Review: I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life

I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In case you were unaware, we are never alone.

The fact we are our own ecosystems can be distressing to some, especially after we've been taught that cleanliness is next to godliness. However, a rich realization lies in recognizing we're also our own islands, that we form microbe archipelagos with the people we live with, and that released introductions from islands with nearby fauna may be the key to healing those with collapsed microbial ecosystems.

Ed Yong delved into this topic three years ago on the TED stage, though in that talk he focused more on microbial manipulation via Wolbachia and Toxoplasma to affect the behavior and biology of hosts. Bacterial control of multicellular organisms can be terrifying... or extremely fascinating, and I'm the latter. There are so many interesting research questions that have yet to be explored regarding the relationship between different microbes, the microbes and host, what the behavior influence is caused by, etc. The multitude of mysteries is almost enough to make me want to go back into academia after leaving it... *almost*. Luckily, if I ever did, the microbiome still seems to be the sexy science topic du jour and we still don't know much about it.

Besides covering a fascinating topic, Ed's writing is sharp, clear, and enjoyable to read. He's long been one of my favorite science writers at his Not Exactly Rocket Science blog (moving between an independent site, the early-but-influential ScienceBlogs network, Discover, and National Geographic over the past decade before ending earlier this year), and still writes great long-form pieces over at The Atlantic. After some mid-2000s grumbling about whether or not blogs were a threat to journalism, it is extremely gratifying to see in the 2010s, the definition between who is a blogger and who is a journalist have blurred and that yes, some can even make the jump to the longest form writing of all- books.

A sidenote: I recently finished my masters in a lab that is heavily focused on symbiosis and evolution at different levels (my PI's previous work involves competing mitochondrial genomes; others in the lab work on anemone-algae relationships and the interaction between Wolbachia and plant-parasitic nematode), so I did come to this book with some prior knowledge. It's a little weird when reading and then coming across the name of a biologist I follow on twitter (John McCutcheon! Katie Hinde!) or a friend's PI (Rebecca Vega-Thurber!) The world may seem big, but Twitter makes it smaller and as you read, check to see if the referenced scientist is online- @ ing them is a great way to show an interest in their work because often, it feels like the only other people reading are those in the research community.

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Review: Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine

Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine by Sarah Lohman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The easiest and often most enjoyable way to get to know a culture is through its food, and the makeup of American flavor covers not just the taste spectrum of spicy, sweet, and umami but also the history of immigration waves and economics.

Sarah Lohman of the Four Pounds Flour blog noticed in old cookbooks there were certain flavor profiles popping up, such as rose water as a baked goods sweetener rather than vanilla because vanilla was prohibitively expensive. She made a timeline of recipes through history and plotted them with Google Ngrams to see word frequency use between 1796 and 2000. These eight flavors were the noticeable peaks (chocolate and coffee were also popular, but they're extensively covered elsewhere), and are organized chronologically by when they appeared in American kitchens.

I was unsurprised to find that some flavors, such as black pepper and vanilla, became common after entrepreneurs and botanists figured out ways to make them more widely available and to actually cultivate respectively. Others, like chili and curry powders, come from the desire for a premixed pack, easy to reach without putting in the effort of roasting and mixing spices anew for each use.

Soy sauce and garlic were both interesting to me because they became widely available due to immigrant groups (Chinese and Italians) but were deemed too "ethnic" until a more "respectable" culture's food became #goals (Japanese and French cuisine). This bias is still around- think about how much people are willing to spend at an upscale sushi place, then try to remember how much you paid at your last dim sum visit.

My absolute favorite parts (which I also noted on Twitter) were when Lohman pointed out that compounds are compounds- regardless of source, vanillin will have the same structure and its atoms won't remember if they were derived from a vanilla vine or processed from leftover lignin from wood. Monosodium glutamate is its own flavor profile and yes, if you intake too much salt you will feel terrible, but the amounts of MSG in food are not the horrifically high concentrations used in early misleading studies of "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome". As someone with a genetics background who lives in the PNW, I am wary whenever some group touts their "natural" foods, as if natural can be quantified and measured somehow when really it's just emotion.

If a heftier read is desired, there's a very comprehensive notes for all sources and a selected bibliography for specific works in the back.

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Review: The Genius of Birds

The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Fully deserving of all of its accolades last year, The Genius of Birds finds that sweet spot of an interesting, compelling popular science book without being a bone-dry textbook.

(I always like to see what other reviewers think as I write my own, and I'm a lil' amused to see some people disliked this because it was *too* fluffy whereas others didn't care for Ackerman's extensive literature references. Popular science comes with a broad audience, I suppose.)

The Genius of Birds is divided up by different types of intelligence- as much as we'd like to think smarts is the only thing that counts, intelligence can be considered in different categories- social intelligence (do I know who my relatives are, and do I care? How do I react to my kin, or the hottie next door?), aesthetics (bowerbirds and sexy son hypothesis), spatial (various ways birds might map their world), etc. Ackerman examines current (as of writing/publication) literature and research, interviewing scientists working in the field, and weaves in the natural history of the focus species. Corvids of course appear frequently, but other birds make appearances with sparrows having the final chapter as a species that has co-evolved with our artificial habitats.

Would recommend for people who like popular science books, those with a passing interest in neuroscience of non-hominids, and people who like birds.

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Review: The Dragon Behind the Glass: A True Story of Power, Obsession, and the World’s Most Coveted Fish

The Dragon Behind the Glass: A True Story of Power, Obsession, and the World’s Most Coveted Fish by Emily Voigt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Emily Voigt writes in that part-historical examination, part-author's exploration narrative that The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks also treads, and the result ended up being a very readable, fascinating book. Multiple threads (the exotic pet trade industry, regulation of endangered species, what is a species and who names them, etc.) are woven together deftly as she starts with an initial question ("Why would someone pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a homely-faced fish?") and ends up diving headfirst into obsessively pursuing the dragonfish, searching for any that may still be in the wild.

I'm a hobby aquarist who has nothing larger than a 29 gallon at the moment, but the monster fishkeepers always intrigue me. Heiko Bleher is the most prominent ichthyologist in the book with an intrepid personality, though Tyson Roberts looms equally large as does Ralf Britz.

Minor quibbles: I'm a little surprised that she hadn't really known much about Linnaeus until she pursued the arowana story (especially if she's a science writer for Radiolab and other places). If you want a deeper dive into the taxonomy of what the Asian arowana is vs. the South American species or how exactly do purchasers of these monster fish take care of them, look elsewhere. Otherwise, it's a well-crafted personal narrative blended with natural history and taxonomy with a dash of travelogue.

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Review: Goldilocks and the Water Bears: The Search for Life in the Universe

Goldilocks and the Water Bears: The Search for Life in the Universe by Louisa Preston
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"It was ok" is maybe the most positive I feel towards this book. I'm not exactly sure what audience Dr. Preston is aiming for, but I definitely felt like the prose was intended for a teenager or younger. Science communication often tackles with how to inform your audience without necessarily being condescending; Goldilocks and the Water Bears introduces lots of concepts and helpfully italicizes them when first mentioned, giving off the feel of a textbook. Some of these chapters, like the one describing what defines life and conditions life might need, definitely felt textbook-ish, especially with several italicized vocabulary words per paragraph.

One of my earlier criticisms as I was reading was that I'm finding pop culture references walk a fine line between potentially dated and cool enough to draw the reader in. The first chapter of this book discusses science fiction and how our space fantasies may inspire us to develop similar technologies or look for life in various ways. While not the focus of the book, the short explanations for some pieces of media (like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) were very general- I initially dismissed this as "Well, it is a tangent so best not to linger on it..."

I read a library copy, and an earlier reader had penciled in corrections in a few places (slashing through a comma at one point, correcting numbers elsewhere, and in a later chapter, crossing out "carnivorous" and writing in "allotrophic" in the margins).

I also take issue with the use roughly once a chapter of "Fun fact: [fact here]." If it's a fun fact, shouldn't the fact speak for itself?

Perhaps her TED talk is more engaging, but the prose is very eh. I'd maybe recommend this to a middle or high school reader.

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Review: Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing

Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing by Jamie Holmes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In a "post-fact" society, does it matter whether we know something or not? Although Nonsense was published before even primary season took place, this was an unintentionally timely read. I personally tend to prefer knowing versus the unknown, so learning the uses of and embracing (or at least feeling comfortable with) not knowing seems relevant, too.

In general, Nonsense is a very readable book, perfect for the popular science reader but well-cited with extensive end notes (on a stylistic note, I liked that they weren't numbered in the text because that can be distracting, and reading linearly made them a bit of a reminder of what earlier chapters covered. While some were simple citations, others were longer descriptions of context around quotations or events).

In the first part, Mr. Holmes prompts us to notice how we respond to ambiguity, and how the need for closure catches our attention, makes us assume, and potentially distresses us when the situation is particularly unexpected. The middle section highlights examples of reactions to unexpected or ambiguous situations from natural disasters and hostage crises to the unpredictable world of fashion trends and whether or not more medical tests will really clear up an unclear diagnosis (spoiler alert: it may be more costly for the patient, but for that see The Empowered Patient: How to Get the Right Diagnosis, Buy the Cheapest Drugs, Beat Your Insurance Company, and Get the Best Medical Care Every Time). The final part covers how embracing the unknown is useful: where failure is often the stepping stone to scientific progress and taking away constraints of preconceived notions on your perspective may lead to new insights.

I've seen the phrased tossed around re: graduate school "The more you learn, you realize how little you actually know." This is a lesson I need to be reminded of, and Nonsense reminded me that it's okay if I don't know the answers.

Obtained via Blogging for Books in exchange for an unbiased review- took me longer to get around this than intended, but better late than never.

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