The Amoeba in the Room: Lives of the Microbes - Hardcover

"Money enthusiastically presents evidence of diversity everywhere, no matter the magnification. ... This is a lucid and informative book. There is an impressive afterword of references and notes, and fine line drawings. So much that is lyrical and little-known waits to be discovered here - novelties that will appeal to new undergraduates as well as to incorrigible microbial enthusiasts like myself." --Nature

"Nicholas P. Money, mycologist and professor of biology at Miami University, has made an excellent contribution to science in popular culture with his new book, The Amoeba in the Room."--Kansas City Star

"Money succeeds, intellectually in convincing you that multicellular creatures count for little in the grand scheme of biology" --Wall Street Journal

"Writing passionately about a subject he clearly loves, Money, professor of botany at Miami Univ. (Ohio), explains the critically important, but largely overlooked, roles microbial organisms play in the world." --Publishers Weekly

"Amoeba in the Room grew on me. I found myself reading a few pages every nightEL always curious to read a little more. By the time I reached the end, the author had succeeded in making a rather profound and permanent change in my world view. If you are involved in biology education at any level, including elementary school, I recommend you read this book. Like the microbes themselves, Amoeba in the Room is easily overlooked but carries an important message." --Scientific Thrillers

"Money's book offers a glimpse into the lives of these often overlooked bacteria, fungi, amoebas and other microbes. Money's light-hearted writing helps prevent the lingo from becoming overwhelming, though, and readers who can weather the tricky language will find a fascinating and strange new world." --Science News

..".beautifully written, Money has a great style, and a very important message. To see what is really going on in the biosphere, the only zone of life that we know of at this point, you need a microscope. Bacteria are the gods of humans." --The Stranger

"Written with great skill and seasoned with wit, the book displays the expertise of the writer." --San Francisco Book Review

"Money's light-hearted writing helps prevent the lingo from becoming overwhelming, though, and readers who can weather the tricky language will find a fascinating and strange new world." --Science News

"Nicholas Money is an expert guide. This world will not seem the same to anyone who reads his book." --The Times Literary Supplement

"This is a fascinating, amazing, and thoroughly enthusiastic sketch of [the] subject ... The book helps orient us to new biological horizons - and new philosophic ones." --The Ecologist

"Money succeeds in driving hom his main point: biology isn't really about the animals." --New Scientist

Featured in The Quarterly Review of Biology.

"I found this book immensely enjoyable and I would encourage anyone wanting to know more about the huge swathe of life on the planet that passes us by unseen to seek out a copy." --Dale Walters, The Biologist

A cup of seawater contains 100 million cells, which are preyed upon by billions of viruses. Fifty million tons of fungal spores are released into the atmosphere every year. And the human gut is home to somewhere between 500 and 1,000 species of bacteria. The more we learn about microbial biodiversity, the clearer it becomes that the vast majority of life has long gone unseen, and unobserved. The flowering of microbial science is revolutionizing biology and medicine in ways unimagined only a few years ago, and is inspiring a new view of what it means to be alive.

In The Amoeba in the Room, Nicholas Money explores the extraordinary breadth of the microbial world and the vast swathes of biological diversity that can be detected only using molecular methods. Although biologists have achieved a remarkable level of understanding about the way multicellular organisms operate, Money shows that most people continue to ignore the fact that most of life isn't classified as either plant or animal. Significant discoveries about the composition of the biosphere are making it clear that the sciences have failed to comprehend the full spectrum of life on earth, which is far more diverse than previously imagined. Money's engaging work considers this diversity in all its forms, exploring environments from the backyard pond to the ocean floor to the "mobile ecosystem" of our own bodies.

A revitalized vision of life emerges from Money's lively narrative of the lowly, one in which we are challenged to reconsider our existence in proper relationship to the single-celled protists, bacteria, and viruses that constitute most of life on earth. Proposing a radical reformulation of biology education and research in the life sciences, The Amoeba in the Room is a compelling romp through the least visible and yet most prodigiously magnificent aspects of life on earth.