Micro Life

Book excerpt: Explore the everyday miracle of the microscopic world With spectacular macro photography and microscope images, this ebook reveals a hidden, living world full of intricate structures beyond the naked eye. Included are the tiniest insects and spiders; but looking deeper, you will discover truly microscopic creatures--even bacteria and viruses. Earth is home to more microbes, and more different types of microbes, than any other living organism. Bacteria on Earth outweigh humans by 1,100 to 1; and without them, all world ecosystems would collapse. This ebook reveals this vital, unseen realm, but it includes large life-forms too, in extreme close-up, so that you can wonder at the beauty of a pollen grain, a butterfly egg, the spore of a fungus, and the nerve cell of a human. The spectacular imagery in Micro Life exploits cutting-edge technology, such as focus-stacked macro photographs, as well as micrographs (microscope images) including scanning electron micrographs. Illustrations nearby explain the science--from the workings of an insect's eye to how a plant "breathes" through its leaves. The biology builds into a reference on how life works--and how all organisms, however small, solve the basic problems of movement, reproduction, energy, communication, and defense. Micro Life is a beautiful and surprising look at the natural world.