Slime: How Algae Created Us, Plague Us, and Just Might Save Us
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Say “algae” and most people think of pond scum. What they don’t know is that without algae, none of us would exist.
There are as many algae on Earth as stars in the universe, and they have been essential to life on our planet for eons. Algae created the Earth we know today, with its oxygen-rich atmosphere, abundant oceans, and coral reefs. Crude oil is made of dead algae, and algae are the ancestors of all plants. Today, seaweed production is a multibillion-dollar industry, with algae hard at work to make your sushi, chocolate milk, beer, paint, toothpaste, shampoo, and so much more.
In Slime we’ll meet the algae innovators working toward a sustainable future: from seaweed farmers in South Korea, to scientists using it to clean the dead zones in our waterways, to the entrepreneurs fighting to bring algae fuel and plastics to market.
With a multitude of lively, surprising science and history, Ruth Kassinger takes readers on an around-the-world, behind-the-scenes, and into-the-kitchen tour. Whether you thought algae was just the gunk in your fish tank or you eat seaweed with your oatmeal, Slime will delight and amaze with its stories of the good, the bad, and the up-and-coming.
Ruth Kassinger
RUTH KASSINGER is the author of Paradise Under Glass and A Garden of Marvels, as well as a number of award-winning science and history books for young adults. She has written for the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune,Health magazine,National Geographic Explorer, and other publications. She is a frequent speaker at conservatories, arboretums, and garden clubs, and has been featured on radio shows and Voice of America.
Read more from Ruth Kassinger
Slime: How Algae Created Us, Plague Us, and Just Might Save Us Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Garden of Marvels: How We Discovered that Flowers Have Sex, Leaves Eat Air, and Other Secrets of Plants Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsParadise Under Glass: The Education of an Indoor Gardener Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Build a Better Mousetrap: Make Classic Inventions, Discover Your Problem-Solving Genius, and Take the Inventor's Challenge Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Slime
Related ebooks
Jellyfish: A Natural History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stung!: On Jellyfish Blooms and the Future of the Ocean Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kingdom of Plants: A Journey Through Their Evolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Work of Nature: How The Diversity Of Life Sustains Us Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDemons in Eden: The Paradox of Plant Diversity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Deep Thinkers: Inside the Minds of Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFuture Sea: How to Rescue and Protect the World's Oceans Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life Between the Tides Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Wildscape: Trilling Chipmunks, Beckoning Blooms, Salty Butterflies, and other Sensory Wonders of Nature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn Defense of Plants: An Exploration into the Wonder of Plants (Plant Guide, Horticulture, Trees) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Treepedia: A Brief Compendium of Arboreal Lore Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Ocean of Air: Why the Wind Blows and Other Mysteries of the Atmosphere Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Darwin Comes to Town: How the Urban Jungle Drives Evolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pollination: The Enduring Relationship between Plant and Pollinator Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Secret Life of Fungi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Revolutionary Genius of Plants: A New Understanding of Plant Intelligence and Behavior Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brilliant Green: The Surprising History and Science of Plant Intelligence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Trees in My Forest Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Reason for Flowers: Their History, Culture, Biology, and How They Change Our Lives Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Edge of the Sea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The History of the World in 100 Plants Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEat the Beetles!: An Exploration into Our Conflicted Relationship with Insects Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Darwin's Most Wonderful Plants: A Tour of His Botanical Legacy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Teaching the Trees: Lessons from the Forest Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How the Earth Turned Green: A Brief 3.8-Billion-Year History of Plants Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Biology For You
Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ (Revised Edition) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Peptide Protocols: Volume One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Winner Effect: The Neuroscience of Success and Failure Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Gov't Told Me: And the Better Future Coming Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Obesity Code: the bestselling guide to unlocking the secrets of weight loss Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Letter to Liberals: Censorship and COVID: An Attack on Science and American Ideals Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Woman: An Intimate Geography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5"Cause Unknown": The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths in 2021 & 2022 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dopamine Detox: Biohacking Your Way To Better Focus, Greater Happiness, and Peak Performance Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mother of God: An Extraordinary Journey into the Uncharted Tributaries of the Western Amazon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jaws: The Story of a Hidden Epidemic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anatomy 101: From Muscles and Bones to Organs and Systems, Your Guide to How the Human Body Works Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma and Adversity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Blood of Emmett Till Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Confident Mind: A Battle-Tested Guide to Unshakable Performance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEmotional Blackmail: When the People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation, and Guilt to Manipulate You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Crack In Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Your Brain: A User's Guide: 100 Things You Never Knew Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Will Make You Smarter: 150 New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Slime
12 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was engrossing from beginning to end, but especially for me in the beginning. I loved the section on eating seaweed the most, and am ready to scour the local Asian markets to see what new seaweeds we can add to our diet. The final section is on climate change, and while I understand why the book was structured that way, I got overwhelmed and struggled to finish the book for a while. It's real information! It's important information! It just also hurts. But there are real cool things scientists are doing about it using algae, and hopefully it will help.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5“Algae are powerful enough on their own to change life on the planet. Billions of years ago they oxygenated the oceans and the air, then sent the planet into a deep freeze. They killed or banished the oceans’ anaerobic organism and covered the land in plants,” says Ruth Kassinger in Slime. Though this quote comes near the end of the book, the beginning really does tell the story eloquently. Not only are algae our past, they are also our future.Before there were plants, before there was even oxygen, there were algae. With no predators, or much of anything really, algae pumped out oxygen from their spots in the water. It was, and is, simple photosynthesis, using the sun to their advantage. Eventually, they developed into land-based plants that continued the service ashore, while some kinds of algae continually sank to the ocean floor, sequestering carbon dioxide and becoming massive oil deposits. In other words, we owe pretty much everything to algae, the oldest lifeforms still around.This story of algae’s role in life on Earth is fascinating, and it gives way to the astounding variety of algae, and how people all over the world have taken their local versions into their lives, and their stomachs. Algae filter the water they live in, keeping a shopping list of vitamins and minerals within them, and their larger versions – seaweeds. Algae cool the planet. They block the sun, cool the water, provide the seeds for clouds, and sequester CO2. They are powerful enough to cause ice ages. They also color coral and provide shelter for a huge variety of underwater life. We are however, managing to overcome those services, as Kassinger points out numerous times, in different contexts.There are now 400 dead zones in the oceans of the world, with more and longer lasting algal blooms forecast. A dead zone contains no oxygen, so nothing can live there. No plankton, no bottom feeders, no fish. The Baltic’s dead zone is the size of Montana, Kassinger says. Global warming is the cause, and we don’t know how bad things will get because of it. But we’re working on finding out. Algal blooms are occurring in freshwater lakes more and more, as everything warms to accommodate algae. Fertilizer, topsoil and pesticides complete the invitation to smelly red or green carpets of algae all summer long.Kassinger describes and uses lovely, clear illustrations by Shanthi Chandrasekar to demonstrate the varieties of algae and seaweed. Seaweed in particular is a cornucopia of nutrition we are only just getting into in the West. From iodine to iron to vitamin Bs, seaweed is a largely untapped blessing. It requires no arable land, no fertilizers and is easy to harvest.After this fast start, the bulk of the book is a little less satisfying, as Kassinger hits the road, visiting companies all over the world that are trying to make something more out of algae and seaweed. She describes endless factories and labs where someone is trying to leverage them. They are making biofuel, animal foods, biostimulants (super fertilizers), skin creams, or dreaming up geo-engineering projects to make algae sop up more of the CO2 we keep pumping out, while producing more oxygen. It’s an endless tour of failed startups from insufficinet capital, the price of oil falling (thanks to fracking) and less than efficacious management. There are also seaweed harvesters, who rake in, process and sell the raw or treated product for simple consumption. Some are purists, some are tinkerers. A lot of scientists seem to be playing with algae and seaweed DNA, trying to make them do more, or do things they were never intended to do. But the story of the algae and evolution easily tops them all.Kassinger writes with a light touch, despite the tech terms and biological classifications. She constantly exhibits her passion for her subject, to the point of getting diver certification. It’s a fun read as well as an education. Clearly, it is vastly more important to life on Earth than most know. And as we run out of land, algae will become an even more important part of daily life.I can’t think of another science book I’ve reviewed that contained recipes at the back.David Wineberg