Microcosm books manual#
Microcosm books series#

My only complaints with this book are the obvious: This book presents one perspective, focused on one type of microbe.

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.

Microcosm books manual#

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. 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. 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.

Microcosm books series#

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. And of course no book on E.coli would be complete without re-tracing its role in molecular biology. Most pointedly, E.coli populations offer clues into the nature of cooperation and competition, altruism and spite. Zimmer reinforces this theme with repeated mention of a Jacques Monod quote, 'What is true for E.coli is true for the elephant.

The theme running throughout is that E.coli is a microcosm for understanding all of life. E.coli's normal and pathological roles in the animal body have taught us volumes about the inventive potential of life. This simple bacterium and its various strains have always been there since we first started looking for the microbes involved in human disease. 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. 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.