Books
A selection of new and notable
books of scientific interest
SPACE 50
PIERS BIZONY
In just half a century, people have managed to
explore the heavens in a way that ancient people
never imagined. The space age dawned in 1957 with
the launch of the Russian space-
craft Sputnik 1. Since then, people have been to the moon and
back, sent space probes to Mars
and Saturn, and constructed an
international space station.
Science writer Bizony looks back
on space exploration and ponders its future. He details the
rivalry between the two ingenious rocket scientists
Sergei Pavlovich Korolev and Wernher von Braun,
who paved the way for the intense space race
between Russia and the United States. Since NASA’s
formation in 1958, U.S. citizens have been enamored of the idea of space flight. Political pressure
after Russia’s successful launch of a man into space
spurred the U.S. government to catch up. Bizony
chronicles the subsequent missions launched by
both the United States and Russia. The author also
explains some of the problems that have plagued
NASA since its inception. Finally, Bizony examines
whether the future of space travel lies in vessels
designed by private companies and paid for by
space tourists. HarperCollins, 2006, 320 p., color
photos, hardcover, $40.00.
MEALS TO COME:
A History of the Future of Food
WARREN BELASCO
With an ever-expanding world population facing an
increasingly imperiled environment, what does the
future hold for food production and consumption?
Belasco, a professor of American studies at the Uni-
versity of Maryland, looks to the
history of food production for
clues about its future. He examines ethnic and economic influences on the consumption of
animal products and the preference for meat over grain-based
cuisines. He recounts past food
predicaments, including the
inflation of food prices, the
inequitable distribution of food surpluses, and Cold
War jitters about the appeal of communism to malnourished people. He writes that the West’s preference for wheat over other grains such as rice and
rye is misplaced, that such foods have different
environmental as well as nutritional impacts, and
that many non-Westerners live well without luxury
foods. He looks at utopian and dystopian models of
the future of food. In so doing, the author outlines
three prevailing views: classic, which posits that a
steady expansion of civilization will lead to an equilibrium between traditional food supplies and population; modernist, which predicts that technology
will create food such as the science fiction standard meal-in-a-pill; and recombinant, which combines elements of the classic and modernist
approaches to create both palatable organic foods
and so-called functional foods marketed for their
health benefits. Univ. Calif. Press, 2006, 358 p.,
b&w images, paperback, $21.95.
DARK COSMOS: In Search of Our
Universe’s Missing Mass and Energy
DAN HOOPER
Amazingly, only 5 percent of the matter in the uni-
verse is observable as Earth, other planets, the sun,
the stars, and debris. All the rest is invisible, perhaps
composed of dark matter sur-
rounded by dark energy. The
search for these two elements is
the fundamental task facing
astrophysicists today, writes
Hooper, a theoretical astrophysi-
cist. He introduces readers to
this search, defining what scien-
tists know about the nature of
dark matter and introducing can-
didate hiding places known as massive compact
halo objects (MACHOs). Scientists infer the existence of these dark objects on the basis of their
gravitational effects on visible objects in space.
However, they also know that MACHOs alone
wouldn’t account for all dark matter, so some
researchers have nominated neutrinos, other exotic
particles, and even more-bizarre, extra-dimensional
strings as dark matter candidates. The author then
outlines the difficult notion of dark energy, a phenomenon that could explain the expanding universe
and determine its fate. HarperCollins, 2006, 240
p., b&w illus., hardcover, $24.95.
IS PLUTO A PLANET? A Historical
Journey through the Solar System
DAVID A. WEIN TRAUB
The discovery of various large objects in the outer
solar system has called into question the definition
of a planet. In August, an astronomers’ group
answered the question posed in the title of Wein-
traub’s book with a controversial “no.” Weintraub, a
professor of astronomy, reviews
the notion of planet. To ancient
observers, planets were consid-
ered wandering stars because
they appeared to rise and set in
an otherwise fixed sky. Aristotle
established an Earth-centered
view of the universe that made
the sun, the moon, Mercury,
Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn
the original seven planets. Nicolas Copernicus in
1515 observed that Earth revolves around the sun,
not vice versa. Johannes Kepler defined a planet as
an object that revolves around the sun in accordance with his three laws of planetary motion. The
number of planets would be in flux throughout the
18th century, culminating in the discovery of
Uranus in 1781. Pluto was declared a planet in
1930. In the 1940s, Gerald Kuiper asserted the existence of a solar system reservoir of materials left
over from the formation of the planets. During the
late 1990s and early 2000s, astronomers discovered hundreds of objects there, some of which
were large enough to rival Pluto. Weintraub
describes astronomers’ current attempts to reconcile these objects with the definition of a planet,
including the creation of planet subsets. Finally, he
provides an appendix with information about the
now-demoted planet Pluto. Princeton, 2007,
254 p., b&w images, hardcover, $27.95.
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LETTERS
Concerns vented
“Venting Concerns: Exploring and protecting deep-sea communities” (SN: 10/7/06,
p. 232) barely scratches the surface of the
problem. What is stopping someone from
gene splicing the disease of choice onto
heat-loving bacterium? Something that
can live near the 600°F of melting lead
will certainly survive the standard hospi-tal-sterilization process.
D. J. KAVA, BEAUMONT, TEXAS
The statement “2 tons of ore from ocean
sites should yield as much copper as
80 million tons of material mined on land”
can’t be correct. That’s 40 million to 1. No
one mines that kind of ore.
TERRENCE KERWIN, SILVERTON, COLO.
The statement should have been that 2
million tons of ocean ore would yield that much
copper. —J. RALOFF
Eruption deduction
In the article “Hot, Hotter, Hot: Climate
seesawed during dinosaur age” (SN:
10/7/06, p. 228), the explanation for the
increased ocean-surface temperature
seemed to focus solely on atmospheric
effects. I wonder if variations in undersea
volcanism might have contributed to the
sudden spike in Pacific Ocean surface temperatures during the Aptian epoch of the
Cretaceous period. If so, then a moderately
higher release of volcanic ash might have
contributed to the sudden drop in ocean-surface temperatures.
DARRYLE VAUGHT, SELMER, TENN.
Say no to drugs
In the study that was cited in “Life Blood:
Drug stops mothers’ bleeding after births”
(SN: 10/14/06, p. 243), misoprostol was
tested as a more practical means of inducing postdelivery contractions in women in
developing countries, despite “troubling
side effects.” Because most women need no
intervention to cause the uterus to contract,
why not wait a few minutes to see which of
them will require the medication, instead
of subjecting every single one of them to
“severe shivering and fever”?
DIAN DUCHIN REED, SOQUEL, CALIF.
Where drugs may not be available, why
not use the natural approach to curb post-partum bleeding, namely, encourage
breast-feeding? A baby’s suckling stimulates the mother’s flow of natural oxytocin.
Low tech perhaps, but the methodology
has been working for millennia.
VIRGIL H. SOULE, FREDERICK, MD.
