Book cover of 'Microlands' by J. Craig Venter and David Ewing Duncan, featuring a blue space-themed background with cell illustrations and quotes from Siddhartha Mukherjee and Kirkus Reviews.

Microlands

The Future of Life on Earth (and why it’s smaller than you think)
by J. Craig Venter and David Ewing Duncan

You’ve heard of the human microbiome. Did you know the Earth has one, too? In total, our oceans, soil, sky, plants, and animals are home to 5x10(30) (five million trillion trillion) microbes that are the true masters of our planet. This book is an epic science and adventure story of famed geneticist Craig Venter’s voyages from 2003-2018 in a 100-foot sailing and research vessel that collected microbes all over the world—and revolutionized how we view this tiny, invisible world. Microlands also details how humans and climate change are altering the Earth’s microbiome in ways that are not healthy for us or for the ecosystem we live in. (Harvard U Press/ LittleBrownUK

Read my essay in Vanity Fair about the book: The Next Climate Change Calamity?: We’re Ruining the Microbiome, According to Human-Genome-Pioneer Craig Venter


My commentary in Scientific American: Carbon in the Oceans Is Altering the Micro-Fabric of Life: 


US edition titled The Voyage of Sorcerer II—Order Here

“...brimming with the excitement of discovery…will undoubtedly shape our understanding of the global ecosystem for decades to come.”

– Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies

Book cover of 'Talking to Robots' by David Ewing Duncan featuring silhouettes of a human and a robot on a pink-blue gradient background.

Talking to Robots

Tales from Our Human Robot Futures

24 robots and AI systems that are being built or dreamed about in the present – including Teddy Bot, Doc Bot, Warrior Bot, Facebook Bot, Politician Bot, Sex Bot, Matrix Bot, Immortal Me Bot, and God Bot. What’s different is that each bot is described by a narrator who is living in the future. He or she (or it?) knows how things turn out for each bot, with some of these future scenarios turning out great, others not so much. (Dutton)

Featured: Today Show, Time, NPR, USA Today, Bloomberg, and more

Video of David on PBS Newshour 

Excerpted in Inc. Magazine 

“...intensely readable, downright terrifying, and surprisingly uplifting new book…”
- Vanity Fair

“...it’s the future that award-winning journalist David Ewing Duncan explores in this riveting read…”
- Time

Book cover of "Masterminds: Genius, DNA, and the Quest to Rewrite Life" by David Ewing Duncan

Masterminds

Genius, DNA, and the Quest to Rewrite Life

A Best Book of the Year – San Francisco Chronicle

A depiction of cutting-edge science and its profound implications told through the personalities of scientists who are rewriting life on earth.

Throughout history, the outsized personalities of scientists have astonished us with their brilliance and audacity. From Galileo to Jonas Salk, they push society into new realms with great leaps of inventiveness and originality, providing us with everything from the wheel to rocket ships and penicillin. Today's masterminds in biotechnology promise lifespans up to 400 years; cures for cancer; and an end to pollution. But these masterminds could also produce unintended nightmares – bioengineered lifeforms that run amuck, bioweapons, social upheavals.

Which will it be: heaven or hell, or both, or neither? (HarperCollins)

David on NPR's Morning Edition with Renee Montaigne

“Rather than speculating about the future in a more conventional way, David Ewing Duncan, in his charming and often amusing book uses instead the personalities and thoughts of a coterie of exceptional geneticists.”
— Sunday Telegraph, Adrian Woolfson

“200 year old people? Emails sent by brain waves? [Duncan] sketches the possible future.”
— USA Weekend

“...vivid, memorable portrayals of the scientists working on biology's most fascinating frontiers.” – James Fallows, Atlantic

Cover of the book 'Experimental Man' by David Ewing Duncan, featuring a partial image of a man's body on a red, mosaic-style background.

Experimental Man

What one man’s body reveals about his future, your health, and our toxic world 

David Ewing Duncan takes the ultimate high-tech medical exam, investigating the future impact of what's hidden deep inside all of us. Duncan takes "guinea pig" journalism to the cutting edge of science, building on award-winning articles he wrote for Wired and National Geographic, in which he was tested for hundreds of genes and chemicals associated with disease, emotions, and other traits. Expanding on these tests, he examines his genes, environment, brain, and body, collected terabytes of personal health data on himself and exploring what they reveal about his and his family's future health, traits, and ancestry, as well as the profound impact of this new self-knowledge on society, families, individuals, and what it means to be human. (Wiley)

“...brilliant view of what cutting-edge medical technology can - and cannot - tell us about our future health."
— Clive Cookson, Financial Times

“… Duncan shows what good reporting and storytelling can do. His narrative method… educates and entertains.”
– San Francisco Chronicle

"Twenty years from now David Duncan's pioneering grand experiment will become commonplace…It's not often you get to read a book mailed back from the future, but the one you hold is just that: news from the year 2029."
— Kevin Kelly, Wired