[Insert poop joke here]

It's rare for me to be reading just one book at a time. Usually I bounce back and forth between at least two—one that I read at my desk or on the couch, and one that I read in my "inner sanctum". It's an unusual book that has me so interested that I'm willing to go searching for it every time I want something to read (or need to use the can). Yet for the time it took to read it, Carl Zimmer's Microcosm: E. Coli and the New Science of Life was essentially glued to my hand. Perhaps it would have been more appropriate, given the subject matter, to only read it on the throne, but it was just too good to be read in mere 15-minute snippets.

First isolated from baby diapers by a German physician in the 19th century, Escherichia coli (and its Mr. Hyde, Shigella) is most famous today for making people sick. Inside our bodies E. coli is a pioneer—one of the first species of bacterium to set up shop inside us, though hardly the last, and in normal circumstances it can provide a protective effect. At the heart of this seeming contradiction is the fact that E. coli has enormous diversity. Much of the fun in reading Microcosm lies in coming to understand how that could be so, given that this lowly microbe mostly reproduces by binary fission.

As a structural biologist, I frequently use liters of E. coli—primarily a strain called BL21(DE3). One thing Zimmer notes is that E. coli is absolutely essential to modern molecular bioscience. Its ability to produce the DNA and proteins we need for research makes this lowly bacterium one of our greatest investigative tools. Biomolecular NMR as we know it owes as much or more to the humble microbe (and its willingness to grow thickly in nutrient-poor media) as it does to men like Wüthrich and Bax.

Those who, like myself, primarily know E. coli as a tool for bioscience will recognize several names along this little tour, and learn a great deal about how it came to be such a powerful resource for us. Many will be surprised to learn how controversial some activities we take for granted (transfection of exogenous genetic material into bacteria, for example) were 20-30 years ago. Readers who have very little biology background need not fret, of course. Carl Zimmer is an excellent writer who introduces all the material carefully. Only some very basic knowledge about DNA, proteins, and bacteria is necessary. Zimmer will carry you the rest of the way, from bacteriophages and flagella all the way to synthetic biology, GM crops, and gene circuits.

Whether you work with E. coli every day or just cringe when you hear those words on the evening news, Microcosm will be an engaging, rewarding, and informative read.

While you wait for a chance to go to the bookstore (or for delivery, if like me you use Amazon all the time) check out Carl Zimmer's blog, The Loom, at ScienceBlogs.