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Underbug: An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology
This book is about termites the way the Bible is about men with beards. Yes, it takes you into the mounds and inside the bugs, but also deep into the strange labs and pulsing, eclectic minds of the roboticists, geneticists, physicists, and ecologists who try to figure them out. Perhaps best of all, it takes you deep into the brain of Lisa Margonelli, who demonstrates what an unusual and deep thinker she is.
320 pages, Hardcover
Published August 21, 2018
87 people are currently reading
1740 people want to read
About the author
Lisa Margonelli
5 books21 followersLisa Margonelli is the author of the national bestseller Oil on the Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank and writes the Small Science column for Zócalo Public Square, where she is a senior editor. From 2006 to 2012, she was a fellow at the New America Foundation. She has written for The Atlantic, Wired, Scientific American, The New York Times, and other publications. She lives in Maine.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 76 reviews
September 23, 2018
I enjoyed this popular science account with some reservations, mainly when she turned away from science to pop-philosophy. But she is a good writer, and she conveys the way science is actually done really well. Plus she’s light-hearted about it (usually). A step up from her first book. 4 stars.
Here’s the best review I saw:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/underbug...
— which is, sadly, paywalled. The NYT review is also good:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/17/bo...
A quote from the WSJ review:
“So what is this book about? I struggled with definitions throughout my reading of it, finally concluding that it’s a scientific quest, a travel chronicle (Australia, Namibia, various locations in the U.S.), a compendium of profiles of gifted scientists, a series of philosophical musings and a speculation on the future of the planet. In short, it’s an odd book, made odder still by the fact that it’s often simultaneously engrossing and exasperating. And yes: The reader who perseveres through “Underbug” will also learn a thing or two about the recondite workings of termite civilization."
Be aware that the biology can be tough sledding for a non-biologist. The robotics stuff is more straightforward, and more surprising: the insight that termites are individuals amd not automatons came from a robotics engineer.
Margonelli is a bit too credulous about the doom & gloom crowd for my taste. I liked her philosophical musings the least. If they annoy you too, just skip over them.
================
From my earlier preview:
Mary Roach likes it, & gave the book a nice blurb:
"This book is about termites the way the Bible is about men with beards. Yes, it takes you into the mounds and inside the bugs, but also deep into the strange labs and pulsing, eclectic minds of the roboticists, geneticists, physicists, and ecologists who try to figure them out. Perhaps best of all, it takes you deep into the brain of Lisa Margonelli, one of the finest writers and most original thinkers we have. A surprising, swirling, fantastically unpredictable, thought-provoking, funny, and (depending on your species) delicious book."
Here’s the best review I saw:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/underbug...
— which is, sadly, paywalled. The NYT review is also good:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/17/bo...
A quote from the WSJ review:
“So what is this book about? I struggled with definitions throughout my reading of it, finally concluding that it’s a scientific quest, a travel chronicle (Australia, Namibia, various locations in the U.S.), a compendium of profiles of gifted scientists, a series of philosophical musings and a speculation on the future of the planet. In short, it’s an odd book, made odder still by the fact that it’s often simultaneously engrossing and exasperating. And yes: The reader who perseveres through “Underbug” will also learn a thing or two about the recondite workings of termite civilization."
Be aware that the biology can be tough sledding for a non-biologist. The robotics stuff is more straightforward, and more surprising: the insight that termites are individuals amd not automatons came from a robotics engineer.
Margonelli is a bit too credulous about the doom & gloom crowd for my taste. I liked her philosophical musings the least. If they annoy you too, just skip over them.
================
From my earlier preview:
Mary Roach likes it, & gave the book a nice blurb:
"This book is about termites the way the Bible is about men with beards. Yes, it takes you into the mounds and inside the bugs, but also deep into the strange labs and pulsing, eclectic minds of the roboticists, geneticists, physicists, and ecologists who try to figure them out. Perhaps best of all, it takes you deep into the brain of Lisa Margonelli, one of the finest writers and most original thinkers we have. A surprising, swirling, fantastically unpredictable, thought-provoking, funny, and (depending on your species) delicious book."
February 19, 2019
I read just over half (131 pages). On the one hand, Margonelli writes enjoyable science for laymen, in a style that reminds me of Ed Yong’s. Termite research has surprising relevance in various fields, such as biofuel production, architecture, and swarm intelligence. On the other hand, I’m simply not interested enough in this set of species. I can imagine having better luck with a book that considered a different group of insects per chapter. Also, despite the interesting settings (Namibia and Nevada), the details of the scientists she meets and the experiments they’re doing get pretty tedious. My favorite bit was Chapter 13 because it was autobiographical – she tells the ironic story of how termites ate through the wall of her place, and remembers her back-to-nature existence in Maine with a father who trapped and skinned muskrats. I’ll seek out her previous book on petroleum.
A couple of great quotes:
“Nobody loves termites, even though other social insects such as ants and bees are admired for their organization, thrift, and industry.”
“They are our underappreciated underlords, key players in a vast planetary conspiracy of disassembly and decay.”
A couple of great quotes:
“Nobody loves termites, even though other social insects such as ants and bees are admired for their organization, thrift, and industry.”
“They are our underappreciated underlords, key players in a vast planetary conspiracy of disassembly and decay.”
September 20, 2018
In "Underbug: An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology," author Lisa Margonelli obsesses with termites only to find herself undertaking a journey that stretches from the 16th to the 21st century, from philosophers to computer scientists, and from the technology of “grassoline” to drone warfare. The book includes Margonelli’s trips with a bewildering array of geneticists, biologists, and roboticists to Namibia, the Southwest, and Australia on “termite safaris”. Though you can learn a lot about termites from the book, it goes much farther than that, addressing questions about society, politics, technology, and philosophy.
With all its richness, one of the best themes in the book is showing all the ways human beings miss what we’re looking at when we shamelessly impose our preconceptions on the world we observe. So many writers and scientists looked at termites and saw justifications for their own social hierarchies or socialist utopias. Even today’s scientists made the mistake of assuming termites were robotic when in fact they have highly idiosyncratic behaviors. Maybe my favorite fact is that most termites are slackers!
That last point shows one of the real treats of this book: it is written accurately but also with wry humor and human warmth. In one exchange, Lisa and a scientist speculate about why biologists are more interested in good food than the computer scientists. You’ll just have to read it to see why it is so amusing. No spoilers here.
With all its richness, one of the best themes in the book is showing all the ways human beings miss what we’re looking at when we shamelessly impose our preconceptions on the world we observe. So many writers and scientists looked at termites and saw justifications for their own social hierarchies or socialist utopias. Even today’s scientists made the mistake of assuming termites were robotic when in fact they have highly idiosyncratic behaviors. Maybe my favorite fact is that most termites are slackers!
That last point shows one of the real treats of this book: it is written accurately but also with wry humor and human warmth. In one exchange, Lisa and a scientist speculate about why biologists are more interested in good food than the computer scientists. You’ll just have to read it to see why it is so amusing. No spoilers here.
November 5, 2018
This is one of those rare books that will make you care a lot about something you didn't think you cared about. The excellent writing makes it an easy read and the pace and wonderful storytelling pulls you right through to the end. It's a surprisingly fun read for anyone who is even slightly curious about the world. I learned a lot and was entertained the whole way through -no easy feat. If you don't know what to buy your book-loving friends for the holidays, your search is over.
September 4, 2018
I haven't been on Goodreads for a while because I think social media is terrible in general. Reading books is good though and once in a while I read something I want to share widely. This is one of those times.
This is not only about termites (for most people, a check box on a home inspection) and their world, it is about ours. And others we don't even know. It is about our world visiting the termite world (and our author does a LOT of travelling and makes many introductions) over a decade and what they've learned about these insects that are eusocial cockroaches that learned to eat wood because it was an unconquered niche. And still is. So much I did not know about the research to extract gut flora dna to make cheap energy, make killer robots, build colonies on Mars.... you name it. Termite mounds are models and allegories for so many complex systems with emergent properties. This is not a sad story. I feel some hope that as a metaphotical termite splitting my time between so man hives, I am still required to be ME.
Thank you Lisa for drawing all these DNA threads and tunnels together for us. Goodreads is a digital mound of dirtballs and here is one more ball in the wall. Hey, teacher!
This is not only about termites (for most people, a check box on a home inspection) and their world, it is about ours. And others we don't even know. It is about our world visiting the termite world (and our author does a LOT of travelling and makes many introductions) over a decade and what they've learned about these insects that are eusocial cockroaches that learned to eat wood because it was an unconquered niche. And still is. So much I did not know about the research to extract gut flora dna to make cheap energy, make killer robots, build colonies on Mars.... you name it. Termite mounds are models and allegories for so many complex systems with emergent properties. This is not a sad story. I feel some hope that as a metaphotical termite splitting my time between so man hives, I am still required to be ME.
Thank you Lisa for drawing all these DNA threads and tunnels together for us. Goodreads is a digital mound of dirtballs and here is one more ball in the wall. Hey, teacher!
February 22, 2019
This is more of a memoir about the author's travels in search of termites and the people that study them with an excessively large dose of all sorts of other random things. The small portion of termite bits were interesting (but superficial), the rest not so much. The organisation of the book was also rather scattered.
April 19, 2019
I was looking forward to a book about termites but unfortunately this was not it. Too much of this book was dedicated to things barely tangentially related. The sections about the termites were good, but there was not enough of it.
November 19, 2018
I wish all non-fiction was as engaging as Lisa Margonelli made Underbug. She connects the topic of scientists studying termites in so many directions: history, ways of understanding the world, her personal story during the years researching the book, how we do science, and even the puzzle of consciousness. "I came to think that this one of of the biggest differences between being a scientist—this comfort with multiple unknowns— and being the the rest of us, who rely on narratives that suggest we know much more than we do." (109)
October 20, 2018
I so wanted to love this, and was longing to learn more about termites given our Californian house is infested with them! Why didn’t she talk about how to treat termites, and the tremendous damage they do to our homes? It was all just too complicated! I guess I was hoping for pop nonfiction but this definitely wasn’t that!
November 5, 2018
I was hoping for more termites and less flourish. Margonelli is a decent writer, but she belabours her observations, the background on the many people she meets along the way. I had to push through to finish it.
January 27, 2019
This is one of those books in which a lay writer embeds with teams of specialists to understand their objectives and challenges, acquires sufficient expertise to explain the high points to the rest of us, and then puts that into text. As a technical writer who's been doing the same thing over a period of many years with user guides, proposals, and briefing packages, I of course like the process and applaud the effort.
As a homeowner who has had to tent three termite-infested houses to date, I'm not a fan of the bugs. Still, this book makes a very good case for their potential significance in the broader scheme of things (not necessarily ecological).
Social insects (ants, bees, etc.) are traditionally perceived as being like factory workers with assigned tasks. However, evidence indicates there is no central regulation. The individuals in the colony/hive/mound respond to environmental cues on the basis of their internal coding—like neurons in a brain. So perhaps the insects themselves are a distraction, and the truly interesting aspect of this is the process, i.e., "what program are they running?"
Is it possible to write a similar program and test it on, say, robotic insects? If each individual has a certain limited set of possible actions, and performs those actions in concert with a large number of similar individuals—what will the result be? Exploring that question might lead to clues into how consciousness arises, how tumors are organized, why traffic jams occur, etc. (Say, this reminds me of another book on my to-read list.)
The author notes that this line of inquiry began with the fascination people once had with clockwork mechanisms. "Still, can termites be considered 'stateless automata'—memoryless identical machines that only react?" Later in the narrative, members of the team do create some "squat robots" (from the description given, not unlike the Cosmo toy my son got for Christmas last year), which are programmed to follow a complex sequence of steps, including collision avoidance maneuvers, to build a wall without a plan.
Robots and termites have very little in common, it turns out. Scientists studying the latter observe that the probability of an individual reacting in any given way is never zero and never one hundred percent. Other factors influence its behavior: hunger, perhaps, or memory, or even personality? When specific individuals are tracked, some of them work constructively but "if termites were actually factory workers, most of them would be fired." Some just sit around, or run back and forth aimlessly. The author goes so far as to claim, "Some termites have a different sense of the world and of themselves."
Alternative ways to consider the process are to (a) zoom out and ask whether the termite mound is a composite animal (a superorganism) composed of millions of self-organizing individuals, or (b) zoom in and view a single termite as "another shell company for a consortium of five hundred species of symbiotic microbes, all cooperating to digest wood for the mutual benefit of the Many." In other words, "perhaps the termite is just the delivery vehicle for the contents of the guts!" At the lowest level—where the cellulose and lignin of wood are broken down, scientists are still frustrated observers. "The termite's gut is a black box for which we increasingly know the parts and the results, but we don't know exactly how they work."
An understanding of this could be a Rosetta stone for how the entire biosphere is organized. But, the author says many times, in life sciences there is still no unified theory, as there is in, say, physics.
Another option is to zoom way, way out, to a frame of reference where ecology more obviously comes into play. When seen from an airplane, landscapes dotted with termite mounds have a repeating pattern suggestive of leopard spots. A high density of termites in a patch of ground creates looser soil that absorbs rainwater more readily and thereby supports more plant life, even during times of drought. There is a real fear that vast areas of Africa and Australia may turn into deserts, but when termites are present that transition is slower, and more likely to be reversible.
Circling around these questions are specialists in various disciplines, all debating fundamental questions. "Fights are occurring in labs and journals all over the world. When I started watching the researchers at work, I expected that some would turn out to be 'right' and the others proven wrong . . . but as the years went on I realized I was actually watching the great global termite mound of science—a collection of equipment, ambitions, ideologies, grudges, blind spots, and insights—interacting and reshaping the way we think." (Golly, sounds a lot like the public arena in general.)
Those of us on the outside who try to follow these developments are apt to experience frustration. A case in point is CRISPRs (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats of nucleotide bases), a discovery mentioned in this book that I'd read about when it was first made public. I understood it to be a potential breakthrough in gene editing (a subject of great interest to me). I should have known not to become excited; prior experience had already shown that very little of this stuff percolates down to the plane we live in. Nevertheless, an informed public needs the kind of perspective into it that Underbug provides.
An informed and technically literate public is what Lisa Margonelli says she wants, but I was a little surprised to learn in the second half of the book that it's because she wants oversight of what the scientists are doing. At the risk of oversimplifying her concern, it seems to be that there's potential for using technology in ways we won't like. That's not exactly a new idea, and—aside from saying scientists may be like termites in building something they don't understand—I'm not sure she adds to the conversation.
Most of the above revelations about termites and their significance comes from the book's first half. Perhaps the author should've wrapped it up then (a tech writer would), but instead she ponders the questions and implications further and adds her personal takeaway, sounding somewhat like a new Annie Dillard. I lost patience toward the end. Still, I'm glad to have read it.
As a homeowner who has had to tent three termite-infested houses to date, I'm not a fan of the bugs. Still, this book makes a very good case for their potential significance in the broader scheme of things (not necessarily ecological).
Social insects (ants, bees, etc.) are traditionally perceived as being like factory workers with assigned tasks. However, evidence indicates there is no central regulation. The individuals in the colony/hive/mound respond to environmental cues on the basis of their internal coding—like neurons in a brain. So perhaps the insects themselves are a distraction, and the truly interesting aspect of this is the process, i.e., "what program are they running?"
Is it possible to write a similar program and test it on, say, robotic insects? If each individual has a certain limited set of possible actions, and performs those actions in concert with a large number of similar individuals—what will the result be? Exploring that question might lead to clues into how consciousness arises, how tumors are organized, why traffic jams occur, etc. (Say, this reminds me of another book on my to-read list.)
The author notes that this line of inquiry began with the fascination people once had with clockwork mechanisms. "Still, can termites be considered 'stateless automata'—memoryless identical machines that only react?" Later in the narrative, members of the team do create some "squat robots" (from the description given, not unlike the Cosmo toy my son got for Christmas last year), which are programmed to follow a complex sequence of steps, including collision avoidance maneuvers, to build a wall without a plan.
Robots and termites have very little in common, it turns out. Scientists studying the latter observe that the probability of an individual reacting in any given way is never zero and never one hundred percent. Other factors influence its behavior: hunger, perhaps, or memory, or even personality? When specific individuals are tracked, some of them work constructively but "if termites were actually factory workers, most of them would be fired." Some just sit around, or run back and forth aimlessly. The author goes so far as to claim, "Some termites have a different sense of the world and of themselves."
Alternative ways to consider the process are to (a) zoom out and ask whether the termite mound is a composite animal (a superorganism) composed of millions of self-organizing individuals, or (b) zoom in and view a single termite as "another shell company for a consortium of five hundred species of symbiotic microbes, all cooperating to digest wood for the mutual benefit of the Many." In other words, "perhaps the termite is just the delivery vehicle for the contents of the guts!" At the lowest level—where the cellulose and lignin of wood are broken down, scientists are still frustrated observers. "The termite's gut is a black box for which we increasingly know the parts and the results, but we don't know exactly how they work."
An understanding of this could be a Rosetta stone for how the entire biosphere is organized. But, the author says many times, in life sciences there is still no unified theory, as there is in, say, physics.
Another option is to zoom way, way out, to a frame of reference where ecology more obviously comes into play. When seen from an airplane, landscapes dotted with termite mounds have a repeating pattern suggestive of leopard spots. A high density of termites in a patch of ground creates looser soil that absorbs rainwater more readily and thereby supports more plant life, even during times of drought. There is a real fear that vast areas of Africa and Australia may turn into deserts, but when termites are present that transition is slower, and more likely to be reversible.
Circling around these questions are specialists in various disciplines, all debating fundamental questions. "Fights are occurring in labs and journals all over the world. When I started watching the researchers at work, I expected that some would turn out to be 'right' and the others proven wrong . . . but as the years went on I realized I was actually watching the great global termite mound of science—a collection of equipment, ambitions, ideologies, grudges, blind spots, and insights—interacting and reshaping the way we think." (Golly, sounds a lot like the public arena in general.)
Those of us on the outside who try to follow these developments are apt to experience frustration. A case in point is CRISPRs (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats of nucleotide bases), a discovery mentioned in this book that I'd read about when it was first made public. I understood it to be a potential breakthrough in gene editing (a subject of great interest to me). I should have known not to become excited; prior experience had already shown that very little of this stuff percolates down to the plane we live in. Nevertheless, an informed public needs the kind of perspective into it that Underbug provides.
An informed and technically literate public is what Lisa Margonelli says she wants, but I was a little surprised to learn in the second half of the book that it's because she wants oversight of what the scientists are doing. At the risk of oversimplifying her concern, it seems to be that there's potential for using technology in ways we won't like. That's not exactly a new idea, and—aside from saying scientists may be like termites in building something they don't understand—I'm not sure she adds to the conversation.
Most of the above revelations about termites and their significance comes from the book's first half. Perhaps the author should've wrapped it up then (a tech writer would), but instead she ponders the questions and implications further and adds her personal takeaway, sounding somewhat like a new Annie Dillard. I lost patience toward the end. Still, I'm glad to have read it.
November 3, 2020
Someone once said words to the effect that small minds talk about other people, ordinary minds talk about themselves, and great minds talk about ideas.
Suffice it to say that Lisa Margonelli, our guide through "Underbug," has a medium-sized mind. She is a heck of a lot more interested in how she feels about termites than in the termites themselves. And when she does focus on the termites, she decides to put most of her time into ethology (the study of animal behavior) and even consciousness (!) in the bugs. Termites may have private lives, jealousies, and agendas. I sincerely doubt it, but considering that we have trouble figuring out much about smaller mammals with whom we've coevolved, one would think that this is a waste of time (the reader's and the researcher's). Madame Margonelli had other ideas, though.
If termite whispering is your thing, have at. Otherwise find another author who can speak to you about bugs, rather than talking to the bugs and to herself and leaving the layman reader out of the loop. Some interesting black ink drawings separate the chapters one from the other. Photos are scant, which is another oversight.
Suffice it to say that Lisa Margonelli, our guide through "Underbug," has a medium-sized mind. She is a heck of a lot more interested in how she feels about termites than in the termites themselves. And when she does focus on the termites, she decides to put most of her time into ethology (the study of animal behavior) and even consciousness (!) in the bugs. Termites may have private lives, jealousies, and agendas. I sincerely doubt it, but considering that we have trouble figuring out much about smaller mammals with whom we've coevolved, one would think that this is a waste of time (the reader's and the researcher's). Madame Margonelli had other ideas, though.
If termite whispering is your thing, have at. Otherwise find another author who can speak to you about bugs, rather than talking to the bugs and to herself and leaving the layman reader out of the loop. Some interesting black ink drawings separate the chapters one from the other. Photos are scant, which is another oversight.
March 1, 2019
I loved the book. I had no idea termites were so interesting. Did you know they are related to roaches and not to ants?? My favorite parts were about the robotics and about the microorganisms living within.
December 30, 2019
I liked this book so much I immediately got her other book on oil, too. Also I gave the book as a Christmas gift right and left. Also, she has written on alewives in Maine. Not everyone has eaten these fish, but Lisa Margonelli has done that.
January 17, 2023
Very in-depth and well written. After listening to a whole audiobook about them, I feel kind of bad for termites. Very interesting little guys
October 12, 2019
Interesting book full review on the way.
November 15, 2018
This book covers science and nature, from robots to different countries.
February 17, 2019
Full Disclosure: Lisa Margonelli and I are online friends, mainly because I admired her "Oil on the Brain" book since here in Houston, TX--we are a petroleum-industry city. That book definitely enlarged my perspective beyond my hometown views.
I fully expected her "Underbug" to do the same---as we battle both subterranean and dry wood termites here in Houston. Instead, I had my head turned around---which accounts for the "obsession" part of the title. The author doesn't really address the termites that are the bane of our existence here, but rather the organizational mind that creates communities.
As scientists (and the author) try to discern why and how termites build their communities and structures, it began to occur to me to look at our society. I began to think of the termites carting around their mudballs to build intricate structures as it relates to our own online and physical communities. Why do we post funny videos or cartoons online for others to see? Why am I posting this review for others to read? Why do we need to build higher and higher skyscrapers? Bigger and bigger stadiums? We could just enjoy those videos, cartoons or books without having to share them with a larger community or be happy with smaller buildings---but it seems like we are just as dedicated to our online and structural "mudballs" as the termites are to those they use to build their mounds. As we seem to have a need to build communities either physical or online, it might be good to determine why--so we can use this drive for even better purposes.
Then again, this book is a great argument for funding basic research. So much research is targeted and, in my opinion, we are missing the forest for the trees. Some larger discoveries might be made if we stepped back from research that is meant to yield specific financial gain. Also, this book is also a perfect argument for each of us being everyday scientists---getting out from behind our computers and into nature, recording our observations. Did so love the mentions of Eugène Marais and his non-professional observation of termites that he wrote up as "The Soul of the White Ant" which should give all of us the inspiration to go out, spend time just watching nature and write down what we see.
If I had anything to add to this book (and this is my own bias, due to my time spent documenting researchers in the TX Med Center---I think the author could have provided a bigger picture concerning the different evolutionary concepts being studied using termites. Neo-Darwinism is covered as well as endosymbiotic and epigenetic evolutionary processes. Right now, epigenetics is winning out in medical research (see above: targeted research = financial gain). Yet the endosymbiotic aspect of the termites could shed so much light on our own biome and the direction we are headed. Emphasizing how the termite genomic/digestive aspects provide new directions for human research might have added extra questions to consider for readers. The possibility of "grassoline" production by studying termites evolved ability to metabolize cellulose into energy in this book was totally fascinating---but explaining in further detail how termite research might relate to our own health? That might have prompted even more research dollars flowing in the direction of the researchers mentioned here.
All in all---a challenging read (some readers not familiar with certain science terms such as "stochastic" might need to have a dictionary nearby), but we need more challenging reads these days. We need to see beyond our daily lives to view the world in a different way to make real global societal changes. We need to read books that confront our comfort zones and get us out of our familiar bubbles. For that purpose, this book achieves every bit of that goal.
I fully expected her "Underbug" to do the same---as we battle both subterranean and dry wood termites here in Houston. Instead, I had my head turned around---which accounts for the "obsession" part of the title. The author doesn't really address the termites that are the bane of our existence here, but rather the organizational mind that creates communities.
As scientists (and the author) try to discern why and how termites build their communities and structures, it began to occur to me to look at our society. I began to think of the termites carting around their mudballs to build intricate structures as it relates to our own online and physical communities. Why do we post funny videos or cartoons online for others to see? Why am I posting this review for others to read? Why do we need to build higher and higher skyscrapers? Bigger and bigger stadiums? We could just enjoy those videos, cartoons or books without having to share them with a larger community or be happy with smaller buildings---but it seems like we are just as dedicated to our online and structural "mudballs" as the termites are to those they use to build their mounds. As we seem to have a need to build communities either physical or online, it might be good to determine why--so we can use this drive for even better purposes.
Then again, this book is a great argument for funding basic research. So much research is targeted and, in my opinion, we are missing the forest for the trees. Some larger discoveries might be made if we stepped back from research that is meant to yield specific financial gain. Also, this book is also a perfect argument for each of us being everyday scientists---getting out from behind our computers and into nature, recording our observations. Did so love the mentions of Eugène Marais and his non-professional observation of termites that he wrote up as "The Soul of the White Ant" which should give all of us the inspiration to go out, spend time just watching nature and write down what we see.
If I had anything to add to this book (and this is my own bias, due to my time spent documenting researchers in the TX Med Center---I think the author could have provided a bigger picture concerning the different evolutionary concepts being studied using termites. Neo-Darwinism is covered as well as endosymbiotic and epigenetic evolutionary processes. Right now, epigenetics is winning out in medical research (see above: targeted research = financial gain). Yet the endosymbiotic aspect of the termites could shed so much light on our own biome and the direction we are headed. Emphasizing how the termite genomic/digestive aspects provide new directions for human research might have added extra questions to consider for readers. The possibility of "grassoline" production by studying termites evolved ability to metabolize cellulose into energy in this book was totally fascinating---but explaining in further detail how termite research might relate to our own health? That might have prompted even more research dollars flowing in the direction of the researchers mentioned here.
All in all---a challenging read (some readers not familiar with certain science terms such as "stochastic" might need to have a dictionary nearby), but we need more challenging reads these days. We need to see beyond our daily lives to view the world in a different way to make real global societal changes. We need to read books that confront our comfort zones and get us out of our familiar bubbles. For that purpose, this book achieves every bit of that goal.
February 13, 2019
Wonderfully evocative, weird tales of bugs and the buggy people who study them.
July 3, 2019
Intriguing at first and was enjoying learn the esoterics of a topic I would not have imagined exploring. Kept following her crazy wild trips and slogging into and out of labs and field studies until I was exhausted. Got about 1/2 way and frankly quit.
October 8, 2018
Equal parts pop science and pop philosophy. The author successfully brings together various scientific fields and ideas with her own introspective take on the world at large. I expected a book on termites and technology and got a lot more. Sometimes she does get a bit hammy with the pop philosophy, but it more often helps than hinders enjoyment of the book.
September 24, 2018
here's a great interview:
https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/20...
https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/20...
October 6, 2018
A wonderful wonderful book about of all things termites.
June 12, 2020
I found this book rather frustrating. It seems to jump around all over the place. Partly, this is as a result of the way the book has been produced. It seems the publisher commissions a writer ....who can write and is a good researcher but who knows nothing about the subject....to go out and interview a lot of experts and digest all the information into a book. In the process we get a whole story of the author's travels and her interviews with the little personal touches about the idiosyncracies of the various experts. Yes, I get it.....it does make the book more human friendly ...but it also burdens it with a lot of probably unnecessary words and verbiage. And maybe, bringing in somebody who is not already committed to some scientific paradigm, is a way of getting an unbiased view of research and knowledge in the field.
But I did find that Margonelli's musings and philosophising about the society of termites to get a little distracting and verging on the religious ...and I wasn't looking for this.
I'm not sure that we actually arrived at any real conclusions either about whether the termite nest was a super organism or something else.
I did learn a few interesting things along the way. For example, it's not totally straightforward to take a biochemical process being carried out by a microbe in the termite's gut and turn out a fuel (grassoline) at the other end. Yes the termite can do it and digest cellulose but it's much harder to do when out of the termite and trying to turn it into an industry process. However, one research group had been able to bring the price of lignocellulosic biofuel from an estimated $100,000 per gallon to about $30....which I find absolutely extraordinary.
I also learned that termite behaviour is classically non-linear....forty termites are not like two groups of twenty termites.
And they don't always work like little teams of workers....much of the time only about 5% of the termites are actually working on the job in hand...the others are milling around. Also the gut microbes in the termite co-evolved with the termites. The termites didn't necessarily pick up new organisms over the years. A lot of the Australian termites have protists in their gut ...each with multiple genomes and bacterial symbionts riding along with them ...sometimes these protists are 100 x bigger than the bacteria in the termite....Oh, and by the way, Linda the Australian expert on these protists would not say (p184) "Bugger if I know".....the phrase is "Buggered if I know" .......
Maybe the closest we get to a picture of what is going on in the termite "mind" is the suggestion of Scott Turner that "The termites and fungi and microbes act together as a cognitive system...and rather than defining the individual genetically, it may be more productive to define them cognitively"......"Cognition is a social phenomenon, whether it's happening as nerve cells interact with one another or within a crowd of termites. Together the termites have a sense of what their environment should be like, ....the perfect mound has few breezes, has the perfect concentration of carbon dioxide and humidity , has sooth edges and hard---not crumbly---walls. What the termites do is, they build a world to conform to that cognitive picture.....and that is the intentionality of the swarm".
There is also a digression into robo-bees: tiny en gingered robots. Some of which might be designed to act as a swarm on a battle field ...each with a shaped charge sufficient to penetrate the head of a soldier. And there are no conventions (Or any serious) discussion about the ethics of using such weaponry. It's like the situation we had prior to WWI when there was no conventions about the use of poisoned gases. And there is no empathy possible when a robobee has been programmed to seek out a person and release it's charge.
On the whole an interesting book but I did get a little distracted by Magonelli's philosophising. Four stars from me.
But I did find that Margonelli's musings and philosophising about the society of termites to get a little distracting and verging on the religious ...and I wasn't looking for this.
I'm not sure that we actually arrived at any real conclusions either about whether the termite nest was a super organism or something else.
I did learn a few interesting things along the way. For example, it's not totally straightforward to take a biochemical process being carried out by a microbe in the termite's gut and turn out a fuel (grassoline) at the other end. Yes the termite can do it and digest cellulose but it's much harder to do when out of the termite and trying to turn it into an industry process. However, one research group had been able to bring the price of lignocellulosic biofuel from an estimated $100,000 per gallon to about $30....which I find absolutely extraordinary.
I also learned that termite behaviour is classically non-linear....forty termites are not like two groups of twenty termites.
And they don't always work like little teams of workers....much of the time only about 5% of the termites are actually working on the job in hand...the others are milling around. Also the gut microbes in the termite co-evolved with the termites. The termites didn't necessarily pick up new organisms over the years. A lot of the Australian termites have protists in their gut ...each with multiple genomes and bacterial symbionts riding along with them ...sometimes these protists are 100 x bigger than the bacteria in the termite....Oh, and by the way, Linda the Australian expert on these protists would not say (p184) "Bugger if I know".....the phrase is "Buggered if I know" .......
Maybe the closest we get to a picture of what is going on in the termite "mind" is the suggestion of Scott Turner that "The termites and fungi and microbes act together as a cognitive system...and rather than defining the individual genetically, it may be more productive to define them cognitively"......"Cognition is a social phenomenon, whether it's happening as nerve cells interact with one another or within a crowd of termites. Together the termites have a sense of what their environment should be like, ....the perfect mound has few breezes, has the perfect concentration of carbon dioxide and humidity , has sooth edges and hard---not crumbly---walls. What the termites do is, they build a world to conform to that cognitive picture.....and that is the intentionality of the swarm".
There is also a digression into robo-bees: tiny en gingered robots. Some of which might be designed to act as a swarm on a battle field ...each with a shaped charge sufficient to penetrate the head of a soldier. And there are no conventions (Or any serious) discussion about the ethics of using such weaponry. It's like the situation we had prior to WWI when there was no conventions about the use of poisoned gases. And there is no empathy possible when a robobee has been programmed to seek out a person and release it's charge.
On the whole an interesting book but I did get a little distracted by Magonelli's philosophising. Four stars from me.
November 28, 2018
One thing I like to do sometimes is enter book giveaways... even though I NEVER win them. Suddenly one day a month or so ago I got an email saying "Congrats! You won!" Yippee! When I saw which book I won, I was even happier. However, I'm sure not everyone would be really happy to win OR read a book about termites. However, as you may have guessed, this book is about a lot more than termites. It's about social systems among various types of fauna, (mostly humans and insects), big issues like energy dependence & how various life forms impact the environment, general and specific obsessions with how the universe works and a lot more.
Underbug allows the reader to tag along with journalist Lisa Margonelli as she travels the globe to visit different research pods focused mainly on different termite species. It covers a fairly broad range of time and therefore research advancements and insights made over that time period. Anyone who finds things like this fascinating will LOVE this book. If you don't really have an interest in insects or biology, you would still probably find this pretty interesting. The people who attempt to understand different ecosystems like the world of termites are after more than just the inner workings of these little bugs. They are looking for breakthroughs in fossil fuel alternatives, advancements in medicine and a deeper understanding of how the world operates in general. This book is for deep thinkers but it's not just for scientists or researchers though. It's written in an approachable style that will appeal to anyone.
A fascinating read from start to finish, Underbug is definitely worth checking out even if you have a passing interest in entomology, biology, technology or related topics!
Underbug allows the reader to tag along with journalist Lisa Margonelli as she travels the globe to visit different research pods focused mainly on different termite species. It covers a fairly broad range of time and therefore research advancements and insights made over that time period. Anyone who finds things like this fascinating will LOVE this book. If you don't really have an interest in insects or biology, you would still probably find this pretty interesting. The people who attempt to understand different ecosystems like the world of termites are after more than just the inner workings of these little bugs. They are looking for breakthroughs in fossil fuel alternatives, advancements in medicine and a deeper understanding of how the world operates in general. This book is for deep thinkers but it's not just for scientists or researchers though. It's written in an approachable style that will appeal to anyone.
A fascinating read from start to finish, Underbug is definitely worth checking out even if you have a passing interest in entomology, biology, technology or related topics!
February 23, 2020
Heard its audio book. Fascinating for microbiologist, scientists and nature-lovers.
Like other social insects, termites have long been seen as mirrors of human society.
So, what are termites? If you got that question at a pub quiz, you’d probably start by saying that they’re insects, right? Well, for a long time, this seemingly obvious fact – the “bugginess” of termites – just wasn’t something that people noticed. Instead, what they saw when they looked at insects was a reflection of themselves.
But if you really want to understand termites, you have to look beyond the individual.
Termites are eusocial, a term used by biologists to describe the highest level of sociality known among animals. It’s characterized by collective child-rearing and a division of labor between fertile and non-fertile “castes.”
Termites evolved from cockroaches between 250 and 155 million years ago. They had a unique trait: their guts contained microbes that allowed them to digest wood. Over time, they became highly social creatures and began forming large colonies. These colonies have long fascinated humans, but it was only relatively recently that scientists stopped projecting human ideas onto them. Once they did, they discovered termites’ remarkable architectural skills, their ability to “farm” fungi, and the mechanisms that might just allow us to create sustainable biofuels.
Like other social insects, termites have long been seen as mirrors of human society.
So, what are termites? If you got that question at a pub quiz, you’d probably start by saying that they’re insects, right? Well, for a long time, this seemingly obvious fact – the “bugginess” of termites – just wasn’t something that people noticed. Instead, what they saw when they looked at insects was a reflection of themselves.
But if you really want to understand termites, you have to look beyond the individual.
Termites are eusocial, a term used by biologists to describe the highest level of sociality known among animals. It’s characterized by collective child-rearing and a division of labor between fertile and non-fertile “castes.”
Termites evolved from cockroaches between 250 and 155 million years ago. They had a unique trait: their guts contained microbes that allowed them to digest wood. Over time, they became highly social creatures and began forming large colonies. These colonies have long fascinated humans, but it was only relatively recently that scientists stopped projecting human ideas onto them. Once they did, they discovered termites’ remarkable architectural skills, their ability to “farm” fungi, and the mechanisms that might just allow us to create sustainable biofuels.
August 15, 2022
I learned many bizarre facts about the termite by reading this book (for example: cockroach family member, fungal gardens, the search for grass-o-line!). But this book is a real gem for finding the mirror in the termite mound; I learned a lot more about humans and the challenges of our shared future than I ultimately did about the termite.
It took me a couple months to read this book. But every time I came back, I was absorbed.
One quote:
"In the mound, it is possible to see the whole order of the terrestrial sphere, or in more modern language, the progress from local to global. First there is the teeming world of the termite's gut, processing grass; then the world of the termite, digging and grooming in their great social pile; then the world of the termites and their fungus, communicating in the mound through waves of chemistry and water and vapor; and then the world of the plants and geckos on the surface. Way up in the air, a giraffe obliviously munches on a tasty leaf. And from the air, a regularly ordered carpet of fertility and super-fertility becomes evident. And finally, a planet with an atmosphere."
It took me a couple months to read this book. But every time I came back, I was absorbed.
One quote:
"In the mound, it is possible to see the whole order of the terrestrial sphere, or in more modern language, the progress from local to global. First there is the teeming world of the termite's gut, processing grass; then the world of the termite, digging and grooming in their great social pile; then the world of the termites and their fungus, communicating in the mound through waves of chemistry and water and vapor; and then the world of the plants and geckos on the surface. Way up in the air, a giraffe obliviously munches on a tasty leaf. And from the air, a regularly ordered carpet of fertility and super-fertility becomes evident. And finally, a planet with an atmosphere."
February 14, 2020
Termites fascinate scientists of all different disciplines. Bio-engineers try to crack the workings of the termite gut to develop industrial methods for "grassoline". Roboticists study them as inspiration for swarms of robots, self-organizing builders. Ecologists try to unlock how they impact the biome, providing buffers against encroaching deserts and enriching the soil.
Science writer Lisa Margonelli travels around the world to work with termite researchers, from the giant termite mounds of Africa, to Australia (termites hollow out eucalyptus trees that are used for didgeridoos), to the American Southwest. Roboticists and geneticists working to codify and understand this social insect, more closely related to the cockroach than ants. She makes occasional tangents, such as the history of the machine gun, or bauxite mining, or how theories of termite society changed along with human society.
A lot of food for thought packed into a slim volume. I can't quite remember the review or interview that put this on my wishlist, but I'm glad it did.
Science writer Lisa Margonelli travels around the world to work with termite researchers, from the giant termite mounds of Africa, to Australia (termites hollow out eucalyptus trees that are used for didgeridoos), to the American Southwest. Roboticists and geneticists working to codify and understand this social insect, more closely related to the cockroach than ants. She makes occasional tangents, such as the history of the machine gun, or bauxite mining, or how theories of termite society changed along with human society.
A lot of food for thought packed into a slim volume. I can't quite remember the review or interview that put this on my wishlist, but I'm glad it did.
June 12, 2019
I loved how this book made me consider so many aspects of insect and human life (and their connections) in ways I hadn't known about - though my grasp of the content is still fairly weak. Architecture/design, weaponized insects, robotic future, biofuel and synthetic food, termite restoration of polluted environments, gut bacteria, passionate/ardent investigators and researchers, and much existential pondering.
p 228 "...those of us outside of science have a responsibility to better understand science and to consider the implications of technologies. By talking alternatively about apocalypses and saving the world, we participate in a game of mystifying technology, turning it into a sort of play, an imaginary space or an entertainment that we enjoy passively. We are preventing serious discussion before it even happens. We need to call technology what it is—an abstraction of power, politics, and economics. And then...use them tot become more human..."
p 228 "...those of us outside of science have a responsibility to better understand science and to consider the implications of technologies. By talking alternatively about apocalypses and saving the world, we participate in a game of mystifying technology, turning it into a sort of play, an imaginary space or an entertainment that we enjoy passively. We are preventing serious discussion before it even happens. We need to call technology what it is—an abstraction of power, politics, and economics. And then...use them tot become more human..."
March 17, 2021
It took me some time to digest just what Underbug was about. Per Underbug’s jacket synopsis, the book promises to illuminate some connection between termites and technology. I’m not sure this is what the book ends up accomplishing.
A journalist might be distinguished from other authors or academics by two conditions. First a journalist writes to inform a general audience. Second, a journalist writes from lived experience. Some academic expertise may be part of that process, but the bread and butter of journalism is going into the world, becoming absorbed in a subject and reporting back out to the rest of us.
Underbug does exactly that, Lisa Margonelli absorbs herself in fundamental research on termites and the technologists who derive inspiration from termites but more than report back on the facts she found, she reports back on her experience. She writes well on this subject but it is up to the reader’s personal tastes whether her subjective experience is what they are looking for.
Margonelli’s book is not technical in nature. Part of her charge is to abstract away esoteric jargon and make her subject accessible, but as she tells her tale, over and over again, the scientists and engineers she interacts with chafe at how poorly their work is understood. They don’t begrudge her this, they understand that there is significant barrier to understanding between them and the masses. In fact, most of the researchers she interviews feel even other subject matter experts seem oblivious to the true insights of their field. The biologists, physicists, roboticists, chemists, and industrialists all see one another as on the wrong side of understanding. The problem is Margonelli does not do much to bridge these rifts, she just constructs her own island of understanding from which to look out on the scene.
If Margonelli’s island of understanding were persuasive, I may have gleaned more from the book but she didn’t sell me.
The books most evocative parts occur when Margonelli embraces her cynical nature and points out all the ways the science and technology may be misused. She talks at length about how technology has always had a downside and how the fathers of new technology rarely hold much sway in how their creations are used. She also catalogues a somewhat ambivalent response from some of her subjects when asked about moral obligations in the development and use of technology. The upshot is the most emotionally impactful part of the book is a downer.
Underbug is a fine book by many measures. Margonelli invested herself a great deal in her subject and wrote well on that process. Unfortunately, the end product illuminated little for me beyond her subjective experience and it made me feel bad in the process.
A journalist might be distinguished from other authors or academics by two conditions. First a journalist writes to inform a general audience. Second, a journalist writes from lived experience. Some academic expertise may be part of that process, but the bread and butter of journalism is going into the world, becoming absorbed in a subject and reporting back out to the rest of us.
Underbug does exactly that, Lisa Margonelli absorbs herself in fundamental research on termites and the technologists who derive inspiration from termites but more than report back on the facts she found, she reports back on her experience. She writes well on this subject but it is up to the reader’s personal tastes whether her subjective experience is what they are looking for.
Margonelli’s book is not technical in nature. Part of her charge is to abstract away esoteric jargon and make her subject accessible, but as she tells her tale, over and over again, the scientists and engineers she interacts with chafe at how poorly their work is understood. They don’t begrudge her this, they understand that there is significant barrier to understanding between them and the masses. In fact, most of the researchers she interviews feel even other subject matter experts seem oblivious to the true insights of their field. The biologists, physicists, roboticists, chemists, and industrialists all see one another as on the wrong side of understanding. The problem is Margonelli does not do much to bridge these rifts, she just constructs her own island of understanding from which to look out on the scene.
If Margonelli’s island of understanding were persuasive, I may have gleaned more from the book but she didn’t sell me.
The books most evocative parts occur when Margonelli embraces her cynical nature and points out all the ways the science and technology may be misused. She talks at length about how technology has always had a downside and how the fathers of new technology rarely hold much sway in how their creations are used. She also catalogues a somewhat ambivalent response from some of her subjects when asked about moral obligations in the development and use of technology. The upshot is the most emotionally impactful part of the book is a downer.
Underbug is a fine book by many measures. Margonelli invested herself a great deal in her subject and wrote well on that process. Unfortunately, the end product illuminated little for me beyond her subjective experience and it made me feel bad in the process.
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