Humanity has known about the microbial world of bacteria for centuries. Ever since technology for optical lenses progressed to a certain point, we’ve known that there is a super-small world that populates almost every region on this planet’s surface. What we didn’t know what how well it worked with animal bodies to promote life. The relatively recent development of microbiology taught us that, and ongoing research into the microbiome spills forth clues into how human life functions – and perhaps can be healed – with the help of microbes.
Ed Yong is a Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer who engages the subject of microbes with an acute interest in how life works. Like most sciences, microbiology can appear as a dry subject when approached through textbooks. As a good science writer, Yong instead seeks to convey this same material but engages the human heart at the same time. He succeeds in spades.
I learned many things from this book. Life’s origins lie squarely with microbes. Further, the sustenance of today’s life still lies with microbes. That is, without microbes, most of earthly life would fall apart. For some, they supply necessary amino acids to form proteins. As a unit called the microbiome, they populate human guts to aid in digestion. Mixtures in probiotic yogurts may not be refined and targeted yet, but the basic concept makes scientific sense. Retooling this microbiome to promote healthy outcomes (especially with GI diseases) will be a noteworthy advance of the 21st century.
I often look at the plant and animal worlds around me to survey the diversity of life. I see nature all around me. This book taught me to exercise my imagination more to engage the microbial world in this mix, too. Microbes are not evil; many, in fact, are helpful. Killing all microbes will not lead to cleanliness but to death for all. We humans need to learn to work with these lifeforms to promote life, and detailed insights supplied by writers like Yong will do just that. Knowledge of microbial life has recently exploded, and digging into its nuggets of wisdom can enrich your mind, soul, and body.
I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life
By Ed Yong
Narrated by Charlie Anson
Copyright (c) 2016
HarperAudio
ASIN B01FY85L38
Length: 9:52
Genre: Science, Microbiology
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