A wonderful review of Microcosm just came out in the Times of London. It’s particularly gratifying to see it written by Oliver Morton, a science writer gifted with grace and style…

[Zimmer] “comes up with turns of phrase and images that are deep delights. The ways in which the structure of the cell depends on the tempo of different molecular processes give it a ‘geography of rhythms’; the building of a flagellum, which takes longer than the bacterium’s replication, is like building a medieval cathedral, in that ‘a new microbe inherits a partially built tail and passes it on, still unfinished, to its descendants”. (Another flagellar delight is the way in which Zimmer shows that, far from being