Human Wildlife: The Life That Lives on Us

by Robert Buckman

Book Overview

Your body has 100 trillion cells, but only 10 trillion are human. The rest belong to the bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites that live on or in us. Some of these tenants are actually beneficial,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801874076
• ISBN13: 9780801874079
• Release Date: February 2003
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Length: 203 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 9.0" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

So Close to Five Stars

The other reviews of this book already give you more than enough information to make an educated purchasing choice. I will instead give you a "reader response" criticism. I enjoyed "Human Wildlife". The writing style is great and the illustrations are wonderful. The only problem I encountered was that the occasional misspelled word distracted from the flow of the narrative. Hopefully in the next edition the editor will run a spell checker. Otherwise, this was a fun book.

A really great book for older kids!

This is the second review I have written for this book. The first somehow disappeared so now I will try again. My child was doing a presentation at his school and needed resources. I found this at a library. He could not put it down. I skimmed through it and was very impressed. So I bought it. The photographs are fantastic, the wording is very educational and quite hilarious, and there was so much information that, had there not been a 3 book minimum on the bibliography, this would have been the only one he needed. I cannot recommend it enough for any budding scientist.

Wildlife viewing is one of the most popular hobbies... except in this case!

Human Wildlife: The Life That Lives on Us, by Robert Buckman, is... what? Delightful? No. Awe-inspiring? Nope! Motivating? Not this one. How about interesting, eye-popping, and entertaining? This book, a sort of "natural history guide" to the wildlife on planet human, is presented in a folksy style. I kept envisioning myself sitting in a lecture being given by Dr. Buckman. He really is knowledgeable and witty. From maggot therapy, to the origin of bad breath, to the creepy life of the nasty Guinea worm, to the smells formerly known as "cutting the cheese," this attractive (?) book is a wealth of information. I'm sure the point of the book is to make readers aware of what lies within. So whether you smell volatile sulfur compounds coming from your tongue or... the other end, or you'd rather smell lavender than old t-shirts, you are influenced by the small things that live inside and upon us. [If the previous sentence is mysterious, you'll need to read the book!] I am guessing that Dr. Buckman would be a popular lecturer! I wonder if he is on the speaking circuit.

The origin of feces

The human body contains about 100 trillion cells, but only 10 trillions of them are human. The rest belong to the entities that call our body home. In Human Wildlife Robert Buckman takes us through a tour of the lives of the worms, bacteria, viruses and other creatures that live on and in us. I picked up this book after listening to an interview with Dr Buckman. I was fascinated by the details Buckman provided on the origins of pheromones (produced by bacteria in our armpits), mouth breath (bacteria at the back of the tounge), and the cause of fart smell (colon bacteria breaking down proteins). What finally sold me on the book was the discussion on feces, a topic on which I know very little. Now that I have finished reading the book I can say that I have not been disappointed. Buckman is informative while entertaining at the same time. His story about the fart-in-the-library problem made me laugh out loud :) I wish Buckman went into a little more details on some topics, but that can only be expected from an introductory text geared toward the general public. Last but not least, the pictures and illustrations in this book are outstanding. I will never look at an eyebrow again without expecting to see a little Demodex, an eyebrow mite that two thirds of us carry, wiggling its tail back at me.

For biology students and non-specialist general readers

Human Wildlife: The Life That Lives On Us by Dr. Robert Buckman (Medical oncologist, Sunnybrook Regional Cancer Center, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto) is an authoritative and inherently fascinating study of the bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites that live within and upon human beings. A few of these life forms are beneficial; most are neither helpful nor harmful, and a few species are viciously parasitic or even lethal. Full-color photographs (many of them magnified pictures of microscope viewings), add a stunningly effective touch to this accessibly informational resource for biology students and non-specialist general readers alike.