Dunn’s Latest: ‘Wild Life of Our Bodies’

Biologist Rob Dunn’s new book, The Wild Life of Our Bodies, tells the stories of humans’ changing relationships with other species, be they worms, bacteria or tigers.

From an ecological perspective, he considers questions such as what our appendix does, why we suffer anxiety, why human babies tend to be born at night and whether tapeworms are good for us.

Dunn will talk about the book at 7 p.m. on June 30 at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh as part of the evening’s events.

E. O. Wilson described the book as “an extraordinary book … that with clarity and charm takes the reader into the overlap of medicine, ecology, and evolutionary biology to reveal an important domain of the human condition.”

A brief description of the book’s contents as well as an excerpt can be found in The Scientist. Or see more writing and an RSS feed on Dunn’s website http://www.robrdunn.com/. The book is available online and in stores.

Dunn, an assistant professor of biology, wrote the award-winning book Every Living Thing. His essays have been published in National Geographic, Natural History, Scientific American, BBC Wildlife, Wild Earth, Smithsonian, American Scientist and Seed magazines.