Book cover of Hot Carbon: Carbon-14 and a Revolution in Science

Book description

There are few fields of science that carbon-14 has not touched. A radioactive isotope of carbon, it stands out for its unusually long half-life. Best known for its application to estimating the age of artifacts-carbon dating-carbon-14 helped reveal new chronologies of human civilization and geological time. Everything containing carbon, the…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Hot Carbon as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I almost put this book down when Marra started to describe what happened one early morning off the coast of Iceland, where he was trying to measure photosynthesis by marine microbes. A day earlier, he had filled bottles with seawater spiked with a radioactive form of carbon, carbon-14, and thrown the bottles overboard to incubate in the ocean. Now he had to retrieve them. As Marra recounted how the ship rolled in huge waves whipped up by 55-knot winds, my stomach churned as I remembered similar experiences on other vessels, in other seas.

Luckily for me and perhaps other seasick-prone…

From David's list on microbes and the environment.

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Book cover of The High House

The High House by James Stoddard,

The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.

The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.

Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…

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Book cover of I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life
Book cover of Life's Engines: How Microbes Made Earth Habitable
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