A well-written extension of the reach of reason in an area fraught with phobia and hysteria.
A leading expert in nuclear medicine and in dealing with the aftermath of nuclear disasters offers a basis for assessing the risks associated with radiation.
With science writer Lax (Faith, Interrupted, 2011, etc.), renowned oncologist and hematologist Gale presents a primer on nuclear radiation. Writing for general readers, the author first establishes what nuclear radiation is, distinguishing the part that is man-made from that of natural origins and then what is harmful from what is not. He explains how radiation is measured and what normal background absorption rates are (per year, per person) in different parts of the world. He shows how man-made radiation has increased since nuclear weapons were developed. Surprisingly, the major component of this increase has not been weapons testing, but rather medical and nuclear diagnostics. Gale augments this discussion with a summary of what has been learned medically and scientifically from the nuclear bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as from atmospheric testing programs. Examining the half-lives of nuclear particles, the author shows how thyroid cancer and leukemia arise and how they can be treated. This background enables him to transition to the dangers of radiation in all its forms. He also discusses coal burning versus nuclear electric generation. Another surprise is just how unlikely it is for cancer-producing mutations to arise from atmospheric radiation. Gale ends with a helpful summary of his points.
A well-written extension of the reach of reason in an area fraught with phobia and hysteria.Pub Date: Jan. 29, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-307-95969-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
Lively writing and colorful anecdotes enhance this insightful look at an unexpected side of agriculture.
We’ve cultivated plants since the dawn of time; but all along, the plants have been cultivating us as well.
Pollan (A Place of My Own, 1997) uses four plant species to support his thesis: apples, tulips, cannabis, and potatoes. Each, by offering some quality that we humans find valuable, has managed to propagate itself throughout the world. In the process, each has generated more than its share of fascinating lore. Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman) has become an icon of early American enterprise, creating orchards out of untamed forest. But the apples Chapman planted were meant not for eating, but for cider, the ubiquitous tipple of early America. Only when temperance began to give the apple a bad name did orchardmen switch to the sweet varieties for eating. The tulip boom in early 18th-century Holland saw prize bulbs selling for the price of a fashionable house in Amsterdam. Now, ironically, the plant that commands high prices in Amsterdam is marijuana, over the last few decades the focus of some of the most intense research in the botanical sciences (most of it conducted indoors, away from official eyes). The humble potato, for its part, has come a long way since its origins as an Andean weed: The russet Burbank, for example, which yields perfect fries for the fast-food trade, dominates the US market almost to the exclusion of all other taters, and its cultivation depends heavily on chemicals nastier than anything the cannabis bud secretes. Pollan keeps the reader aware of how the plants induce us to spread their genetic material to new environments—and how the preservation of natural variability is a key to keeping them (and us) healthy.
Lively writing and colorful anecdotes enhance this insightful look at an unexpected side of agriculture.Pub Date: May 15, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-50129-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A penetrating look at the bitter controversy between animal rights activists and research scientists over the use of monkeys and chimpanzees in medical research. Given their proven intelligence, asks the author, can a chimp or monkey ``comprehend that it is being used by another species? It is not a question everyone wants to see answered.'' Blum, who won a Pulitzer Prize for the Sacramento Bee articles that led to this book, acknowledges that in tracing the history of primate research- -and she discusses several horrendous abuses—any accounting ``must include the knowledge gained, the human lives saved.'' But some researchers who recognize the animals' suffering and strive for more humane handling, such as Roger Fouts at Central Washington University, find themselves ostracized and refused government funding. Fouts, renowned for his sign language work with the chimp Washoe, has battled the National Institutes of Health for years, finally filing suit to challenge its way of regulating experimental animal facilities. His 1986 visit, along with famed chimpanzee specialist Jane Goodall, to a notorious Maryland laboratory conducting AIDS research brought enough negative publicity to force some changes in the way the animals are caged. Other researchers, like Tom Gordon, director at Yerkes Field Station (a ``monkey farm'' in Georgia), fault both animal activists ``for making the monkeys too human'' and scientists for treating them as mere mechanical objects. Primates' humanlike physiology (a chimp's DNA is 98.5% identical to a human's) renders them perhaps indispensable in AIDS research and other crucial medical experiments. But, as Blum shows, it is their humanlike nature and their intelligence that give rise to important questions about ethics and respect for life. As a solution, Blum has nothing better to offer than a vague suggestion for ``education programs'' aimed at reaching a ``troubled'' middle ground. But she brings the issues into sharp, disturbing focus.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-19-509412-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
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