I Contain Multitudes

Recommended from Bill Gates (gatesnotes.com)A perfect follow-up to [b:The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer 7170627 The Emperor of All Maladies A Biography of Cancer Siddhartha Mukherjee https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1280771091s/7170627.jpg 7580942]! Yong argues that we are far more than our DNA. This book clearly outlines the development of microbes, our understanding of their role in the modern world and specifically in our gut, and the potential future of leveraging microbes for specialized medical treatment. There's a huge stigma that bacteria=bugs=bad and that anti-bacterial _____ are some of the greatest developments of modern society. In reality, only a very small percentage of bacteria are pathogens and the rest are either beneficial to humans or other players in the global ecosystem. Crazy enough, I was able to meet a microbiologist (shoutout to Anneka!) in addition to a geneticist recently. For some reason, they found my “for fun” books to be peculiar choices. :P My greatest takeaway from this book is the importance of studying other organisms (animals, plants, and microorganisms) so that we can better understand ourselves. The human genome is incredibly complex by itself, but when you also consider that there are ~100 trillion bacteria living in/on an average human, it becomes evident that simplifying the study of the human body to a single genome is a gross simplification. Humans (and all animals) have symbiotic relationships with the majority of the bacteria we interact with every day - and these are essential to our survival.I'd highly recommend this book to anyone open to challenging the misconceptions society has about germs and bacteria.