I, Superorganism: Learning to love your inner ecosystem

by Jon Turney

Every human body carries a secret a huge population of micro-organisms that lives in your mouth and nose, on your skin, in your guts. This is the human microbiome, and it has recently become biologists' most thrilling research interest. Vastly outnumbering human cells, our invisible passengers are vital to life. They help us digest food, make essential nutrients, and combat disease. They may even have a role in developing behavior. We are not just isolated humans, but superorganisms. Acclaimed science communicator and editor Jon Turney presents the first book-length account of a new realm of human biology.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Biology, Medicine

320 pages, Paperback

First published February 5, 2015

About the author

Science writer

Reviews

[Brian Clegg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I need to say straight away that I like this book, as my first comment otherwise would be a complaint. Because I don't like the title. For me, a superorganism is something very specific. It's a collection of individual organisms that come together to act as a single being. None typically has the full range of functionality and none seeks its own benefit. Instead they act more like the cells of a body. This kind of lifeform sounds like an alien in a sci-fi movie. But bees, ants and termites are all such superorganisms. Humans aren't.

I'm not saying humans aren't amazing, with lots of parasitism and symbiotic action going on with all the many non-human inhabitants of the body, but we aren't real superorganisms. Jon Turney does make a quick reference right at the end of his book to this 'other' use of the term, but for me that is the definitive use - so for this phenomenon they should choose a new term like metaorganism or hyperorganism. I don't care, just hands off the bees.

With that moan over, this is a very important book because it covers a phenomenal topic, which practically no one knows much about, and Turney does the best possible job in covering it. As the book's subtitle suggests it's about 'learning to love your inner ecosystem' - or probably more accurately, becoming more aware of just how amazing the colony of bacteria (etc.) that co-occupies your body is, where it comes from, and all the remarkable things it does in terms of your body's everyday working.

Only a few years ago, it was amazing enough to be able to say that we have around ten times as many bacterial cells as human in our bodies - but these figures are relatively dated, it seems. It's not so much that we have a better feel for the numbers, but rather a better feel for how little we really know. Whatever the actual figure, there are certainly far more bacterial cells in us than our own, and they occur pretty well everywhere, even in areas like the surface of the eye that were once thought to be sterile. (Part of the problem with pinning down bacteria is that they don't all flourish in a petri dish, so before DNA sequencing it was hard to be sure what was present, and even now it's all decidedly vague.)

Among the revelations are that our systems are built around supporting bacteria far more than we once thought. For instance, a major part of our very sophisticated and complex immune system seems to have been developed not to protect us, but to protect all the useful bacteria that inhabit our cracks, crevices and innards. And then there's the sheer diversity - because different individuals can have almost entirely different proportions of onboard flora and fauna - in fact each of us can be as different as different continents. Which all means that even though our DNA sequencing techniques are hugely improved, and can now routinely make deductions from a whole mess of DNA, rather than that of an isolated bacterium, we are largely in the dark about the whys and wherefores of any particular human ecosystem.

Which leads me on to the negative side. Quite a lot of the book is, well, dull. This might seem a contradiction to my earlier comment about Turney doing the best possible job in covering it - but the point is that the subject itself manages to be hugely important... and boring, all at the same time. Part of the problem is the Rutherford effect. The great physicist Ernest Rutherford famously (and very effectively) wound up by biologists by saying 'all science is either physics or stamp collecting,' meaning that biologists, and to some extend chemists, spend most of their time collecting information, cataloguing it and structuring it, rather than developing any fundamental underlying science. And while biology now has its mega-theories, this study of these bacterial colonies and their interaction with their human host is very much in the stamp collecting phase, even if it's done with brand new, high-tech approaches.

So we get page after page that is telling us about the type of bacteria that may (or may not) be found in different parts of the body and the chemical systems they use to interact and the molecular... zzzz. Of course I may be biased, having a physics background, but I've read and enjoyed plenty of popular biology books. I like this one, I find the underlying 'wow factor' of the sheer scale and importance of our associated bacteria amazing, but the detail is rather tedious.

I also didn't get an answer to the question that was at the back of my mind, raising a hand for attention, all the way through. What do the different antibiotics we get given do to our bacterial landscape, and what does this mean for its recovery afterwards? There is a specific section about the impact of antibiotics on young children, but no insights into the specific action of, say, amoxycillin on our gut bacteria. (And someone should have spotted the howler where a paper is quoted as saying as a sample was 'placed in a cooler and... stored at 280°C until DNA extraction.' That's not storage, that's cooking. It should have read -80°C.)

Given that, what should I conclude? I think even if you end up, like me, skipping through a few pages where things look to be carrying on in the same fashion, it is still a really important milestone in our understanding of the complexity and variability of our inner landscape, and as such is a must-have addition to the popular science bookshelf.

[sarah y · Rating 2 out of 5]

this was - dry. i've read so much stellar nonfiction that this came across as lackluster and boring in comparison. the tone was off. the structure was off. still interesting, but would have killed for mary roach to have written this.

[Am Y · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a thick book. It took me awhile to get through it. I will save you the time and tell you essentially what it contains:

1) Author talks about the different microbiomes found in our bodies and their known functions: e.g. the bacterial communities living in our gut and what they do for us, and us for them.

2) Author traces the evolutionary development of how humans came to have the microbiomes we do today, from our pre-human ancestors to the modern homo sapien. He also talks about how the colonisation of our bodies by microbiomes takes place. E.g. Infants' guts are populated with bacteria with their first intake of breast milk.

3) Author cites some studies about how they identified the various microbiomes, and the difficulties/problems in doing so. E.g. Measurement of any particular microbiome at any one point of time may not show the complete picture. (They tried to offset this by doing several different measurements over a period of time, by the way. Which I personally find also problematic in itself.)

4) Author gets some of his microbiomes tested to see how they compare with other people's. E.g. They analysed what was in his gut and stool and so on.

5) Author mentions studies in which they tried experimenting with various microbiomes to see what would happen. E.g. How do germ-free mice differ from their non-germ-free counterparts? And what do antibiotics do to mice? (They found that it caused an overgrowth of a dangerous bacterium by the way.)

Essentially the author states that:

1) We do not know in entirety how microbiomes affect us, because there are too many variables involved, therefore no accurate method of measurement.

2) We do know that we probably can't survive (or live "healthily") without our various microbiomes.

3) We do know that interfering with the various microbiomes could produce less than desirable consequences. E.g. Antibiotics could disrupt our delicate internal flora and cause an imbalance - meaning an overgrowth of one or more particular strains of bacteria, that could in turn cause serious ailments.

4) We do know that microbiomes are both generic yet localised. E.g. All humans can be expected to have around the same types of microbiomes, yet microbiome populations would differ according to region, diet, genetic make-up, etc.

Conclusion:

I learned nothing really new from this book, and the book was really boring in most parts with loads of redundant content. Whatever useful information could probably be condensed into half its present size.

Not recommended at all, unless you're interested in the studies I mentioned.

[Peter McCambridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. Full of facts you want to share with everyone you know. Respect for anyone who can write about something complicated and make it so fun, interesting, and accessible.

[airy xie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entah kenapa membaca buku ini sejak awal terasa susah memahami kata per kata dalam kalimatnya. Mungkin karena Bahasa Inggris bukanlah bahasa ibu saya? atau mungkin karena bahasannya yang terlalu ilmiah? Tetapi meski begitu, saya cukup memahami garis besar isi buku ini.

Dan seperti dalam kata pengantar dan penutup oleh penulis, saya setuju bahwa setelah membaca buku ini kita akan semakin memahami bahwa manusia adalah superorganisme. bahwa tubuh manusia bukanlah melulu mekanik dan keberadaan jutaan organisme dalam tubuh kita akan terpengaruh dalam kebijaksanaan kita memahami kehendak bebas manusia.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyable and accessible read about the microbiota we share our lives with! Highly recommend this.

[Dipa · Rating 5 out of 5]

My highest admiration for this book. The way the author delivered the big picture of smaller entities puts me in awe.

[Vira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suits more for aspiring scientists than laypeople. So many mentions of scientific research, more textbook-ish than recreational

[Ana Ivan Karamazov · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you like microorganisms, you should read this.

[Penny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good and very important information. Could have been shorter, lot of repetition.

[Lexie Shumate]

I just couldn't make myself read this all the way through. I want to try to read it again one day.

[Alexander Isayenko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Впечатлили сведения о микробной составляющей нашего организма. Оказывается, бактерий не просто много в нашем организме, по количеству их чуть больше, чем наших уэкариотических клеток.
Бактерии, как известно, населяют многие места нашего организма, но в пищеварительной системе их больше всего, это целые джунгли, огромная и сложная экосистема.

Книга написана интересно, местами гадко, немного воды и повторений. Красочно описана работа иммунной системы и механизмы ее защиты, я бы сказал, это самая ценная глава в книге. Общая же ценность книги именно в изменении взгляда на роль микробиома в жизни человека.

Как говорится в описании: "Вы по-новому ощутите свой организм". И правда, я больше не воспринимаю себя по-прежнему. Живые организмы это не только самосборные биологические машины, нет, это целые экосистемы, своего рода биореакторы.