Tag Archives: Ona

Science Mysteries Explained – Anthony Fordham

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Science Mysteries Explained

In-Depth Explorations of Natural Science’s Most Fascinating Facts

Anthony Fordham

Genre: Reference

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: June 5, 2014

Publisher: DK Publishing

Seller: PENGUIN GROUP USA, INC.


BRAND NEW TOPIC AND TITLE IN FULL-COLOR Many people find science fascinating and there never seems to be an end to facts and figures that can be learned. Idiot's Guides: Science Mysteries Explained takes a question/answer-based approach to teach readers a variety of topics in Earth Science, Life Science, Chemistry, Physics, and Cosmology. Using helpful four-color illustrations and expert information, this book features 130 fascinating questions and answers to satisfy any armchair scientist.

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Science Mysteries Explained – Anthony Fordham

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Edible Wild Plants – John Kallas Ph.D

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Edible Wild Plants

John Kallas Ph.D

Genre: Nature

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: June 1, 2010

Publisher: Gibbs Smith

Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC


Edible wild plants have one or more parts that can be used for food if gathered at the appropriate stage of growth and properly prepared. Edible Wild Plants includes extensive information and recipes on plants from the four categories. Foundation greens: wild spinach, chickweed, mallow, purslane; tart greens: curlydock, sheep sorrel, wood sorrel; pungent greens: wild mustard, wintercress, garlic mustard,shepherd’s purse; and bitter greens: dandelion, cat’s ear, sow thistle, nipplewort. Dr. John Kallas has investigated and taught about edible wild plants since 1970. He founded WildFood Adventures (www.wildfoodadventures.com) in 1993 and is the publisher and editor of Wild FoodAdventurer. He lives in Portland, Oregon. The definitive work on growing, harvesting, and eating wild greens.

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Edible Wild Plants – John Kallas Ph.D

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This federal permit used to fast-track pipelines. Now it’s threatening them.

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This federal permit used to fast-track pipelines. Now it’s threatening them.

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Plastic Ocean – Charles Moore

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Plastic Ocean

How a Sea Captain’s Chance Discovery Launched a Determined Quest to Save the Oceans

Charles Moore

Genre: Earth Sciences

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: October 27, 2011

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

Seller: PENGUIN GROUP USA, INC.


The researcher who discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch—and remains one of today's key advocates for plastic pollution awareness—inspires a fundamental rethinking of the modern Plastic Age.  In 1997, environmentalist Charles Moore discovered the world's largest collection of floating trash—the Great Pacific Garbage Patch ("GPGP")—while sailing from Hawaii to California. Moore was shocked by the level of pollution that he saw. And in the last 20 years, it's only gotten worse—a 2018 study has found that the vast dump of plastic waste swirling in the Pacific Ocean is now bigger than France, Germany, and Spain combined—far larger than previously feared. In  Plastic Ocean , Moore recounts his ominous findings and unveils the secret life of plastics. From milk jugs and abandoned fishing gear to polymer molecules small enough to penetrate human skin and be unknowingly inhaled, plastic is now suspected of contributing to a host of ailments, including infertility, autism, thyroid dysfunction, and certain cancers. An urgent call to action,  Plastic Ocean's  sobering revalations have been embraced by activists, concerned parents, and anyone alarmed by the deadly impact and implications of this man-made environmental catastrophe. 

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Plastic Ocean – Charles Moore

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The Ocean of Life – Callum Roberts

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The Ocean of Life

The Fate of Man and the Sea

Callum Roberts

Genre: Earth Sciences

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: May 24, 2012

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

Seller: PENGUIN GROUP USA, INC.


A Silent Spring for oceans, written by "the Rachel Carson of the fish world" ( The New York Times ) Who can forget the sense of wonder with which they discovered the creatures of the deep? In this vibrant hymn to the sea, Callum Roberts—one of the world’s foremost conservation biologists—leads readers on a fascinating tour of mankind’s relationship to the sea, from the earliest traces of water on earth to the oceans as we know them today. In the process, Roberts looks at how the taming of the oceans has shaped human civilization and affected marine life. We have always been fish eaters, from the dawn of civilization, but in the last twenty years we have transformed the oceans beyond recognition. Putting our exploitation of the seas into historical context, Roberts offers a devastating account of the impact of modern fishing techniques, pollution, and climate change, and reveals what it would take to steer the right course while there is still time. Like Four Fish and The Omnivore’s Dilemma , The Ocean of Life takes a long view to tell a story in which each one of us has a role to play.

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The Ocean of Life – Callum Roberts

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Forecast this 4th of July: Fireworks with a chance of lead exposure

The coronavirus may have canceled many of this weekend’s organized Fourth of July fireworks displays, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t celebrating at home. Roadside fireworks stands are seeing an explosion of business, and firework complaints are cropping up across the country. In Boston, police calls regarding illegal fireworks were 23 times higher this year compared to last year — and that was in May. In New York in the first few weeks of June, such calls were up 236 times over the same period last year.

Bill Weimer, vice president of the retailer Phantom Fireworks, says he’s been “knocked over” by this season’s booming fireworks sales. “The demand and the business we’ve seen so far has been the strongest early fireworks season I’ve seen in my years of involvement in the fireworks business,” he told CNN.

The immediate dangers from exploding fireworks — injury and fires — are high on many public officials’ minds. But as the Fourth draws near and Independence Day partygoers snatch up the nation’s supply of sparklers, StarFires, and Raging Zombies, health experts have pointed to another troubling side effect of the pyrotechnics displays: a spike in air pollution.

They’re specifically worried about particulate matter — tiny dust and soot particles that may cause human health and environmental problems. A 2015 study in the journal Atmospheric Environment found that the average level of particulate matter across the United States increased a whopping 42 percent on the Fourth of July, and the Environmental Protection Agency warns that exposure to particulate matter may cause significant respiratory problems. For people with preexisting heart or lung conditions, it can even lead to premature death.

This week, a new study published in the journal Particle and Fibre Toxicology adds to the layers of concern. Not only is particulate matter bad in general, but the study found that the emissions from fireworks may pose unique health risks. After collecting particulate matter released by 12 types of commercially available fireworks, the study’s authors found high levels of toxic metals like copper and strontium in five of them.

Most of these metals are technically allowed in fireworks, said Terry Gordon, the lead author of the study and a professor of environmental medicine at NYU Langone Health. In fact, those metals are responsible for producing the fireworks’ vivid colors. But that doesn’t mean people should be inhaling them.

Krystal Pollitt, an environmental health scientist at the Yale School of Medicine who was not involved with the new study, says that when people breathe in metal particles like the ones let off by fireworks, it can cause cells to experience “oxidative stress.” This disrupts normal cellular signaling and metabolic processes and, if left unchecked, it can lead to cell damage and even cell death.

“Oxidative stress is a mechanism that underlies a lot of different diseases,” Pollitt told Grist, including a number of respiratory conditions. It is also implicated in kidney and liver failure, as well as neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s.

Gordon and his team were looking for signs of oxidative stress — and that’s what they found when they exposed human lung cells in a lab to the metal-containing particulate matter from the fireworks. Some types of fireworks, like the so-called “Saturn Battery 1,” caused a stronger reaction than others. Meanwhile, cells that were exposed to a control sample of black carbon — a common and relatively innocuous component of particulate matter —showed no signs of oxidative stress.

The researchers later confirmed the damaging effects of the particulate matter in live cells by conducting an experiment on mice. After injecting a subset of the fireworks particles into the mice’s lungs, they found that the particles with higher concentrations of toxic metals caused greater inflammation.

Gordon said he was most surprised to find that emissions from two of the fireworks contained dangerous levels of lead, despite the fact that lead is not allowed in consumer fireworks. One type of firework, called the “Black Cuckoo,” produced particulate matter with lead concentrations greater than 40,000 parts per million.

“That means it was 4 percent lead, which is outrageous,” Gordon told Grist. Even though the industry says it follows rigorous testing procedures to prevent this kind of contamination, he added, either regulators or manufacturers appear to be failing to keep it out of consumer fireworks. “To me, it’s almost criminal activity,” he said.

The American Pyrotechnics Association, an industry group, expressed concern about the fireworks’ metal content, saying the contaminated products should not have gotten past routine regulatory testing. “All consumer fireworks imported into the U.S. are prohibited from containing any form of lead,” the group’s executive director Julie Heckman told Grist. However, she added that the study did not provide detailed information on the fireworks or their manufacturers, making it difficult to determine where the oversight occurred.

Though Gordon’s study focused on small-scale fireworks displays — the kind you might have in your backyard — he said his results raise questions about the safety of larger shows. Gordon suspects that big firecrackers use many of the same chemicals as the little guys, and big displays produce much greater amounts of particulate matter. Plus, air pollution from big celebrations can blanket urban areas and linger for days.

Although some of the largest Fourth of July fireworks shows won’t be happening this year — events in New Orleans, Orlando, Minneapolis, most of southern California, and elsewhere have been canceled — others are plowing ahead. Macy’s NYC fireworks show, the largest pyrotechnics display in the country, is going on as a series of short, unannounced displays to prevent crowding. And after a 10-year moratorium on pyrotechnics at Mount Rushmore due to fire danger, the Trump administration is planning to bring “THE BIG FIREWORKS” back to the national monument, along with an anticipated crowd of 7,500 people.

These events raise obvious concerns about spreading the coronavirus through person-to-person contact, but the danger posed by pollution remains unclear without more research on the population-wide toxicological effects of exposure to firework-generated particulate matter.

“We don’t know what the risks could be,” Gordon said, calling for more research. But until we know more, he says it could be worth it to investigate alternative ways of celebrating Independence Day. Laser shows, he noted, are bright and colorful without the toxic emissions.

For the time being, he recommends that viewers exercise caution, whether they’re staying home to detonate a Lava Blaster or heading to a big pyrotechnics show. “If I’m in a fireworks celebration and the wind’s blowing right at my family and me,” he told Grist. “I’m not a happy camper.”

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Forecast this 4th of July: Fireworks with a chance of lead exposure

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UN gives airlines a break on emissions targets because, duh, COVID-19

Governments around the world have rushed to help the airline industry, one of the planet’s biggest polluters, survive the coronavirus pandemic. The Trump administration lined up a $32 billion bailout for U.S. carriers in April, and, in late May, the German government approved a $10 billion bailout for Lufthansa. This week, a United Nations group gave them another big break, saying that airlines won’t need to offset millions of tons of emissions.

It’s a blow to the booming, billion-dollar market for carbon offsets, and a blow to efforts to curb airline emissions. The U.N. group “is looking more and more like a puppet of the airlines, who are really calling the shots,” said Dan Rutherford, a program director for marine and aviation at the International Council on Clean Transportation, in an email.

The aviation industry accounts for around 2.4 percent of carbon emissions worldwide. If airlines formed a country, it would rank in the top 10 carbon polluters. It’s also one of the hardest industries to decarbonize: There aren’t clean alternatives for jet fuel, and not everyone can travel, Greta Thunberg-style, by high-speed sailboat.

But one of the few bright spots for cutting fossil-fuel pollution from aviation has been a United Nations scheme to get airlines to offset their growing emissions starting in 2021. The plan, signed in 2016 by 191 countries, is voluntary until 2027, and requires airlines to offset the emissions from all international flights that exceed a baseline of the average emissions from 2019 and 2020. The scheme is supposed to be policed by individual countries, who will oversee the emissions produced by companies headquartered within their borders.

So airlines would still be emitting millions of tons of carbon dioxide, but at least they would also be investing cash in planting trees and other schemes to suck that CO2 back out of the atmosphere.

Then came the coronavirus pandemic and one of the worst economic downturns since the Great Depression. This year, airlines worldwide are expected to lose over $85 billion, and the number of people flying is expected to plunge 50 percent. The prospect of paying to offset emissions suddenly didn’t look so good.

In response, the airline industry petitioned the International Civil Aviation Organization, or ICAO — the United Nations council overseeing international air travel — to erase 2020 from baseline calculations. Because traffic has been so low this year, the airlines argued that using it as part of a baseline would be an “inappropriate economic burden,” under the assumption that air traffic will resurge in coming years.

On Tuesday, the U.N. organization gave them a break, setting a new baseline of 2019 alone. Rutherford said the decision lets airlines off the hook for between 50 and 200 million tons of CO2. And, given how long it might take airline travel to rebound, he expects most airlines won’t have to offset anything until 2024.

If there’s a bright spot here, it’s that this move is unlikely that this will slow the long-term decarbonization of aviation — which, according to Rutherford, is more dependent on new technology than short-term offsetting. British Airways, Delta, and a host of other major airlines have already claimed that they will reach “net-zero” emissions by 2050, through a combination of better fuel efficiency and clean jet fuel. British Airways, for instance, wants to make fuel out of household waste like diapers and coffee cups.

But the coronavirus pandemic may be a sign that, when profits are on the line, airlines will throw green policies out the window. If carbon offsets are too much of a burden, can big promises and coffee-cup fuel clean up this polluting industry?

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UN gives airlines a break on emissions targets because, duh, COVID-19

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DNA USA: A Genetic Portrait of America – Bryan Sykes

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DNA USA: A Genetic Portrait of America

Bryan Sykes

Genre: Life Sciences

Price: $2.99

Publish Date: May 14, 2012

Publisher: Liveright

Seller: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.


Crisscrossing the continent, a renowned geneticist provides a groundbreaking examination of America through its DNA. The best-selling author of The Seven Daughters of Eve now turns his sights on the United States, one of the most genetically variegated countries in the world. From the blue-blooded pockets of old-WASP New England to the vast tribal lands of the Navajo, Bryan Sykes takes us on a historical genetic tour, interviewing genealogists, geneticists, anthropologists, and everyday Americans with compelling ancestral stories. His findings suggest:      • Of Americans whose ancestors came as slaves, virtually all have some European DNA.      • Racial intermixing appears least common among descendants of early New England colonists.      • There is clear evidence of Jewish genes among descendants of southwestern Spanish Catholics.      • Among white Americans, evidence of African DNA is most common in the South.      • European genes appeared among Native Americans as early as ten thousand years ago. An unprecedented look into America's genetic mosaic and how we perceive race, DNA USA challenges the very notion of what we think it means to be American.

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DNA USA: A Genetic Portrait of America – Bryan Sykes

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The Book of the Moon – Maggie Aderin-Pocock

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The Book of the Moon

A Guide to Our Closest Neighbor

Maggie Aderin-Pocock

Genre: Science & Nature

Price: $2.99

Publish Date: April 9, 2019

Publisher: ABRAMS

Seller: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.


Have you ever wondered if there are seasons on the moon or if space tourism will ever become commonplace? So has Dr. Maggie Aderin-Pocock. In fact, she earned her nickname “Lunatic” because of her deep fascination for all things lunar. In her lucidly written, comprehensive guide to the moon, Aderin-Pocock takes readers on a journey to our closest celestial neighbor, exploring folklore, facts, and future plans.         She begins with the basics, unpacking everything from the moon’s topography and composition to its formation and orbit around the Earth. She travels back in time to track humanity’s relationship with the moon — beliefs held by ancient civilizations, the technology that allowed for the first moon landing, a brief history of moongazing, and how the moon has influenced culture throughout the years — and then to the future, analyzing the pros and cons of continued space travel and exploration. Throughout the book are sidebars, graphs, and charts to enhance the facts as well as black-and-white illustrations of the moon and stars.  The Book of the Moon  will be published for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.

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The Book of the Moon – Maggie Aderin-Pocock

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Meet the Dominican nuns who created their own climate solutions fund

It’s been five years since Pope Francis’ “Laudato Si,” the celebrated 225-page encyclical in which the pope called for environmental justice and fundamental social change in the face of global warming. To mark the occasion earlier this month, the Vatican urged Catholics around the world to take practical steps to fulfill this mission — including by divesting from fossil fuel-based industries. And in the U.S., 16 congregations of Dominican nuns (named for their patron saint, Saint Dominic) debuted a collaboration with Morgan Stanley to create a $130 million “climate solutions fund.”

In a press release, the bank called the fund a “first of its kind collaboration … to find investment solutions which focus on climate change and aiding marginalized communities that are disproportionately impacted by global warming.” Examples of the fund’s “holistic” approach to climate solutions could include “early stage investments in energy efficiency software” as well as “more mature opportunities like fruit producers with water-saving hydroponic irrigation systems.”

Sister Patricia Daly, a Dominican nun from a congregation in Caldwell, New Jersey, helped create the fund. The nuns began organizing the fund in 2018 after they pooled $46 million. Daly said the sisters have long wanted to invest in companies and technology that are actively working toward the United Nations sustainable development goals, which include ending poverty, improving access to clean energy, curbing climate change, and more. When they couldn’t find a fund with that focus — most sustainable investment funds do not holistically address all of those goals, according to Daly — the congregations enlisted Morgan Stanley to create a new fund themselves and set a standard for future investing.

“This fund is engaged in impact investing rather than screening,” said Angelo Collins, a member of the leadership council for the Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters in Wisconsin. “The fund advisors and managers are looking to support and provide investments in corporations that are doing positive good.”

Collins said that many Dominican congregations in the U.S. consider social justice a central tenet of practicing their faith, and that the fund will bring social justice to the forefront of the church’s investing efforts.

Daly said she hopes that their efforts attract investors of all kinds, rather than just faith-based organizations.

“We wanted this not just for ourselves but for other investors — not just faith communities,” she told Grist. “There are also healthcare systems and other private investors who have joined in this initiative.”

In its press release, Morgan Stanley emphasized that the fund will invest in ventures that are proactively pursuing sustainable and equitable climate goals.

“Every dollar invested in our climate program will seek to have a concrete climate impact measurement ranging from tonnes of CO2 emission offset and litres of water saved, to reduction in air pollution levels, in addition to generating compelling private markets returns,” said Vikram Raju, the investment group’s head of impact investing.

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Meet the Dominican nuns who created their own climate solutions fund

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