Asian Pacific Phycology in the 21st Century: Prospects and Challenges (Developments in Hydrobiology)

Book Description

Collected in this special volume are 36 invited and contributed papers first presented at the Second Asian Pacific Phycological Forum held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong at the turn of the century. These papers were subsequently updated to bring to fore the latest development in algal research in the Asian Pacific Region. This volume thus provides one of the most comprehensive pictures of advances in algal research in this part of the world.

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The Delaware Water Gap, where the Delaware River cuts through the Appalachian Mountains, is a bucolic and peaceful landscape perhaps best known as the setting of Edward Hicks's famous painting, The Peaceable Kingdom. However, the calm landscape conceals the tortuous geological history of this region and the equally complex debates concerning the geological past of the eastern United States.

In Basin and Range, McPhee traveled across the United States with a strong proponent of plate tectonics. In this volume, he travels over some of the same terrain with Anita G. Harris, a geologist who questions the ability of plate tectonics to completely explain the geology of this part of the world. As always, McPhee conveys the brilliant enthusiasms of those he profiles and the engaging complexity of the disciplines within which they work.

This is the second of four books on North American geology by McPhee, collectively entitled Annals of the Former World. The other volumes are Basin and Range, Rising from the Plains, and Assembling California.

Book Description

From the outwash plains of Brooklyn to Indiana’s drifted diamonds and gold In Suspect Terrain is a narrative of the earth, told in four sections of equal length, each in a different way reflecting the three others—a biography; a set piece about a fragment of Appalachian landscape in illuminating counterpoint to the human history there; a modern collision of ideas about the origins of the mountain range; and, in contrast, a century-old collision of ideas about the existence of the Ice Age. The central figure is Anita Harris, an internationally celebrated geologist who went into her profession to get out of a Brooklyn ghetto. The unifying theme is plate tectonics—here concentrating on the acceptance that all aspects of the theory do not universally enjoy. As such, In Suspect Terrain is a report from the rough spots at the front edge of a science.

Customer Reviews:

Check the page count.......2006-09-09

We have two copies of this book. Each has less than the guaranteed 210 pages. Caveat emptor.

McPhee can even make Anita Harris interesting.......2005-09-25

McPhee can do it all: explain a complex scientific concept in clean, clear prose; perfectly divine and express the poetic nature underlying seemingly mundane geologic features; conjure up vivid panoramas of worlds lost deep in geologic time; and, no less amazingly, make us actually believe that we even personally like the brilliant, but crass, Doctor Anita Harris! Like Basin and Range, and La Place de la Concorde Suisse, very well written and wonderfully told.

Terrain or terrane.......2003-07-19

This book is filled with scientific terms straining the general reader's capacity to follow the narrative. Wonderful, clear-speaking John McPhee's lurching off into geology is analogous to Doris Lessing losing her readers in science fiction yarns. Fortunately most of us have been to New York City or have spent time traveling Route 80. Changes do not come in a slow steady march in geology. Geologic time is punctuated by catastrophes. Geology repeats itself. Geology is named for Gaea, daughter of Chaos says McPhee's informant, Anita Harris. The right bedrock, the right angle of deep caused the pond of boulders in Hickory State Park, Pennsylvania to be formed. Geologists are detectives. Road cuts are incredibly useful to them. Without them they are reduced to drilling holes straight down and studying streams. Streams and rivers form later than rock. The limit of glaciation in New York City is reflected in the subway system. The book is rich and informative. It is organized around the career of and the author's travels with Anita Harris, a wholly reasonable focus for the study.

Fire and Ice.............2003-06-20

In Suspect Terrain by John McPhee details the geology of Interstate 80 from the Delaware Water Gap to the state of Indiana. Primarily concerned with the formation of the Appalachians, the intrusion and withdrawal of vast inland seas, and the impact of widespread glaciation, the book introduces us to Anita Harris, a geologist who is less enamored of plate tectonic theory than most. Though far from discounting the theory altogether, Harris, through McPhee, displays for the reader several "tectonic" inconsistencies prevalent in the Appalachian region.

As in Basin and Range, a previous work, McPhee brings a traveler's commentary and an historian's insight to the scientific discussion making geology, perhaps, more enticing to the layman than anyone who has come before him. Indeed, were all science so artfully presented us commonfolk might have a better grasp of that which can often confuse and intimidate. I thoroughly enjoyed In Suspect Terrain and look eagerly forward to other McPhee efforts.

state of the art - now 20 years ago.......2003-06-20

This is an excellent book, in which McPhee follows an original and stolid geologist on her job and records her musings and concerns with her science. It is written in absolutely luminous prose, with a clarity that can only be called perfect. As he travels with the geologist, ideas keep cropping up that are explained and examined, sometimes adding historical context, such as the long passages on Agassiz. I enjoyed the flow of the narrative and it held my interest completely, indeed I was in awe of his writing talent.

In my reading, there were two principal scientific ideas. First, McPhee lets the geologist question the pervasive acceptance of plate tectonics, that is, how it is now the first explanation that geologists seek to advance, which may mean that they do not seek alternative explanations when appropriate. More specifically, the geologist accepts the theory for oceanic plates, but not the land/continental versions. She chafes against the preference of many young geologists to create micro-plates for every new unexplained phenomenon, a kind of reductionism that may be similar to that used by proponents of "heavenly spheres" to explain the motions of the planets prior to Kepler and Newton. Second, McPhee goes over the notion of glacial ice flows and what they explain about the current landscapes. As I was quite ignorent of these theories except in the crudest outline, I learned a lot from this. What I cannot do is evaluate whether, after 20 years, this book is outdated, which it almost certainly is.

Beyond those 2 issues, the reader also gets to know how geologists work and think, which was equally fascinating and pleasurable for me. THere are long passages on a technique that the geologist developed - using the teeth of long-disappeared marine worms to date and evaluate the conditions of the sediments in which they appear - that are clearly explained. Nonetheless, the level of the reasoning and vocabulary can at times be technical and was sometimes beyond my level: those "teeth" above are called conodonts, which I happened to know about from a Gould essay; otherwise, I would have found use of that word confusing, as I did many others that are explained perhaps once. THat made the book quite dense and necessary to re-read in certain sections, which is not a criticism so much as an indication of the experience the reader should expect.

Warmly recommended.

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In Suspect Terrain: From Annals of the Former World
John McPhee
Manufacturer: Recorded Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette

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ASIN: 0788740601

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IN SUSPECT TERRAIN
JOHN MCPHEE
Manufacturer: Farrar Straus
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000O3J0SG

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In Suspect Terrain
John McPhee
Manufacturer: Noonday
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NZRA9Q

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In Suspect Terrain
John Mcphee
Manufacturer: GENERAL DISTRIBUTION* SERVICES
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000Q37D24

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In Suspect Terrain
John McPHEE
Manufacturer: Farrar Straus Giroux
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OP9246

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In Suspect Terrain
Mcphee
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000HA3NNY

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In Suspect Terrain 1ST Edition
John Mcphee
Manufacturer: FARRAR STRAUS & * GIROUX
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000PY13VG

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IN SUSPECT TERRAIN.

Manufacturer: Noonday
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000HG1K9M

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In Suspect Terrain: Annals of the Former World, Book 2 (Unabridged)
John McPhee
Manufacturer: audible.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Download
ASIN: B0006IU7A4

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New look at the Manhattan Project people and projects

Unbelievable Detail Well Told

The Missing Part of the Manhattan Project Story

The definitive history of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings

Atom Bombs: The Top Secret Inside Story of Little Boy and Fat Man
John Coster-Mullen
Manufacturer: John Coster-Mullen
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
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The Los Alamos Primer: The First Lectures on How To Build an Atomic Bomb

Critical Assembly: A Technical History of Los Alamos during the Oppenheimer Years, 19431945

100 Suns

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ASIN: B0006S2AJ0

Customer Reviews:

New look at the Manhattan Project people and projects.......2007-05-31

The author has gathered together diverse and new primary source information and direct research (detail measuring and photographing surviving Little Boy and Fat Man type bombs in museums; visiting Tinian in the Pacific and sites in the US and documenting them in detail as well), interviews with Manhattan Project and 509th group survivors, and more. The result is a treasure trove of rich detail on what was done, how, and by whom as the atom bombs were being prepared and used in World War 2. It adds considerably to the available detailed history of the end of the war. Strongly recommended.

Unbelievable Detail Well Told.......2006-09-30

In first thumbing through this book, one might think it is too technical for the average reader of history. Although the book focuses on the scientific and engineering complexities of the first two atomic bombs, the operations of preparing and delivering the bombs are laid out in lucid, exciting prose. The author clearly presents details that were top secret for many decades; and he stops just short of revealing things that are still classified. This book really lets you know how the now relatively primitive nuclear bombs worked; but in a readable and fascinating way. Some readers will skip the most detailed material, but the rest of the book is stunning in its interest. I, the writer of this review, am a retired physicist and am in a position to cross-check many of the details. To the best of my knowledge, it is all correct. But most importantly, it is a good read.

Why has this book not been issued by a big name publisher? I would guess that there are two factors. First, the publisher might think the potential market would be limited to a few nerds and ex-Manhattan Project people. Not so; it is of general interest, especially to those interested in modern technology and WWII history. Second, a publisher might be concerned about the possibility of security issues - and that tingling, knife-edge separation from a security violation is one of the things that makes this book so great.

The print quality and format are fully professional and the very many illustrations are better than usually found in books by major publishers.

The Missing Part of the Manhattan Project Story.......2006-09-28

"Atom Bombs: The Top Secret Inside Story of Little Boy and Fat Man" fills an important niche in the literature about the development of nuclear weapons. There is no shortage of books on the Manhattan Project, including such classics as "Now It Can Be Told," "Brighter Than a Thousand Suns" and "The Making of the Atomic Bomb." Biographies of scientists who worked on the project, including Robert Oppenheimer and Edward Teller, also abound. One would think that there would not be much fresh material to write about a project that, after all, took place more than 60 years ago. But new books on the subject continue to crop up. One of the latest, "Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima," released in 2005, details the last couple of weeks before the atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II. In reading "Shockwave," I found that virtually all of the passages that referred to the technical details of the "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" bombs footnoted John Coster-Mullens' "Atom Bombs." So I had to buy it. It was an excellent decision.

According to a review in "The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists," Coster-Mullen has not yet found a publisher willing to print his book, which is unfortunate--it deserves to be issued in bound hardcover form. Hopefully someday it will be. Now, what you get is a spiral-bound 8-1/2x11-inch, 402-page book with nice thick card-stock covers. Although it is printed on a laser printer, the printing quality is very good, and the photos and drawings are clear, sharp and crisp. My order, shipped directly from the author in Wisconsin, showed up very quickly and in perfect condition in a large padded envelope.

Enough about the appearance--what about the content? Quite simply, there is NO better source of information on the technical details of the world's first two nuclear weapons. In the first 88 pages, after touching on the history of the Manhattan Project and the "Silverplate" Boeing B-29 "Superfortress" bombers that were specially modified to carry the weapons, Coster-Mullen describes the design, configuration, materials and assembly procedures of "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" to an unprecedented level of detail. But wait, there's more! The bulk of "Atom Bombs" is made up of appendices containing hundreds of pages of photos, drawings, sketches, patent applications and declassified source documents that reveal nearly every detail about the design, development, construction and testing of "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" that you could ever want to know. This is really "nuts and bolts" stuff, literally. Finally, there are over 30 pages of endnotes, which themselves constitute a unique and valuable resource. You'll know more when you finish reading "Atom Bombs" than you can learn from all of the other books on the subject combined. It gets my highest possible recommendation.

The definitive history of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.......2005-10-20

A marvellous book! Very-well researched and reads like a technological detective story. This book is bound to become, or already is the definitive history on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings in World War 2. The author has done a lot of research for this book to put all the details together for the events that took place over 60 years ago. His line of research can easily be followed by studying the Endnotes section in the book. If you liked reading "The Paris Gun" by Bull and Murphy or "Most Secret War" by Jones, then I am sure you are going to love reading this book. I did !! As a matter of fact I liked it so much that I bought a copy as a present for my brother who is an Honorary Member of the United States Army.

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The Secret History of the Atomic Bomb

Manufacturer: Dell Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0440577284

Product Description

A detailed history of how scientific theory was turned into the deadly reality of atomic warfare.

The Atom Bomb Spies The first full account of how Soviet espionage stole the secrets of the atomic bomb

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The Atom Bomb Spies The first full account of how Soviet espionage stole the secrets of the atomic bomb
H. Montgomery Hyde
Manufacturer: Atheneum
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000J0I620

Captain Atom #28 (Final Conflict, Top Secret File 3 of 3)

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Captain Atom #28 (Final Conflict, Top Secret File 3 of 3)
Cary Bates
Manufacturer: DC Comics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Comic
ASIN: B000TA3J2C

Captain Atom #36 (The Secret Origin of Everyone)

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Captain Atom #36 (The Secret Origin of Everyone)
Cary Bates
Manufacturer: DC Comics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Comic
ASIN: B000TABBCM

The Cult of the Atom The Secret Papers of the Atomic Energy Commission

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The Cult of the Atom The Secret Papers of the Atomic Energy Commission
Daniel Ford
Manufacturer: Simon and Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000J0KVM8

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frightening account of the inner workings of Government

The Cult of the Atom : The Secret Papers of the Atomic Energy Commission
Daniel ford
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Customer Reviews:

frightening account of the inner workings of Government.......2003-06-05

The Cult of the Atom is a frightening look at the inner workings of the Atomic Energy Commission, and it's successor, the Department of Energy. Very well researched, the author takes us on a journey of special interests, accidents, incidents, and the growing pains of a multi-zillion dollar industry. If evver you wondered about which side of the nuclear reactor debate to be on, this book will absolutely convince you. And if you wondered if Big Bu$ine$$ holds sway over government, this book provides ample insight. An economical addition to your favorite nukeheads' shelf!

Hunt for Zero Point: One Man's Journey to Discover the Biggest Secret Since the Invention of the Atom Bomb

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Hunt for Zero Point: One Man's Journey to Discover the Biggest Secret Since the Invention of the Atom Bomb
Nick Cook
Manufacturer: Century
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0712669531

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Klaus Fuchs, Atom Spy
Robert Chadwell Williams
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0674505409

Klaus Fuchs: The Man Who Stole the Atom Bomb

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Klaus Fuchs: The Man Who Stole the Atom Bomb
Norman Moss
Manufacturer: Grafton Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0586202994

Book Description

William Everson, aka brother Antoninus, was a poet, Dominican Friar, letterpress printer, and quintessential Californian. Originally from the San Joaquin Valley, Everson was part of the Beat poetry movement in San Francisco during the 1950s and was closely tied to Robert Duncan, Kenneth Rexroth, Robert Creeley, and Denise Levertov. A critically acclaimed visionary poet, he was also an important and challenging theologian of his time, as well as being a highly acclaimed printer and book designer of great originality.

Dark God of Eros: A William Everson Reader, offers, for the first time, in a single volume, the most comprehensive retrospective view of the life and work of William Everson. The book offers a vast selection of poetry and autobiographical writing, as well as essays and interviews: it explores the great influence of poet Robinson Jeffers in Everson's own writing and life; it highlights essays on poetry and poetics, including a discussion of what it means to be a poet; commentary on Everson's poetry by ten contemporary poets, along with portfolio items from Everson's hand press.

Everson was a poet with a deeply religious vision of life whose evolution from agnosticism to Catholicism eventually culminated in a 20-year commitment as a Dominican lay brother from 1951 to 1969. Theology would shape his poetry and his conception of the poet's role and function, as well as his exploration of "erotic mysticism," for much of his prose is infused with themes of flesh and consummation.

Everson was also one of the best hand press printers in the history of the book in the U.S. and holds a permanent place in the history of American fine printing. Dark God of Eros features a selection of color reproductions of pages and broadsides that he designed and printed, along with his essays on the history of printing and working with his Washington hand press.

Dark God of Eros will be of great value to anyone interested in American poetry, California culture, Catholic arts and letters, and in fine printing. It is an authoritative, skillfully executed and intelligent treatise of the life and work of a complex man who was both a great poet and an extraordinary influence on others.

Customer Reviews:

Selecting highlights from Everson's full range of work.......2003-07-26

Edited and with an Introduction by Albert Gelpi, Dark God Of Eros: A William Everson Reader presents and analyzes the poetry of William Everson, a man who was a farmer, a conscientious objector, a printer, a Dominican friar, and more. Selecting highlights from Everson's full range of work, and offering insights by Gelpi (who is a skilled literary critic and personal friend of Everson), Dark God Of Eros is a superb guide for contemplating these gallant works. Dark Waters: Chipmunk: slash with quick teeth/These rawhide ropes.//Little fox, sleek cat of the thicket,/Puma, ringtail in the quaking bush,/Mink in the meadow.//Otter-woman:/Drive devils out of my blood./Scare off fear.//I have made a long run./I have sum dark waters.//I have followed you through hanging traps./I have risked it all.//At the fork of your flesh/Our two trails come together.//At your body's bench/I take meat.

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