The Secret Life of Dust: From the Cosmos to the Kitchen Counter, the Big Consequences of Little Things - Hardcover

Holmes, Hannah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0471377430 ISBN 13: 9780471377436

Publisher: Wiley, 2001

Synopsis

Hannah Holmes A mesmerizing expedition around our dusty world
Some see dust as dull and useless stuff. But in the hands of author Hannah Holmes, it becomes a dazzling and mysterious force; Dust, we discover, built the planet we walk upon. And it tinkers with the weather and spices the air we breathe. Billions of tons of it rise annually into the air--the dust of deserts and forgotten kings mixing with volcanic ash, sea salt, leaf fragments, scales from butterfly wings, shreds of T-shirts, and fireplace soot. Eventually, though, all this dust must settle.
The story of restless dust begins among exploding stars, then treks through the dinosaur beds of the Gobi Desert, drills into Antarctic glaciers, filters living dusts from the wind, and probes the dark underbelly of the living-room couch. Along the way, Holmes introduces a delightful cast of characters--the scientists who study dust. Some investigate its dark side: how it killed off dinosaurs and how its industrial descendents are killing us today. Others sample the shower of Saharan dust that nourishes Caribbean jungles, or venture into the microscopic jungle of the bedroom carpet. Like The Secret Life of Dust, however, all of them unveil the mayhem and magic wrought by little things.
Hannah Holmes (Portland, ME) is a science and natural history writer for the Discovery Channel Online. Her freelance work has been widely published, appearing in the Los Angeles Times Magazine, the New York Times Magazine, Outside, Sierra, National Geographic Traveler, and Escape. Her broadcast work has been featured on Living on Earth and the Discovery Channel Online's Science Live.

About this title

About the Author

HANNAH HOLMES is a science and natural history writer, and a regular contributor to the Discovery Channel Online. Her freelance work has been widely published, appearing in the Los Angeles Times Magazine, the New York Times Magazine, Outside, Sierra, National Geographic Traveler, and Escape. Her broadcast work has been featured on NPR's Living on Earth and the Discovery Channel Online's Science Live.

From the Back Cover

"You will never again look disparagingly upon dust. Hannah Holmes has written my favorite kind of book-one that takes a seemingly mundane subject and trumpets its significance in our lives not only on Earth, but in the Heavens."-- Dr. Neil de Grasse Tyson, Director, Hayden Planetarium and author of One Universe: At Home in the Cosmos

"Hannah Holmes is a science writer to watch. Who ever thought dust could so shine?"-- Kirkus Reviews

From the Inside Flap

A mesmerizing expedition around our dusty world

Some see dust as dull stuff, useless at best, and sneeze-inducing at worst. But in the hands of writer Hannah Holmes, dust becomes a dazzling and mysterious force. As Holmes says, dust is a messenger, and air is its medium. And by the end of this fascinating journey through The Secret Life of Dust, we cannot help but agree.

Humble dust, we discover, built the very planet we walk upon. It tinkers with the weather and it spices the air we breathe. Billions of tons of tiny particles rise into the air annually-the dust of deserts and forgotten kings mixing with volcanic ash, sea salt, leaf fragments, scales from butterfly wings, shreds of T-shirts, and fireplace soot. And eventually, of course, all this dust must settle.

The story of restless dust begins among exploding stars, then treks through the dinosaur beds of the Gobi Desert, digs into Antarctic glaciers-and probes the dark underbelly of the living-room couch. And there is good company on this journey: Holmes gathers for us a delightful, and, by necessity, highly inventive, cast of characters-the scientists who study dust. Some investigate its dark side: how it killed off dinosaurs and how its industrial descendants are killing us today. Others sample the shower of Saharan dust that nourishes Caribbean jungles; and still others venture into the microscopic jungle of the bedroom carpet. Like The Secret Life of Dust, all of them unveil the mayhem-and the magic-wrought by little things.

Reviews

Despite its ubiquity, dust is not a popular subject among scientists, and lay people tend to brush it off. But Holmes, a science and natural history writer for the Discovery Channel Online, teases many tantalizing facts from this particulate microscopic substance. "[P]olar researchers are drinking water that fell as snow during the crusades," for instance. "Hundreds of years' worth of dust has piled up on the well floor," most of it "space dust," as "only a small amount of windblown Earth dusts" reach Antarctica. Some readers may be turned off or sent on a wild cleaning frenzy by much of the information: "you breathe about 700,000 of your own skin flakes each day," for instance, or "a cup of flour... isn't legally filthy until it contains about 150 insect fragments and a couple of rodent hairs." And some of her more harrowing facts might inspire minor lifestyle changes: household dust is comprised of all manner of toxic materials, like "widely produced" chromium and mercury metals, pesticides, and herbicides, and "the average child eats 15 or 20 milligrams of dust a day, and superslurpers eat 30 to 50 milligrams." While factoid set-pieces run the show here, Holmes's tours through the science behind them are lucid. Allergy sufferers and other interested parties will relish this book; others may prefer to remain blissfully ignorant of their particulate surroundings.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Dust, science writer Holmes tells the reader, is so ubiquitous that "by the time you have read this far [11 lines into her first chapter], you may have inhaled 150,000 of these worldly specks." Billions of tons of dust rise from Earth every year, from deserts, volcanoes, oceans, living things and factories. Billions of tons fall to Earth every year, not only from what rose but also from space. This enormous traffic of tiny things has profound effects, good and bad, on Earth and on living organisms. Holmes makes an engaging story of the worldly specks.

Editors of Scientific American

To document the surprising powers of dust, Holmes has burrowed deep into a dozen disciplines, so turning a substance that we normally just sneeze at into a mysterious and fascinating force. Thanks to Holmes' tireless research, we learn, for instance, how comet dust may have cradled the first life on Earth and how man-made dust now threatens to snuff out much of what the primal dust once made possible. Holmes allows us to ride the wild currents of the planet's great dust rivers from the Sahara to Boise, from New Mexico to Bermuda, and she invites us to peer into the microworld of dust-borne mites, bacteria, and viruses. But the same investigation that unravels dust's ancient riddles also delivers a big modern warning: human activity is making dust more lethal than ever before. The controversy over how to deal with this growing health threat will keep this book passing from hand to hand, ensuring that for all it has to teach about dust, this volume will collect none of it on the library shelf. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Can the ordinary subject of dust lead to discussions on planetary evolution, allergies, lung disease, dinosaurs, and pollution? Holmes, a writer for the Discovery Channel Online and contributor to Outside, Sierra, and other magazines, enthusiastically shows that it can, covering these areas and others in her enjoyable new book. Inspired by a trip to the Gobi Desert, during which she was inundated with dust, Holmes explores how dust has been crucial in the birth of planets, how it affects the earth's environment and weather, and how humans create it as well. Out to communicate straight facts and science, she considers technical points in language that is clear and comprehensible even for those lacking a science background. In addition to the bibliography, Holmes provides a listing of web sites for each chapter so that readers may easily obtain current information and graphics. Who would have known so much can come from so little? Strongly recommended for all popular science collections. Michael D. Cramer, Raleigh, NC
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0471377430
• ISBN 13: 9780471377436
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256