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well, at the foundation where we work on infectious disease, there'll be meetings where people say, "oh, did gut bacteria affect this? or there's a bacteria in this insect." and sue, who's the ceo of the foundation found this book and came in and handed me a copy and said, "oh, this really shows the landscape of this amazing phenomenon of how microbes are such a key part of all life forms." that’s right. so i went to this germ-free facility where they raise mice in these sterile bubbles. those mice do not contain multitudes. they've never seen bacteria in their lives. and because of that their bodies did unexpected things like their bones and their blood vessels don't develop in the right way

if they don't encounter the right microbial signals. one thing we work on you describe is this idea that wolbachia lives inside insects. and in the case of the aedes aegypti mosquito can actually reduce its ability to be disease-carrying. the idea that we might be able to control all these diseases by implanting wolbachia into the aedes aegypti mosquito just blows my mind. and wolbachia when it was first discovered was ignored. it took a lot of time before people realized that it had the potential to influence human health in such a positive way. the microbiome is very much like that. long ignored and now only recently appreciated.

i think the last place i would have expected any microbiome connection is a neurological disease like parkinson's. there's so many interesting links between the microbiome and the gut and brain and behavior. i think the microbiome provides this connective tissue that links all of our organ systems together and it influences the way we think; the way we behave. the idea of organisms that are microscopic changing the way we think feels kind of deeply unsettling. and yet, there it is. the fact that it stays under control, i find it amazing how complex the microbiome is and would not have expected this.

yeah, absolutely. and that's the kind of grander view of life that i wanted to get across in the book. that, you know, with you and i sitting here as two individuals, but actually we're two entire worlds. hey, thanks ed, it's great to have you here. thank you for having me. it's been fantastic.

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