IF YOU think that cataloguing life is largely a matter of butterfly nets and flower presses, you might be surprised by the range of science covered in Every Living Thing. The usual suspects are here, such as Linnaeus and those who have devoted their lives to ferreting out an inordinate variety of beetles from tropical forests. But the life we can see is just the start: microscopes and DNA sequencing have revealed whole new realms living in extreme environments such as undersea hot springs. even looks at the search for life elsewhere in the universe, weaving scientists鈥� stories cleverly with those of their science.
While species-counting is important, cataloguing life is about more than accountancy. It is about understanding what life is, where it came from, and what it is capable of. The harder we look, he shows, the stranger and more spectacular the answers become.
HarperCollins