The Ed's Up #147
Book news
We are less than two weeks from the publication of I CONTAIN MULTITUDES and things are heating up!
- Smithsonian.com published the second excerpt from the book, featuring wasps that weaponised viruses, bugs that are living Russian dolls, and miraculous sushi-digesting microbes. Read about how, "by partnering with microbes, we can quicken the slow, deliberate adagio of our evolutionary music to the brisk, lively allegro of theirs."
- The legendary William Gibson said that the book is "wonderful, deeply strange, true, funny, beautifully written". and now I can die happy.
- Sarah Fallon wrote a wonderful piece for Wired about "seven questions you probably have never thought to ask, but that will be answered anyway in these pages", including "What's so great about mucus?", "Are there probiotics for goats?" and "What is the worst/best fecal transplant joke in this book?"
- For those of you with access to scientific journals, microbiologists Susan Perkins and Silvia Bulgheresi both wrote glowing and thoughtful reviews of the book at Science and Nature Microbiology respectively. The latter journal also features a Q&A with me about the book and writing in general.
I won some awards!
Three of them! Ironically, I'm slightly lost for words. The awards are:
- the Byron H Waksman Award for Excellence in the Public Communication of Life Sciences, which is for my microbiology coverage and my upcoming book.
- a Michael E. DeBakey Journalism Award, which is for biomedical reporting and specifically for this Atlantic piece.
- a European Science Writers Junior Award, from the Euroscience Foundation.
Are We the Only Animals That Understand Ignorance?
"You’re holding a surprise party for a friend. The door opens, the lights flick on, everyone leaps out... and your friend stands there silent and unmoved. Now,you’re the one who’s surprised. You assumed she had no idea, and based on that, you made a (wrong) prediction about how she would react. You were counting on her ignorance. This ability to understand that someone else might be missing certain information about the world comes so naturally to us that describing it feels mundane and trite. And yet, according to two psychologists, it’s a skill that only humans have. “We think monkeys can’t do that,” says Alia Martin from Victoria University of Wellington." (Image: James Akena)
Scientists Sniff Out a New Antibiotic In Nose Microbes
"Your nose is a battleground. Just like your mouth or gut, it’s full of microbes. But while those other organs are regularly flooded with food, the nose is a wasteland. Resources are scarce there, and competition is fierce, so nasal microbes have evolved many ways of outclassing and killing each other. And by raiding their arsenals, we could gain new weapons for our own use." (Image: Carlo Allegri) 
Was Tuberculosis Born Out of Fire?
"Many thousands of years ago, on a chilly African night, a group of people gather around a fire in a cave. Using the flames, they cook their food, fashion new weapons, and warm themselves. But where there’s fire, there’s also smoke, and the smoke is giving the huddled humans a wretched cough. And in their inflamed airways, a microbe that normally lives in the soil is taking hold, changing, evolving into something new. This, according to Rebecca Chisholm and Mark Tanaka, biologists at the University of New South Wales, is a possible origin story for one of the oldest human diseases—tuberculosis." (Image: Eduard Korniyenko)
Some Microbes Have Been With Us Since Before We Existed
"Around 10 million years ago, a population of African apes diverged down two paths. One lineage gave rise to gorillas. The other eventually split again, producing one branch that led to humans and another that forked into chimpanzees and bonobos. This is the story of our recent evolutionary past. It’s also the story of some of the microbes in our guts." (Image: Yves Herman) 
These Worms Are Like Feather Dusters With Eyes
"Fan worms look more like feather dusters than animals. If you come across one while swimming in the ocean, all you’ll see is a beautiful spray of feathery tentacles, sprouting from a rock. These extend from around the creature’s hidden mouth, and they filter specks of food from the surrounding water. If you get too close, they’ll suddenly retract, pulling back into the protective tube that houses the animal’s more typical wormlike body. The tentacles can do that because they have eyes. They’re like living feather dusters whose mouths can see you coming." (Image: Mike Bok)
More good reads
- I finally understand entropy because of this INCREDIBLE interactive explainer by Aatish Bhatia. Best thing I’ve read this week.
- Suzanne Daley covers Peru’s battle to drive out illegal gold mines. A huge problem, receiving a solid treatment here.
- Today in innovative conservation/advertising approaches: put an endangered monkey on Tinder. By John Platt
- "I am looking at an ear made of cervix, held together by apple." By Jessa Gamble.
- “Maybe we should leave it, then, we don’t want to mess with spider egg sacks.” “Get some lasers.” Confused scientists describe a purple orb in the ocean. By Brian Resnick.
- The push to use fewer animals in research may have inadvertently led to more wasted lives. By Julia Belluz
- Anthrax sickens 13 in western Siberia, and a thawed-out reindeer corpse may be to blame. By Ben Guarino. (And that’s the disease, not the band.)
- The Public Shaming of England’s First Umbrella User. By Michael Waters
- And finally… Boy gets head stuck in the American Museum of Natural History's Hall of Advanced Mammals.
- A tiny island in Illinois is home to the last native habitat for a very special plant. Emily Graslie explores.
- A genetic study suggests that the grey wolf is the only wolf species in North America, and red wolves, Eastern wolves, and Wolf Blitzer are all mixes of wolf and coyote DNA. Carl Zimmer reports.
- The World's Most Lightning-Prone Place Has the World's First Lightning Forecasts. By Sarah Laskow.
And that's it! Thanks for reading.
-Ed