheme of life among the animals it inhabits (including us), and into evolution. So this is probably not a good book for ID folks -- but I have to say that, unless you are truly firm in your ID beliefs this book might very well convince you of the veracity of evolution.
Overall, I highly recommend this book. It flows really well, it's logical, it's simple enough for a science novice to understand, yet Zimmer never talks down to the reader in a way that might offend those of us who have some science background. It will give you new or renewed respect for E. coli and its kin.
A Tale of E.coli August 17, 2008
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?
 Microcosms August 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
First, Carl Zimmer is an excellent writer. He seems to have done his homework thoroughly. The book is rich and rewarding, and much appreciated.
I will make two suggestions. One, a glossary would be very helpful. The lay reader (his intended audience) is not very familiar with the arcane biological types that are continuously bantered about. A glossary would not be difficult to produce, or too lengthy to add. I'm really curious as to why a glossary was not added because it seems such an obvious thing to do.
Two, along the same lines, a chart or diagram to display major kinds of microcosms, maybe a sort of tree branching. It would let a lay reader visualize the different branches of bacteria, viruses, e-coli and variations (perhaps evolutionary branching, and a time scale - that would be wonderful), etc.
I write this review after having read about 90% of the book, but continue to be frustrated by the above two absences.
Nevertheless, a very worthwhile book. I highly recommend it, especially if Mr. Zimmer and his publisher would make the two additions on the next printing.Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life
Biology as Seen from E. coli, a mere Bacterium, Courtesy of Carl Zimmer July 2, 2008
17 out of 18 found this review helpful
With the trained eyes of a scientist and the soul of poet, eminent science writer Carl Zimmer takes us on an all too brief, yet fascinating, trek into contemporary biology, as seen from the perspective of the bacterium Escherichia coli, in his latest book, "Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life". More than a mere recounting of decades of elegant scientific research from the likes of Joshua Lederberg and Salvador Luria, among others, "Microcosm" is truly a book about contemporary biology itself, tying in almost every facet of it, from systematics to population genetics and ecology, and even, paleobiology. But it is a book that takes such an in-depth exploration of biology from the unique perspective of a rather most unassuming organism - or at least what readers might think - the bacterium E. coli, whose ubiquitous habitats include the intestinal tracts of humans and other mammals. Indeed, E. coli is truly a wonderful organismal metaphor for describing all of biology in its totality, as evidenced, for example, in one of Zimmer's terse chapters devoted to the evolution of cooperation amongst organisms via mechanisms such as natural selection and kin selection; an elegant experimental analogue to the types of selective pressures operating on other, more complex, organisms, including us. Indeed, "Microcosm" ought to be regarded as "Macrocosm", since Zimmer has offered an elegant, often poetic, exploration of all of biology, by demonstrating E. coli's scientific relevance to humanity.
If there is indeed one important underlying theme to "Microcosm", then perhaps it is the prevalence of sex in this single-celled organism, and its importance as a key ingredient in understanding evolution, which was recognized decades ago by a young Joshua Lederberg. Zimmer describes how E. coli has demonstrated the veracity of Darwin's concept of natural selection, via an elegant "slot machine" experiment designed by Salvador Luria, and culminating now in the ongoing experiment by microbial ecologist Richard Lenski; Zimmer's engaging account of which is among the most important highlights of this book (Yet as a brief aside, I am surprised Zimmer did not mention that Lenski's research is offering experimental proof of evolutionary stasis, as defined by paleontologists Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould in their theory of punctuated equilibrium; a point emphasized in a relatively recent paper co-authored by Lenski, Eldredge and others.). Zimmer also devotes ample time touching on other aspects of E. coli's evolutionary ecology from a public health perspective, tracing the origins of epidemics caused by toxic strains of this otherwise benign prokaryote. There is also, regrettably, ample discussion too of creationist interest in E. coli as an example of an organism created by an "Intelligent Designer"; Zimmer notes correctly that creationists were interested in its flagellum years before the bacterial flagellum became important "proof" supporting leading Intelligent Design advocate Michael Behe's concept of "Irreducible Complexity", and how this "proof" was demolished effectively by prominent Intelligent Design critic Ken Miller during the 2005 Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District trial.
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