- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins; 1 edition (15 Jan 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0061430307
- ISBN-13: 978-0061430305
- Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 15.2 x 2.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 994,078 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Every Living Thing
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"If you have any interest in life beyond your own, you should read this book...Between the covers of EVERY LIVING THING you'll learn both about life's amazing diversity and that process of their discovery. Savor this fascinating volume and then help to preserve life's wonders."--Paul R. Ehrlich, author of THE DOMINANT ANIMAL: HUMAN EVOLUTION AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Product Description
In a series of vivid portraits of determined - even obsessed - scientists, Rob Dunn shows that we are not even close to knowing all life on earth. We are not close to naming it, studying it, not even close to knowing the basic kinds of organisms. How much is left to know? If history is a lesson, there is more left to know than we have yet discovered. And yet, biologists and lay people alike have repeatedly through history claimed victory over life. A thousand years ago we thought we knew almost everything; a hundred years ago too. But, even today we are unable to see what is beyond our immediate radar. Discoveries we can't yet imagine still await.The narrative telescopes from a scientist's attempt to find one single thing (a rare ant-emulating beetle species) to a scientist's attempt to find everything (all the insects living in a section of the Smoky Mountains). His scientific heroes include: Lynn Margulis, who explained how our cells gained the ability to make energy; Carl Woese, who defined a new kingdom of life in 1977; and, Carl Sagan, who pioneered the search for life in space.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Hardcover
Every Living Thing tells the story of the push to understand more about the quantity and diversity of life in the universe. It is simultaneously humorous and fascinating with gossipy histories of science giants (Linnaeus comes off a cowardly, manipulative genius) and accounts of forms of life like beetles (and the mites that live on them) who masquerade as army ants in the rain forests of Central America. It's a quick read that just might inspire one to get a microscope and explore.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
7 reviews
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Excellent stories of scientific discovery
19 Dec 2008
Format:Hardcover
This is a very entertaining story of how, since Linnaeus and Leuwenhoek, scientists have discovered vast new unknown realms of life: single-celled life, bacteria, archaea, insects of the tropical forest canopy, and more. What is stunning is how much of the world has been hidden "in plain sight" waiting for someone with the imagination just to stop and look, and the drive to keep looking. One remarkable fact: microscopes had been invented and were available for a century or so before cells and micro-organisms were even noticed. How many more major discoveries are out there still waiting to be made? Probably more than a few.
I highly recommend this to anyone who likes good popular science reading (scientists included!). It's an entertaining narrative that introduces you to fascinating characters who have made major biological discoveries, many of whom you've probably heard of and some likely not. By bringing the reader into the moment of discovery and the personal real life of the discoverers, this book captures the perspective of the explorer and the struggle that's often involved in getting answers and convincing the world they're true.
I highly recommend this to anyone who likes good popular science reading (scientists included!). It's an entertaining narrative that introduces you to fascinating characters who have made major biological discoveries, many of whom you've probably heard of and some likely not. By bringing the reader into the moment of discovery and the personal real life of the discoverers, this book captures the perspective of the explorer and the struggle that's often involved in getting answers and convincing the world they're true.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Fascinating
10 April 2009
Format:Hardcover
A fascinating look at the attempt to understand all the different kinds of life and to place them into categories. It starts back with Antony van Leeuwenhoek, who first made microscopes capable of seeing bacteria, and moves forward to recent developments in extremophile life and genetic analysis. I highly recommend it.
This is the first book I've read by someone I know - Rob's daughter is in the same preschool class as my daughter. And I found myself staggered that he had time to write at all, what with raising a child and being a full-time professor. Plus, that he had such interesting things to talk about. And interesting stories: he and his wife (a medical anthropologist) spent time in a small village in the Amazon, cataloging the medicinal uses of various plants and watching the local children's pet monkey ride on around a pet pig. Among other things.
This is the first book I've read by someone I know - Rob's daughter is in the same preschool class as my daughter. And I found myself staggered that he had time to write at all, what with raising a child and being a full-time professor. Plus, that he had such interesting things to talk about. And interesting stories: he and his wife (a medical anthropologist) spent time in a small village in the Amazon, cataloging the medicinal uses of various plants and watching the local children's pet monkey ride on around a pet pig. Among other things.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Enjoyable, informative, and inspirational
8 Dec 2008
Format:Hardcover
Rob Dunn's "Every Living Thing" is an engaging read. It broadened my view of characters, both human and biological, that I thought I already knew, and it introduced me to fascinating characters, both human and biological, that I hadn't already met. More than this, the stick-to-it-iveness of Dunn's human protagonists is inspirational for any scientist engaged in a personal quest. Whether your own quest features monkeys, mites, microbes, or molecules, you'll enjoy Dunn's stories of pioneering, determined, deeply motivated scientists and the ideas that drove them on.
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