New Books in Physics and Chemistry

The story of DDT as you’ve never heard it before: a fresh look at the much-maligned chemical compound as a cautionary tale of how powerful corporations have stoked the flames of science denialism for their own benefit In the 1940s, DDT helped the Allies win the Second World War by wiping out the insects that caused malaria, with seemingly no ill effects on humans. After the war, it was sprayed willy-nilly across fields, in dairy barns, and even in people's homes. Thirty years later the U.S. would ban the use of DDT—only to reverse the ban in the 1990s when calls arose to bring it back to fight West Nile and malaria. What changed? How to Sell a Poison: The Rise, Fall, and Toxic Return of DDT (Bold Type Books, 2022) traces the surprising history of DDT’s rapid rise, infamous fall, and controversial revival to reveal to show that we’ve been taking the wrong lesson from DDT’s cautionary tale. Historian Elena Conis uncovers new evidence that it was not the shift in public opinion following the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring that led to the ban but in fact the behind-the-scenes political machinations of Big Business. She makes a compelling case that the real threat was not DDT itself but the prioritization of profits over public health. ​ If we don't change the ways we make decisions about new scientific discoveries and technologies, Conis argues, we’re doomed to keep making the same mistakes and putting people at risk—both by withholding technologies that could help them and by exposing them to dangerous chemicals without their knowledge or consent. In an age when corporations and politicians are shaping our world behind closed doors and deliberately stoking misinformation around public health issues, from pesticides to vaccines to COVID-19 to climate change, we need greater transparency and a new way of communicating about science—as a discipline of discovery that's constantly evolving, rather than a finite and immutable collection of facts—in order to combat the war on facts and protect ourselves and our environment.Claire Clark is a medical educator, historian of medicine, and associate professor in the University of Kentucky’s College of Medicine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On July 4, 2012, the announcement came that one of the longest-running mysteries in physics had been solved: the Higgs boson, the missing piece in understanding why particles have mass, had finally been discovered. On the rostrum, surrounded by jostling physicists and media, was the particle's retiring namesake--the only person in history to have an existing single particle named for them. Why Peter Higgs? Drawing on years of conversations with Higgs and others, Close illuminates how an unprolific man became one of the world's most famous scientists. Close finds that scientific competition between people, institutions, and states played as much of a role in making Higgs famous as Higgs's work did.A revelatory study of both a scientist and his era, Elusive: How Peter Higgs Solved the Mystery of Mass (Basic Book, 2022) will remake our understanding of modern physics.Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Niels Bohr was a central figure in quantum physics, well known for his work on atomic structure and his contributions to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. In From Data to Quanta: Niels Bohr’s Vision of Physics (U Chicago Press, 2021), philosopher of science Slobodan Perović explores the way Bohr practiced and understood physics, and analyzes its implications for our understanding of modern science. Perović develops a novel approach to Bohr’s understanding of physics and his method of inquiry, presenting an exploratory symbiosis of historical and philosophical analysis that uncovers the key aspects of Bohr’s philosophical vision of physics within a given historical context.Ana Georgescu studied astrophysics and physics at Harvard University and is now a science consultant and writer based in New York City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Plan S: the open access initiative that changed the face of global research. Robert-Jan Smits and Rachael Pells's book Plan S for Shock: Science. Shock. Solution. Speed. (Ubiquity Press, 2022) tells the story of open access publishing - why it matters now, and for the future. In a world where information has never been so accessible, and answers are available at the touch of a fingertip, we are hungrier for the facts than ever before - something the Covid-19 crisis has brought to light. And yet, paywalls put in place by multi-billion dollar publishing houses are still preventing millions from accessing quality, scientific knowledge - and public trust in science is under threat. On 4 September 2018, a bold new initiative known as 'Plan S' was unveiled, kickstarting a world-wide shift in attitudes towards open access research. For the first time, funding agencies across continents joined forces to impose new rules on the publication of research, with the aim of one day making all research free and available to all. What followed was a debate of global proportions, as stakeholders asked: Who has the right to access publicly-funded research? Will it ever be possible to enforce change on a multi-billion dollar market dominated by five major players? Here, the scheme's founder, Robert-Jan Smits, makes a compelling case for Open Access, and reveals for the first time how he set about turning his controversial plan into reality - as well as some of the challenges faced along the way. In telling his story, Smits argues that the Covid-19 crisis has exposed the traditional academic publishing system as unsustainable.Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I talked to astronomer Charlotte Christensen of Grinnell College. She studies (among other things) dwarf galaxies. Dwarf galaxies, galaxies with masses about 10% that of the Milky Way or smaller, such as the Magellanic Clouds, are perfect laboratories for studying galaxy evolution. The small gravitational potentials of dwarf galaxies make them uniquely sensitive environments for understanding the physics of galaxy formation, including the processes that drive gas accretion, gas loss, and star formation. Dwarf satellites of the Milky Way or similar nearby galaxies may help constrain these processes, but only if the effect of the large halo environment the dwarf galaxies exist in can be well understood. Marshall Poe is the founder and editor of the New Books Network. He can be reached at marshallpoe@newbooksnetwork.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hidden from view, microfluidics underlies a variety of devices that are essential to our lives, from inkjet printers to glucometers for the monitoring of diabetes. Microfluidics--which refers to the technology of miniature fluidic devices and the study of fluids at submillimeter levels--is invisible to most of us because it is hidden beneath ingenious user interfaces. In this book, Albert Folch, a leading researcher in microfluidics, describes the development and use of key microfluidic devices. He explains not only the technology but also the efforts, teams, places, and circumstances that enabled these inventions.Folch reports, for example, that the inkjet printer was one of the first microfluidic devices invented, and traces its roots back to nineteenth-century discoveries in the behavior of fluid jets. He also describes how rapid speed microfluidic DNA sequencers have enabled the sequencing of animal, plant, and microbial species genomes; organs on chips facilitate direct tests of drugs on human tissue, leapfrogging over the usual stage of animal testing; at-home pregnancy tests are based on clever microfluidic principles; microfluidics can be used to detect cancer cells in the early stages of metastasis; and the same technology that shoots droplets of ink on paper in inkjet printers enables 3D printers to dispense layers of polymers. In Hidden in Plain Sight: The History, Science, and Engineering of Microfluidic Technology (MIT Press, 2022), Folch tells the stories behind these devices in an engaging style, accessible to nonspecialists. More than 100 color illustrations show readers amazing images of microfluids under the microscope.Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When we think of electricity, we likely imagine the energy humming inside our home appliances or lighting up our electronic devices--or perhaps we envision the lightning-streaked clouds of a stormy sky. But electricity is more than an external source of power, heat, or illumination. Life at its essence is nothing if not electrical.The story of how we came to understand electricity's essential role in all life is rooted in our observations of its influences on the body--influences governed by the body's central nervous system. Spark: The Life of Electricity and the Electricity of Life (Princeton UP, 2021) explains the science of electricity from this fresh, biological perspective. Through vivid tales of scientists and individuals--from Benjamin Franklin to Elon Musk--Timothy Jorgensen shows how our views of electricity and the nervous system evolved in tandem, and how progress in one area enabled advancements in the other. He explains how these developments have allowed us to understand--and replicate--the ways electricity enables the body's essential functions of sight, hearing, touch, and movement itself.Throughout, Jorgensen examines our fascination with electricity and how it can help or harm us. He explores a broad range of topics and events, including the Nobel Prize-winning discoveries of the electron and neuron, the history of experimentation involving electricity's effects on the body, and recent breakthroughs in the use of electricity to treat disease.Filled with gripping adventures in scientific exploration, Spark offers an indispensable look at electricity, how it works, and how it animates our lives from within and without.Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stabilizing the world's climates means cutting carbon dioxide pollution. There's no way around it. But what if that's not enough? What if it's too difficult to accomplish in the time allotted or, worse, what if it's so late in the game that even cutting carbon emissions to zero, tomorrow, wouldn't do?Enter solar geoengineering. The principle is simple: attempt to cool Earth by reflecting more sunlight back into space. The primary mechanism, shooting particles into the upper atmosphere, implies more pollution, not less. If that doesn't sound scary, it should. There are lots of risks, unknowns, and unknowables.In Geoengineering: The Gamble (Polity, 2021), climate economist Gernot Wagner provides a balanced take on the possible benefits and all-too-real risks, especially the so-called "moral hazard" that researching or even just discussing (solar) geoengineering would undermine the push to cut carbon emissions in the first place. Despite those risks, he argues, solar geoengineering may only be a matter of time. Not if, but when.As the founding executive director of Harvard's Solar Geoengineering Research Program, Wagner explores scenarios of a geoengineered future, offering an inside-view of the research already under way and the actions the world must take to guide it in a productive direction.Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today’s podcast, Elisabeth Ervin-Blankenheim explains how understanding harmonics of the earth provides a forward-thinking methodology to confront the challenges presented by the massive changes in the climate. In her book Song of the Earth: Understanding Geology and Why it Matters (Oxford University Press, 2021), Ervin-Blankenheim documents the history of geology, a Western epistemological exploit, properly contextualizing how geologists know what they know. Song of the Earth is framed the around three primary tenants: geologic time, plate tectonics and evolution. Through her magnificent use of brevity and clarity, the narrative, supported by the three tenants, documents the “biography of the Earth” consisting of a multiplicity of interactions occurring between geosphere-human, hydrosphere-human, biosphere-human spanning millions of years. Ervin-Blankenheim impresses throughout her narrative that life today represents only .1% of life that has existed throughout the history of the planet, yet we cannot understand the changes such as extinction without recognizing how the earth impacts life and how life impacts the earth. Without mindful recognition about the interconnectivity of ecosystem, the mechanics of extinction and survival will continue to remain opaque. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The toxicity of pesticides to the environment and humans is often framed as an unfortunate effect of their benefits to agricultural production. In Economic Poisoning: Industrial Waste and the Chemicalization of American Agriculture (U California Press, 2021), Adam M. Romero upends this narrative and provides a fascinating new history of pesticides in American industrial agriculture prior to World War II. Through impeccable archival research, Romero reveals the ways in which late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American agriculture, especially in California, functioned less as a market for novel pest-killing chemical products and more as a sink for the accumulating toxic wastes of mining, oil production, and chemical manufacturing. Connecting farming ecosystems to technology and the economy, Romero provides an intriguing reconceptualization of pesticides that forces readers to rethink assumptions about food, industry, and the relationship between human and nonhuman environments.Eyad Houssami makes theatre and has participated in the revitalization of an ancient organic farm in southern Lebanon. He is editor of the Arabic-English book Doomed by Hope: Essays on Arab Theatre (Pluto/Dar Al Adab) and was editor-at-large of Portal 9, a bilingual literary and academic journal about urbanism. His doctoral research project on ecology and agriculture in post-independence Lebanon sat the University of Leeds and this work are supported by the UK Arts & Humanities Research Council (grant number AH/R012733/1) through the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices