Smarty Pants From The American Scholar

The modern American home is a wilderness: there are thousands of species of insects, bacteria, fungi, and plants that lurk in our floorboards, on our counters, and inside our kitchen cabinets—not to mention the microbes that flavor our food itself. The trouble with wilderness, however, is that humans always want to tame it. Cleaning, bleaching, sterilizing, and killing the organisms in our homes has had unintended—and dangerous—consequences for our health and the environment. Biologist Rob Dunn, a professor in the department of applied ecology at North Carolina State University, joins us to impart some manners about how to welcome these formerly unknown guests into our homes.Go beyond the episode:Rob Dunn’s Never Home AloneDig deeper into the experiments mentioned in the show, like the sourdough project or the world’s largest survey of showerheadsCat people: track your cat to reveal its secret life—and what it brings into your home—in this citizen science projectMore opportunities to participate in scien