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Dunn’s work has shown that on average, a home has 10 spider species. This photo of a spider carcass was taken in my basement. "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."
I didn't think that reading about bugs and germs could fill me with such wonder. The author is a big advocate of biodiversity, even in our home. He argues that we should employ natural predators , instead of pesticide, to control pests . For example, why the International Space Station smells like rotten apple and armpit?
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I found myself highlighting so much to share with others. The fact that such research would be considered unusual reveals much about the tunnel vision of most biologists – and funding agencies – by overlooking the mundane wonders right under our noses. 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. News from the showerhead biome is just one part of this fact-filled, occasionally disgusting, slightly alarming book.
It's interesting in its own way, and I suppose at least tangentially relevant to what is supposed to be the main theme, but the blurb and description definitely aren't accurate to the contents of the book, and that irritates me. These were among the many random and obnoxious tangents he went off on, clearly based on his own interests and not on wanting to tell a cohesive story to the reader. This book took awhile to finish partly because I misplaced it but also because it is non-fiction and somewhat scientific in nature so therefore by nature reads more slowly.
by Rob Dunn
It is actually a collection of accounts about scientist-author Dunn's research on a limited handful of species, some of which happen to live in our houses. Instead, you get a disjointed series of chapters about Dunn's various projects. I suppose loosely they do have to do with species that live in our homes, but there are also, for example, chapters that focus entirely on things that happen in hospitals, or the history of microscopy.
Again, we're overlooking the obvious something covered in chapter 3, but with a slightly different angle of attack. 6 The Problem with Abundance - black mold is a huge problem in houses. Even the ISS isn't devoid of fungus & it can't be, but it is an ecosystem out of balance. He describes some experiments & findings that are fascinating both for the results & just how ignorant it shows us to be.
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At first, I wasn't sure I wanted to read this book. A germ-o-phobe reading a book about all those creepy, crawly, microscopic things covering just about every surface on earth? A book like this would be sure to give me nightmares and make me even more terrified to touch every doorknob, ink pen, faucet, groceries in the store that I'd starve for being too afraid to pick up and take home.
Camel crickets can turn industrial waste into energy, showerhead gunk can cause infections, and accidental ingestion of cat feces can increase our tolerance to risks. These findings are just the tip of the iceberg for Professor Rob Dunn’s work in citizen science. This book's main theme is that biodiversity is good and healthy, and a lack of it is detrimental in ways we don't entirely understand. Okay, so that's actually not a very novel theme if you look through a lot of books out there. However, there were some parts that were and that I enjoyed. The microbes that live with us are able to evolve incredibly fast.
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His actual work tends toward yucky stuff — gunk growing in your showerhead! There's a definite Yuck factor in this book.... In addition to acting as GBA’s technical director, Peter Yost is the Vice President for Technical Services at BuildingGreen in Brattleboro, Vermont. On January 1, 2019, Yost will bid BuildingGreen adieu and open his new consulting company, Building-Wright, in Brattleboro, Vermont. He has been building, researching, teaching, writing, and consulting on high-performance homes for more than twenty years.
"Rob Dunn is a brilliant explorer of the strange, mostly uncharted biology of our homes and bodies. This must-read book is full of astonishing stories, skillfully told." Without veering into the questionable territory oaf hokey health claims or New Age gobbledygook, what Dunn advocates is common sense. Wash your hands, but also go outside and get them dirty. What is really needed, first and foremost, is a shift in our attitudes. Rather than disgust, we need to foster an appreciation of the tiny lifeforms that share our homes and bodies, and an understanding that our health depends on them.
Both the study of mycobacteria in the showerheads and its association with the nontuberculous mycobacterial lung infections, and the study of the stachybotrys chartarum in the manufactured drywall are worth to know. The author says that the use of disinfectants increases the possibility of mycobacteria in shower heads. It's not a perfect book; I particularly was disappointed that Dunn spends a whole chapter on Toxoplasma gondii , since I think anyone with an interest in 'weird biology' is probably already very familiar with it.
It's truly amazing what we don't know that we don't know. Someone should, but they don't & he explains why. He covers some of his life & starts each chapter with some great quotes, often from Darwin.
This review is part of an ongoing series of book reviews written by members of Dr. Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher’s research team in partnership with SciStarter and published by agreement with Science Connected. Views expressed are the opinions of the author and not of Science Connected or funding agencies. Dunn guides us through various studies detailing the remarkably rapid evolutionary capabilities that make these pests infamously resistant to any of our traps.
Dunn is a professor of Applied Ecology at North Carolina State University and also works at the Natural History Museum of Denmark. He initially undertook this study of indoor organisms with the idea that he could help to make our homes healthier. The BIG takeaway from the book is that humans benefit from biodiversity—leave your windows open, don’t kill all of the spiders that get in your house, and keep pets in the house. In this intriguing and captivating scientific detective story, Dunn examines our mania for keeping our houses clean and sparkling in a futile effort to keep out bacteria, fungi and insects.
Chapter One starts with the history of observations in microscopic life done by Antony van Leeuwenhoek. He uses his microscope to look at anything around him but it was when he was looking at pepper soaked water that he would become the first person to see the protist, single celled organisms. With time, he would see the smaller bacteria and make numerous other microscopic observations. But it would come to an end with his death as his observations are not followed up by others. With the discovery of some pathogens, the microscopic world in our homes would come to be seen as an enemy to be controlled, rather than an environment to be observed. I'm rating this highly for sheer quantity of content and number of researchers.
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