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 Alone
• Dig deeper into the experiments mentioned in the show, like the sourdough project or the world’s largest survey of showerheads
• Cat people: track your cat to reveal its secret life—and what it brings into your home—in this citizen science project
• More opportunities to participate in scientific research about everything from belly button ecology to counting the crickets in your basement through Your Wild Life

Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.

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Have suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman.

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