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DARK LIFE

MARTIAN NANOBACTERIA, ROCK-EATING CAVE BUGS, AND OTHER EXTREME ORGANISMS OF INNER EARTH AND OUTER SPACE

In an account that is half cave adventure, half science venture, intrepid journalist Taylor tells what it’s like to collect bacteria samples in the deep and dark and what happens later when experts battle over what the depths reveal. The bacteria, called “archaea,” are bugs that can live in virtual darkness, in steamy ocean depths around volcanic vents, deriving energy not from oxygen but from sulfur, iron, and other minerals. They may just be the most abundant form of life on the planet. Where controversy abounds is on the existence of a subset of archaea, fetchingly called “nanobacteria”—putative itty- bitty bugs that, the pro-nanos claim, are responsible for all the wonderful materials, like travertine marble, that precipitate out of water, and even cave tunnels and grander spaces. Add petroleum deposits and maybe even the plaques that form in human arteries and brains, and you have the grounds for mucho academic warfare. But it was actually the controversy about whether a Martian meteorite found in Antarctica contained fossil microbes that truly precipitated the battle and is the basis for the book. This subplot threads its way through the text as Taylor pits the Johnson Space Center scientists and the electron-microscope pictures produced by a (then) bright undergraduate NASA intern against orthodox and dismissive academicians. Along the way we are treated to graphic descriptions of caving here and abroad: rappeling down sheer cave walls, crawling inch by inch in hot muddy water, wearing masks against hydrogen sulfide and carbon monoxide vapors, and gathering slimy mats of biofilm (“snottites”). While Taylor’s sympathies support extraplanetary life and nanos, he emphasizes the need for more clinching evidence: the jury is still out. In the meantime readers can relish eyewitness accounts of academic fur flying and the nonclaustrophobic can experience the vicarious thrills of cavers for whom getting there is a lot of the fun.

Pub Date: April 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-684-84191-6

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: May 27, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999

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WHY FISH DON'T EXIST

A STORY OF LOSS, LOVE, AND THE HIDDEN ORDER OF LIFE

A quirky wonder of a book.

A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.

Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.

A quirky wonder of a book.

Pub Date: April 14, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020

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SEVEN BRIEF LESSONS ON PHYSICS

An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...

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Italian theoretical physicist Rovelli (General Relativity: The Most Beautiful of Theories, 2015, etc.) shares his thoughts on the broader scientific and philosophical implications of the great revolution that has taken place over the past century.

These seven lessons, which first appeared as articles in the Sunday supplement of the Italian newspaper Sole 24 Ore, are addressed to readers with little knowledge of physics. In less than 100 pages, the author, who teaches physics in both France and the United States, cogently covers the great accomplishments of the past and the open questions still baffling physicists today. In the first lesson, he focuses on Einstein's theory of general relativity. He describes Einstein's recognition that gravity "is not diffused through space [but] is that space itself" as "a stroke of pure genius." In the second lesson, Rovelli deals with the puzzling features of quantum physics that challenge our picture of reality. In the remaining sections, the author introduces the constant fluctuations of atoms, the granular nature of space, and more. "It is hardly surprising that there are more things in heaven and earth, dear reader, than have been dreamed of in our philosophy—or in our physics,” he writes. Rovelli also discusses the issues raised in loop quantum gravity, a theory that he co-developed. These issues lead to his extraordinary claim that the passage of time is not fundamental but rather derived from the granular nature of space. The author suggests that there have been two separate pathways throughout human history: mythology and the accumulation of knowledge through observation. He believes that scientists today share the same curiosity about nature exhibited by early man.

An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both scientists and general readers.

Pub Date: March 1, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-399-18441-3

Page Count: 96

Publisher: Riverhead

Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015

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