After years of being a renowned culinary expert, Eugenia Bone threw herself into the intense world of microbial science to write her latest book, Microbia: A Journey into the Unseen World Around You. She went back to college at age 55, and embraced the challenge of being an old student with unfamiliar material. It was, she said, a profound lesson in humility. On this episode of Speaking Broadly, Bone shares how rewarding her journey has been as she struggled to learn the role of these invisible organisms. Bone explains how microbes awakened her understanding of the universe's connectedness, a new appreciation of gut flora, and shares some astonishing facts like this one: when you spend time with someone your microbial debris clouds will morph and connect like a Venn diagram that defines friendship and family.

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