Review by Choice Review
Dunn (North Carolina State Univ.) has written a book that is as much about the process and advancements of science as it is about the dynamic, microscopic life coexisting with us in our homes. The prologue sets the stage for the rest of the book by stressing that our health and well-being are strongly tied to other organisms living inside our homes, about which we know very little. Ultimately, Dunn aims to inspire awe from his readers rather than disgust and, although the information is somewhat unsettling at times, he generally accomplishes this aim by providing interesting contextualization and explanations for the information presented throughout. The volume's conversational tone makes it easy to read and accessible to a broad audience. Dunn's descriptions of his and other people's research experiences, along with the connections that are made between our knowledge about microbial communities and modern science, make this book an excellent fit for undergraduates. Summing Up: Recommended. All academic levels and general readers. --Shannon McCarragher, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
A young man I know used to say that humans have no need to bathe, since our hair and bodies are designed to self-cleanse. I would fight him on it, being of the opinion that washing up occasionally was good for us - and for the people with whom we lived. But now, after reading the entomologist Rob Dunn's description of the myriad microbial life-forms that take up residence in a typical American showerhead, I'm starting to think maybe that young man was onto something. With an army of collaborators, Dunn, a professor of applied ecology at North Carolina State University, took samples of the gunk inside hundreds of showerheads, and found a profusion of microbial fauna. Tap water itself, he writes in the chatty, informative "Never Home Alone," teems with amoebas, bacteria, nematodes and crustaceans. As the water passes through the showerhead, these microbes lay down a kind of scaffolding known as biofilm to protect themselves from getting washed away with every ablution. They make the biofilm "out of their own excretions," Dunn writes bluntly. "In essence, by working together, the bacteria poop a little indestructible condominium in your pipes." It gets worse. Filtered through that poop-biofilm, the water that washes over you, as you supposedly scrub yourself clean, might contain not only all those harmless amoebas and nematodes but a few bacteria that can be dangerous - in particular some species of Mycobacterium, cousins of the Mycobacterium that causes tuberculosis. And the pathogens are there because we provided the perfect breeding ground for them, when we tried to purify our tap water in the first place. Municipal water treatment plants use chlorine and other chemicals that kill off the bacterium's natural predators, allowing Mycobacterium to thrive. Tap water that comes from a well, in contrast, has never gone through a treatment plant and has a rich microbial life. It might look more dangerous, but it's actually safer, Dunn explains. All those organisms in well water are themselves harmless, and they tend to fight off the potentially dangerous ones like Mycobacterium - that's how biodiversity works. News from the showerhead biome is just one part of this fact-filled, occasionally disgusting, slightly alarming book. Dunn has been involved in an obsessive quest to document the tiny inhabitants of indoor environments, a project that involves teams of professional and amateur bug-watchers to take samples not only from showerheads but from door frames, refrigerators, hot water heaters, cellars, toilets, pillowcases, all sorts of surfaces from the places we call home. These workers swab and seal, swab and seal, and send their thousands of samples to Dunn's lab in Raleigh, or to his other lab at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, for an ongoing microbial census. "We expected to find a few hundred species," Dunn writes of his first foray into indoor microbe-hunting, which involved 1,000 homes from around the world. Instead, he and his colleagues found a "floating, leaping, crawling circus of thousands of species," perhaps as many as 200,000, many of them previously unknown to science. These denizens of interior spaces are our most frequent companions. In the industrialized world, we spend upward of 90 percent of our time indoors. Luckily, most of our co-habitators are either benign or actually beneficial in some way, like the house spiders that keep down indoor populations of flies or mosquitoes that can carry disease. But because we've become so hyper about making our surroundings as pristine as possible - sealing off our homes from the outdoors and using pesticides and antimicrobials with a vengeance - we've tipped the scales away from those harmless or helpful bugs, in favor of some of the bad guys. According to Dunn, indoor microbes are among the fastest-evolving species on the planet; they have an uncanny ability to live in ecological niches you could hardly imagine existing, like the dead skin cells we slough off every day (which is all that's needed to survive for a class of bacteria known as detritivores). They manage to evade our assaults, and evolve their way out of just about every biocide we throw at them. We're left to contend with the consequences of our own warfare, such as pesticide-resistant German cockroaches and bedbugs, and antibiotic-resistant MRSA bacteria. We have turned a relatively harmless indoor biome into something that can make us sick. That's the take-home message of "Never Home Alone," that the richer the biodiversity in our indoor environment, the better. "The biodiversity of plants and soil can help our immune systems function properly," Dunn writes. "The biodiversity in our water systems can help keep pathogens in the water in check.... The biodiversity of spiders, párásítóid wasps and centipedes can help control pests. The biodiversity in our houses provides the opportunity, too, for the discovery of enzymes, genes and species useful to all of us, whether to make new kinds of beers or to transform waste into energy." I'm not quite as enamored of our microbial roommates as the author is. (I'm sorry, Professor Dunn, but I'm just being honest here: Those photos of the camel cricket and the American grass spider clinging to basement pipes and door thresholds - well, yuck.) It probably takes the soul of an entomologist, or maybe of a 9-year-old child, to love these bugs as much as Dunn does. Still, it's hard not to be occasionally charmed by his prose, as when he catalogs the arthropods with whom we share our homes: "bitingmidges, mosquitoes,lesser house flies, phantom midges, freeloader flies and shore flies. This is not to mention fungus gnats, moth flies and flesh flies. Or crane flies, winter crane flies and minute black scavenger flies." And it's hard not to share, at least a little, his awe at their diversity, even in a single household. "If you see two flies in your home," he writes, "the odds are that they are two different species. Heck, if you see 10 flies in your house, they are likely to be five different species." And don't even get him started on the aphids. He's amazed by them, as he is by "the wasps that lay their eggs in the bodies of aphids as well as the wasps that lay their eggs in the bodies of the wasps that lay their eggs in the bodies of aphids." There's a real sense of "gee-whiz" in this book, but it's mostly in service of Dunn's overarching goal: to preach the preservation of biodiversity, not only in the lush forests and streams that fit our traditional image of nature's abundance, but in the most humble places, too, where the vast majority of us will have most of our crossspecies encounters - our basements, mattresses, refrigerator drawers and showerheads. About those showerheads: Dunn isn't suggesting that we give up showers. But he does say we might want to change the showerhead a little more often - and consider switching from metal to plastic, where biofilm is less likely to accumulate. Nonetheless, his bottom line for showerheads is like his bottom line for other aspects of the roiling microbial mix we live in: Don't be afraid of letting life inside. "The water that is healthiest for bathing is that which comes from aquifers rich with underground biodiversity including crustaceans," he writes. "The crustaceans in these aquifers are an indication not of the dirtiness of the water but of its health." Each of our homes is a 'floating, leaping, crawling circus of thousands of species.' robin marantz henig is a New York science journalist whose books include "The Monk in the Garden: The Lost and Found Genius of Gregor Mendel."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [January 31, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Ecologist Dunn scores a direct hit on the deepest fears of most readers in the opening pages of this scintillating title. While studying the life-forms found within human homes around the world, he and his fellow researchers discovered mind-boggling numbers: more than 200,000 species are living with us. The typical response to this figure is to, as Dunn writes, go home and scrub, and then scrub some more. But his delightfully informative message is that the overwhelming number of these mostly microscopic entities are beneficial. But humans have relentlessly sought to eradicate them through the development of increasingly more powerful chemicals, efforts that have, instead, aided the creatures we do need to remove (cockroaches!) and created some significantly negative side effects for people. In one surprising chapter, Dunn reaches back in history to show how long scientists have studied in-home life and how long it has been misconstrued as dangerous. Then, in clear, concise, and often witty language, he covers the ongoing work of multiple scientists and researchers, providing dozens of examples that will be readily accessible to readers. In a time of clear-eyed assessment of the environment, Dunn is a voice of reason who should be heartily welcomed.--Colleen Mondor Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Those who read this delightfully entertaining and scientifically enlightening book about the thousands of creatures who live alongside humans will never think about their homes in the same way again. As Dunn (Never Out of Season), an ecologist at North Carolina State University, demonstrates via his own fascinating research, houses abound with nonhuman life. When people shower, they're covering themselves with multiple species of bacteria. Drywall is impregnated with fungi just waiting for moisture to grow and, as Dunn says, "Their patience is great." And, of course, pets bring in additional multitudes. But, Dunn explains, the vast majority of these organisms pose no threat, and many help enormously. "Fewer than a hundred species of bacteria, viruses, and [microscopic] protists cause nearly all of the infectious illnesses in the world," though millions of such species exist. Indeed, Dunn plausibly argues that humans are healthier when surrounded by many other species, and are "as likely to be sick from the bacteria we don't have as from the bacteria or parasites we do." Throughout, he makes a compelling case for the value of biodiversity, while also conveying the excitement of scientific investigation, demonstrating that important discoveries can be made very close to home. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Dunn (applied ecology, North Carolina State Univ.; Every Living Thing) takes readers on an entertaining tour of the biodiversity found in one of the fastest-growing biomes: indoors, identifying some 200,000-plus species that share our homes. While pathogens have been studied, many more potentially beneficial species remain virtually unknown. Dunn has looked for life-forms in basements, showerheads, drains, drywall, windowsills, light fixtures, behind toilets, and under beds. Ever curious, the author imagines the benefit of something as simple as a camel cricket to humanity and then constructs experiments to get the answers. Overseeing a study of sourdough bread baking, he concluded that each sourdough starter was slightly different and contained microbes from the hands of the baker, influencing its flavor. Dunn cautions that sterilizing everything means losing valuable life-forms. He encourages readers to become aware of the wondrous life all around us. VERDICT This book will be enjoyed by biologists but also general readers with an appreciation for nature.-Caren Nichter, Univ. of Tennessee at Martin © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A paean to biodiversity by a biologist who sees salvation in cultivating life's infinite variety.Dunn (Applied Ecology/North Carolina State Univ.; Never Out of Season: How Having the Food We Want When We Want It Threatens Our Food Supply and Our Future, 2017, etc.) reports on an impressively wide variety of fascinating creatures all over the world. For example, your hot water heater is home to the same thermal-loving bacteria found in hot springs. That cricket in the basement lives a meager existence, mostly eating dead stuff. The showerhead in your bathroom is a perfect biofilm sheltering bacteria not killed by chlorination. The learning quotient is high in this fact-filled text, but there are also opportunities for learning more, since, as the author notes, specialists tend to study exotic bugs in faraway places, ignoring what is literally underfoot. Who knew that those camel crickets in the basement have gut bacteria that could devour industrial waste? Dunn estimates that there are 250,0000 species that live with us, and most are benign or beneficial. Yet we often choose to kill them, with pesticides for the cockroaches, fleas, flies, and mosquitoes, and antibiotics for disease pathogens, resulting in resistance as well as much collateral damage to other life. Our zeal for sanitation has led to an increase in allergies and asthma, manifested by an overreactive immune response known as the hygiene hypothesis, for which Dunn presents good evidence. The author also discusses pets; whatever the cat dragged in might alter readers' behavior toward their feline friends. For a change of pace, Dunn provides a chapter on the fermenting bacteria and yeasts that give us beer, wine, and foods like kimchi and sourdough bread. The surprise is that long-time preparers of these foods impart unique flavor to the products because their hands acquire some of the same fermenting species not normally found on skin.Of course we must chlorinate our water, wash our hands, get vaccinated, and so on, Dunn argues persuasively and entertainingly. But we also need to relax and cultivate biodiversity for the good of all life on Earth. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
