The Secret Lives of Earth's Smallest Creatures

J. Craig Venter

David Ewing Duncan

Dr Venter is best known for co-sequencing the first ever human genome. He later stunned the scientific world again by building from scratch the entire genome of an organism - Mycoplasma mycoides. His ambition is to 'try to catalogue all the genes on the planet'. He's currently working on the first major exploration of the microbiome of the planet. These microbes include bacteria, fungi, algae, and protozoa. The book will cover a series of expeditions made over the last sixteen years on the 100-foot yacht Sorcerer II, travelling over 75,000 miles, from Antarctica to Alaska, the Amazon Basin to the Black Sea, and the Golden Horn to volcanic vents near the Galapagos, with the aim of hunting down and identifying trillions of micro-organisms, fewer than one per cent of which had been studied before Dr Venter began this work in 2002. His work has already transformed the science of microbiology. The Secret Life of Earth's Smallest Creatures is a tale of adventure on the high seas, of international political intrigue, as well as a fresh, urgent look at how humans are impacting the careful balance of the bacteria that supports all life as we know it.