Microlands

Upon completing his historic work on the Genome Project in 2002, J. Craig Venter declared that he would sequence the genetic code of all life on Earth. Thus began a 15-year quest to collect DNA from the world’s oldest and most abundant form of life: microbes. Boarding the Sorcerer II, a 100-foot sailboat turned research vessel, Venter travelled over 65,000 miles around the globe to sample ocean water and the microscopic life within. Here, he and science writer David Ewing Duncan, tell the remarkable story of these expeditions and of the momentous discoveries that ensued. In the face of unprecedented climate change, they show how we can harness the microbial genome to develop alternative sources of energy, food, and medicine that might ultimately avert our destruction.