Scratching the Surface of the Microbial Realm

Microbes Everywhere!
"Even animals and plants are microbial at the very heart of every cell. You could say we have the best of both worlds, bacterial and archaeal."

Bacteria and archaea, the microbes, outnumber and outweigh all other living things. Humans are permanent residents of just 15% of the planet, while microbes seem to be found everywhere, covering 100% of Earth's environments. Yet this raises a fascinating question: are there any super-extreme places completely devoid of microbial life?

Exploring the Extremes
This lavishly illustrated book is a lighthearted (but with a bit of biochemistry) quest to reveal whether life can be absent from any part of our planet. How do microbes survive in the harshest extremes? From ocean depths, high clouds, arid Atacama, Antarctic ice, deep underground, hypersaline lakes, ancient stromatolites, to out into the Solar System you will get to know microbes you never knew existed, including the star polyextremophile Deinococcus radiodurans which can survive over a thousand times a lethal human dose of radiation and has been sent up on the outside of the International Space Station and lived to tell the tale. Despite this ability many microbiomes are endangered because of the loss of biodiversity due to human interference.

Origins, Evolution, and Symbiosis
The mystery of microbial origins and their evolution into animals and plants is explored. A core insight is that all living things depend on microbes through symbiosis - cooperation is universal. Scientists are only beginning to scratch the surface of the microbial realm, but discoveries are accelerating rapidly. This is their story.