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Review: Every Living Thing by Rob Dunn

By John Whitfield

21 January 2009

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

(Image: HarperCollins)

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. Rob Dunn even looks at the search for life elsewhere in the…

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