Fine Reading: March of the Microbes by John Ingraham

by Elio

A good friend has written a good book. March of the Microbes, just published by Harvard Univ. Press, presents tales from the microbial world, wide and deep. It emphasizes microbial activities that you can see, smell, touch, taste, and, if you include cows belching, hear. John calls these encounters sightings. Some are manifested in our daily doings, such as the teeth we brush, the bread we eat, the beer we drink, or the fish we left overlong in the ‘fridge. Others require us to go farther afield, making trips to the hot springs of Yellowstone Park, fields of legumes, munition factories, or the San Francisco Bay. You may have heard (or seen) many of the sightings described, although some are not commonplace. Did you know that starch becomes the ubiquitous high fructose corn syrup via degradation by bacterial enzymes? Or that the famed Carlsbad Caverns are the result of bacterial mining? The microbiologist will find the stories both illuminating and authoritative. The lay person will be astonished at the marvels of our unseen world.

This is a book written with love. John is passionate about all microbes he has ever encountered, bar none, and shares his fervor in a clear, unpretentious manner. I should know. Along with Fred Neidhardt, we have our names on four (or is it five?) books.

Comments

[Epicanis]

Don't forget also Dr. Dyer's "A Field Guide to Bacteria"[1]. Also highly recommended (by me, at least).

[1] http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=3864

[Mark O. Martin]

I SO love this book, Elio! Thank you for reviewing it.

I think that there is a place for books like this. I would urge microbiologists to remember that at some institutions---like my own---students really only get one chance to experience microbiology. So I like to find books that give the depth and breadth and most of all the wonder of the microbial world. There have been several examples: Bernard Dixon's "Power Unseen" (long out of print) and his more recent "Animalcules;" Howard Gest's "Microbes: An Invisible Universe;" Idan Ben-Barak's "Small Wonders."

I will be assigning John Ingraham's book in my class next year.

More to the point: books like these (and blogs like this!) are important, because folks need to see that microbes are the base of the very biosphere.

But here I am preaching to other High Priests of the One True Faith of Prokaryocentricity!