E. coli Infects the New York Times

With two weeks to go till Microcosm‘s publication date, I’m happy to direct your attention to an adapted excerpt that’s running in tomorrow’s New York Times. In this passage, I discuss what I like to call E. coli’s fingerprints.

We like to think that genes equal identity. If that were true, then a colony of genetically identical E. coli should be nothing but a robot army of clones. But diversity rules E. coli’s world, because there’s more to life than DNA, even when you’re just a microbe. Check it out.

I’ve also set up some pages over at carlzimmer.com with news, reviews, and other information about the book. And, of course, you’re encouraged to make your way over to Amazon…

Finally, if you’re interested in hitting some of the scientific literature, here are a few papers…

Stochastic Gene Expression In A Single Cell

Persister cells, dormancy and infectious disease

Predicting stochastic gene expression dynamics in single cells

[Update: NYT link fixed]