Intelligent, important assessment of a confusing phenomenon and its potentially catastrophic implications.
Culinary writer Jacobsen (A Geography of Oysters, 2007, etc.) takes a laid-back yet terrifying look at the conundrum of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), which has devastated honeybees.
While CCD received media attention for its sheer weirdness, Jacobsen focuses on the larger ecological implications, particularly regarding the food chain. “80 percent of the food we put in our mouths,” he reminds us, “relies on pollination somewhere down the line.” While this delicate process is taken for granted in the era of industrial agriculture, it still depends upon the participation of surprisingly fragile insect populations. Indeed, one contributor to this fragility has been the industry’s reliance upon “busing” honeybee hives as rentals from farm to farm. CCD’s rise has been sudden, mysterious and brutal: By spring 2007, “the losses threatened an ancient way of life, an industry, and one of the foundations of civilization.” The author builds his narrative around beekeepers’ efforts to contend with CCD, beginning in 2006, when it became clear that their carefully managed hives were emptying out. Some force was disrupting the complex society of each hive, which divides pollination, honey-making and reproduction into regimented tasks. As beekeepers and scientists from all over the country shared their dispiriting experiences, they discerned that CCD attacked both hive behavior and the bees’ immune systems. Jacobsen identifies numerous potential culprits, all linked with the stressors created by the intersections of factory farming, globalization and the beekeepers’ craft. The suggestion that cell phones were to blame was debunked early; other possibilities, including pesticides, genetically modified crops and exotic maladies made resistant through cross-breeding, seem harder to dismiss. The author writes from a well-informed “green” perspective, in a breezy, humorous tone at odds with the ominous implications of his tale. For many readers, it may make the mystery of CCD easier to comprehend.
Intelligent, important assessment of a confusing phenomenon and its potentially catastrophic implications.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-59691-537-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2008
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
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...
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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