Every Living Thing: Man's Obsessive Quest to Catalog Life, from Nanobacteria to New Monkeys“If you have any interest in life beyond your own, you should read this book.”
Biologist Rob Dunn’s Every Little Thing is the story of man’s obsessive quest to catalog life, from nanobacteria to new monkeys. In the tradition of E.O. Wilson, this engaging and fascinating work of popular science follows humanity’s unending quest to discover every living thing in our natural world—from the unimaginably small in the most inhospitable of places on earth to the unimaginably far away in the unexplored canals on Mars. |
From inside the book
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Page 4
... Insects bat at our screens and we swat them without partiality . We imagine now that the “ natives ” ( of no relation to us ) were ignorant or at least simple , but a few generations ago , we were " those people . ” We all lived in ...
... Insects bat at our screens and we swat them without partiality . We imagine now that the “ natives ” ( of no relation to us ) were ignorant or at least simple , but a few generations ago , we were " those people . ” We all lived in ...
Page 5
... insects , a dozen primate species , caimans , anacon- das , and the occasional forlorn cow . During that journey , the bus made a single planned stop ( in a one - hut town majestically named Sheraton ) . Of course , that excludes the ...
... insects , a dozen primate species , caimans , anacon- das , and the occasional forlorn cow . During that journey , the bus made a single planned stop ( in a one - hut town majestically named Sheraton ) . Of course , that excludes the ...
Page 14
... insects. I focused on ants, which I had some chance of identifying in the field and which, in other indigenous groups, are very often named, studied, and mythologized. Among the Kayapo, an indigenous group in neighboring Brazil, more 14 ...
... insects. I focused on ants, which I had some chance of identifying in the field and which, in other indigenous groups, are very often named, studied, and mythologized. Among the Kayapo, an indigenous group in neighboring Brazil, more 14 ...
Page 15
... insects. However, if they do not know about ants, a group that's obvious and easy to find, people are unlikely to know about beetles and other tropical insects, which are both far harder to find and far more diverse. One by one, I would ...
... insects. However, if they do not know about ants, a group that's obvious and easy to find, people are unlikely to know about beetles and other tropical insects, which are both far harder to find and far more diverse. One by one, I would ...
Page 17
... insects are viewed as the mistakes of the gods, and apparently as a consequence few species are named. The indigenous peoples of the world named the species of their surroundings in different ways, but they all named species, typically ...
... insects are viewed as the mistakes of the gods, and apparently as a consequence few species are named. The indigenous peoples of the world named the species of their surroundings in different ways, but they all named species, typically ...
Contents
23 | |
The Invisible World | 40 |
Part II | 57 |
Dividing the Cell | 133 |
Grafting the Tree of Life | 149 |
Origin Stories | 181 |
Looking Out | 193 |
To Squeeze Life from a Stone | 209 |
The Wrong Elephant? | 224 |
What Remains | 246 |
Endnotes | 257 |
Index | 265 |
Other editions - View all
Every Living Thing: Man's Obsessive Quest to Catalog Life, from Nanobacteria ... Rob Dunn Limited preview - 2009 |
Every Living Thing: Man's Obsessive Quest to Catalog Life, from Nanobacteria ... Rob Dunn Limited preview - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
Alvin Amazon animals archaea army ants astrobiologists ATBI bacteria Bates beetles began believe biologists biology canopy carabid Carl Sagan Carl Woese Cavinas Cavineño cells centrioles chloroplasts Ciftcioglu collected Costa Rica creatures deep deep-sea vents discovered discovery diversity DNA barcoding Drake E. O. Wilson endosymbiosis estimate eukaryotes everything evolutionary Frank Drake genes Guanacaste human hundred hydrogen sulfide ideas imagined insects Janzen Kajander kind knew later Leeuwenhoek lineages Linnaeus Linnaeus’s living looked Lowell Lynn Margulis Margulis’s Mars Martian methanogens microbes microscope mites mitochondria monkeys moths named species nanobacteria nearly ocean organisms perhaps plants Rettenmeyer Riberalta rock Royal Society rRNA Sami samples scientists seafloor seemed seen space species on Earth story subsurface sumichrasti Swammerdam symbiosis telescope Terry Erwin theory things thought thousand trees tropical forest University Wallace Wirsen wondered