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Life at the Edge of Sight: A Photographic Exploration of the Microbial World
Microbes create medicines, filter waste water, and clean pollution. They give cheese funky flavors, wines complex aromas, and bread a nutty crumb. Life at the Edge of Sight is a stunning visual exploration of the inhabitants of an invisible world, from the pioneering findings of a seventeenth-century visionary to magnificent close-ups of the inner workings and cooperative communities of Earth’s most prolific organisms.
Using cutting-edge imaging technologies, Scott Chimileski and Roberto Kolter lead readers through breakthroughs and unresolved questions scientists hope microbes will answer soon. They explain how microbial studies have clarified the origins of life on Earth, guided thinking about possible life on other planets, unlocked evolutionary mechanisms, and helped explain the functioning of complex ecosystems. Microbes have been harnessed to increase crop yields and promote human health.
But equally impressive, Life at the Edge of Sight opens a beautiful new frontier for readers to explore through words and images. We learn that there is more microbial biodiversity on a single frond of duckweed floating in a Delft canal than the diversity of plants and animals that biologists find in tropical rainforests. Colonies with millions of microbes can produce an array of pigments that put an artist’s palette to shame. The microbial world is ancient and ever-changing, buried in fossils and driven by cellular reactions operating in quadrillionths of a second. All other organisms have evolved within this universe of microbes, yielding intricate beneficial symbioses. With two experts as guides, the invisible microbial world awaits in plain sight.
Using cutting-edge imaging technologies, Scott Chimileski and Roberto Kolter lead readers through breakthroughs and unresolved questions scientists hope microbes will answer soon. They explain how microbial studies have clarified the origins of life on Earth, guided thinking about possible life on other planets, unlocked evolutionary mechanisms, and helped explain the functioning of complex ecosystems. Microbes have been harnessed to increase crop yields and promote human health.
But equally impressive, Life at the Edge of Sight opens a beautiful new frontier for readers to explore through words and images. We learn that there is more microbial biodiversity on a single frond of duckweed floating in a Delft canal than the diversity of plants and animals that biologists find in tropical rainforests. Colonies with millions of microbes can produce an array of pigments that put an artist’s palette to shame. The microbial world is ancient and ever-changing, buried in fossils and driven by cellular reactions operating in quadrillionths of a second. All other organisms have evolved within this universe of microbes, yielding intricate beneficial symbioses. With two experts as guides, the invisible microbial world awaits in plain sight.
384 pages, Hardcover
Published September 25, 2017
7 people are currently reading
131 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 9, 2021
It is natural, during wartime, to associate everything you read with humanity's penchant for group violence. It is natural, during economic depression, to associate everything you read with scarcity of resources. It is natural, during a time of religious strife, to associate everything you read with beliefs. So, I know, it is painfully obvious why I am going to say, that humanity ought to be spending more time pondering the world of that which is so small it cannot be seen with the unaided human eye. But still, it's true.
Most people, I think, sort of imagine themselves to be distinct entities, with a sharp boundary between themselves and the rest of the universe. One of the most annoying things about insects is that they treat us, not like other animals to be given some space, but more like planets to land on and prospect in. Well, insects are gigantic compared to most of what is in this book.
However, it turns out that the line between "visible" and "too small to see" is not very precise. Some microbes make huge colonies, that eventually become quite visible. Some of that is in this book, along with a lot of microscopy (and a little bit of electron microscopy). This book is absolutely loaded with imagery. It has about one image per page, most of it full-color. The text is rather chock full of imagery as well; one chapter has the main character imagining herself shrunk down to microscopic size and exploring the cheese she's about to eat. You find out a lot about how cheese is made, and some of it may make you squirm a bit if you are uncomfortable with thinking of your food as something that was once (or still is) alive.
There are some pretty amazing microbes out there, and they seem to be able to live on or in just about anything, in nearly any environment. This leads, by the end of the book, to the by-then-obvious question of whether the rest of our solar system can really be so sterile as we currently believe it to be.
It's a gorgeous (and every once in a while grotesque) book, full of a cornucopia of colors and shapes and textures, most of it representing that which is near to us every day, but unnoticed. If you are ok with noticing the fact that there is other life on, around, and inside you at all times, and want to read something about how complex it can be, this is the book for you.
Most people, I think, sort of imagine themselves to be distinct entities, with a sharp boundary between themselves and the rest of the universe. One of the most annoying things about insects is that they treat us, not like other animals to be given some space, but more like planets to land on and prospect in. Well, insects are gigantic compared to most of what is in this book.
However, it turns out that the line between "visible" and "too small to see" is not very precise. Some microbes make huge colonies, that eventually become quite visible. Some of that is in this book, along with a lot of microscopy (and a little bit of electron microscopy). This book is absolutely loaded with imagery. It has about one image per page, most of it full-color. The text is rather chock full of imagery as well; one chapter has the main character imagining herself shrunk down to microscopic size and exploring the cheese she's about to eat. You find out a lot about how cheese is made, and some of it may make you squirm a bit if you are uncomfortable with thinking of your food as something that was once (or still is) alive.
There are some pretty amazing microbes out there, and they seem to be able to live on or in just about anything, in nearly any environment. This leads, by the end of the book, to the by-then-obvious question of whether the rest of our solar system can really be so sterile as we currently believe it to be.
It's a gorgeous (and every once in a while grotesque) book, full of a cornucopia of colors and shapes and textures, most of it representing that which is near to us every day, but unnoticed. If you are ok with noticing the fact that there is other life on, around, and inside you at all times, and want to read something about how complex it can be, this is the book for you.
January 16, 2023
This is a fascinating, clearly written, and vividly illustrated look into the microbial world. This top-notch quality is also present in the hardbound volume itself--the sort of book that's truly a keeper. Here are two of the many passages that gave me reason to pause, consider, marvel, and re-read.
"The microbiologist studying the semi-intelligent slime mold in Boston carries her own microbiome of bacteria, archaea, fungi, and viruses, interacting with the cells of her immune system and keeping her healthy every day. Her consciousness is an emergent property of the network of neurons in her brain. She lives in a society. She is part of the most interactive, most intelligent species on Earth. The building where she works is a product of human consciousness. A satellite image of the city of Boston at night shows a network built by the human collective behavior..."
"We are making beautiful maps of the largest and the smallest structures in the universe. We are learning how galaxies themselves interact to form galaxy clusters and how galaxy clusters interact to develop into a lattice of threadlike filaments made of dark matter. It's called the cosmic web. Galaxies form along filaments and cluster at the nodes in the web where filaments join. Just as we could never see a virus by looking at individual atoms alone, just as we could not see a biofilm by looking at individual bacterial cells, we could never see the cosmic web by looking at individual stars and galaxies. Simultaneously, we are exposing how analogous networks of neurons develop in the brain. And we have found at the apex of many scientific disciplines that on Earth, everything depends on everything else. How could we ever take a picture of that complete interdependency? What would the image look like, if we captured in one large-scale view, like the cosmic web is for the universe, the sum of all biological activity across the web of life, all of the connections between organism in ecosystems, humanity, the forests, the living ocean of microbes, the living soil, and of the ways that those ecosystems impact global patterns? We already have this image. It's Earth."
"The microbiologist studying the semi-intelligent slime mold in Boston carries her own microbiome of bacteria, archaea, fungi, and viruses, interacting with the cells of her immune system and keeping her healthy every day. Her consciousness is an emergent property of the network of neurons in her brain. She lives in a society. She is part of the most interactive, most intelligent species on Earth. The building where she works is a product of human consciousness. A satellite image of the city of Boston at night shows a network built by the human collective behavior..."
"We are making beautiful maps of the largest and the smallest structures in the universe. We are learning how galaxies themselves interact to form galaxy clusters and how galaxy clusters interact to develop into a lattice of threadlike filaments made of dark matter. It's called the cosmic web. Galaxies form along filaments and cluster at the nodes in the web where filaments join. Just as we could never see a virus by looking at individual atoms alone, just as we could not see a biofilm by looking at individual bacterial cells, we could never see the cosmic web by looking at individual stars and galaxies. Simultaneously, we are exposing how analogous networks of neurons develop in the brain. And we have found at the apex of many scientific disciplines that on Earth, everything depends on everything else. How could we ever take a picture of that complete interdependency? What would the image look like, if we captured in one large-scale view, like the cosmic web is for the universe, the sum of all biological activity across the web of life, all of the connections between organism in ecosystems, humanity, the forests, the living ocean of microbes, the living soil, and of the ways that those ecosystems impact global patterns? We already have this image. It's Earth."
December 30, 2017
A fusion of art and science. With new stories about scientists through the centuries, microbes that we encounter everyday, and ideas for photographing a new perspective of life.
January 28, 2018
Wonderful photos! I was not a fan of the text even considering this was written for a general audience.
March 26, 2020
An invitation to the world that surrounds us
It’s an inspiring visual tour of the microbial world. Very exciting!
It’s an inspiring visual tour of the microbial world. Very exciting!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews