What are you reading?

[TheVat]

Phosphogeddon!

https://books.google.com/books/about/Phosphorus.html?id=nqkPEAAAQBAJ

 

Quote

Phosphorus is essential to the production of our food, and it also triggers algal blooms in lakes, rivers, and oceans when it slips through our hands. An understanding of this essential resource and how we have used and misused it over the years is crucial to the sustainability of our well-being on our planet. In this book, world authorities on phosphorus sustainability Jim Elser and Phil Haygarth explain this element's involvement in biology, human health and nutrition, food production, ecosystem function, and environmental sustainability. Phosphorus chronicles the sustainability challenges phosphorus both poses and solves in various contexts. The book begins with its discovery over 350 years ago, moving to its basic chemistry and the essential role it plays in all living things on Earth. Chapters go on to explain the rise in the usage of phosphorus in agriculture and how the increase in the mining of rock phosphate in the mid-20th century was essential for the Green Revolution. However, phosphorus emissions from human wastes and detergents triggered widespread algal blooms in the 1960s and 1970s. While such emissions have been brought under better control with wastewater treatment, diffuse emissions from farming continue to cause water quality degradation. The authors explain how these diffuse phosphorus emissions may worsen with climate change. In ten concise chapters, Elser and Haygarth offer engaging explanations of our historical use and abuse of phosphorus, including the phosphorus sustainability movement and new efforts to sustain food benefits of limited rock reserves following the phosphate rock price shock in 2007-2008....

The book is also mentioned in the March 6 issue of The New Yorker.

https://www.magzter.com/stories/culture/The-New-Yorker/ELEMENTAL-NEED

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/phosphorus-saved-our-way-of-life-and-now-threatens-to-end-it

[Moontanman]

3 hours ago, TheVat said:

Phosphogeddon!

https://books.google.com/books/about/Phosphorus.html?id=nqkPEAAAQBAJ

 

The book is also mentioned in the March 6 issue of The New Yorker.

https://www.magzter.com/stories/culture/The-New-Yorker/ELEMENTAL-NEED

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/phosphorus-saved-our-way-of-life-and-now-threatens-to-end-it

The phosphorus problem has been suggested as a resolution to the Fermi Paradox. 

[mistermack]

On 3/29/2023 at 8:11 PM, TheVat said:

Phosphogeddon!

That's a coincidence, there was a news item about a phosphate removal trial in the river wye valley, a few days ago, but I can't find it online. But I did find this, from six years ago, it might be the same system : 

https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/wessex-water-and-bath-trial-algae-treatment/  

[TheVat]

On 3/29/2023 at 4:52 PM, Moontanman said:

The phosphorus problem has been suggested as a resolution to the Fermi Paradox. 

A pessimistic one, for sure.  The problem of recovery (stop agri runoff, recycle livestock waste, human "peecycling," corpse recycling, change detergent formulas, etc) seems solvable.  And it's possible alien genetic code could be strung along something other than a phosphate backbone, so they would have other element bottlenecks perhaps.  

It's unfortunate that our main phosphorus source in the States is a state currently being governed by a would-be fascist idiot with a terrible environmental track record.  

53 minutes ago, mistermack said:

That's a coincidence, there was a news item about a phosphate removal trial in the river wye valley, a few days ago, but I can't find it online. But I did find this, from six years ago, it might be the same system : 

https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/wessex-water-and-bath-trial-algae-treatment/  

Pretty cool.   Stop eutrophication and recover phosphorus.  Nice work if you can get it.  

[Moontanman]

14 hours ago, TheVat said:

A pessimistic one, for sure.  The problem of recovery (stop agri runoff, recycle livestock waste, human "peecycling," corpse recycling, change detergent formulas, etc) seems solvable.  And it's possible alien genetic code could be strung along something other than a phosphate backbone, so they would have other element bottlenecks perhaps.  

It's unfortunate that our main phosphorus source in the States is a state currently being governed by a would-be fascist idiot with a terrible environmental track record.  

Pretty cool.   Stop eutrophication and recover phosphorus.  Nice work if you can get it.  

Not what I meant, the rarity of phosphorus in the universe is what I was referring to. We have an unusually high amount of phosphorus in our neck of the space woods. 

[TheVat]

33 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Not what I meant, the rarity of phosphorus in the universe is what I was referring to. We have an unusually high amount of phosphorus in our neck of the space woods. 

Oh that's interesting - I hadn't heard about the elemental rarity aspect in that broader sense.  Will look that up.  But, as I asked back there, isn't it possible alien genetic code could be strung along something other than a phosphate backbone?  Or maybe you just need phosphorus and nothing else will do?  

Not that they couldn't have other element bottlenecks.  

[mistermack]

15 hours ago, TheVat said:

Pretty cool.   Stop eutrophication and recover phosphorus.  Nice work if you can get it.  

It seems certain that the process works. But the big hurdle is scaling it up to practical and economic levels. I wasn't very impressed with the quantities of treated water that they were quoting, and it doesn't seem likely that it would work efficiently in a British winter, with short cool days and low sunlight. But maybe with some selective breeding, or gene manipulation, it could be improved. But of course, there are risks involved in releasing new algae into the environment. 

I've just bought this : 

It's by Bonar Menninger, a journalist, written in collaboration with Howard Donahue, a weapons expert who solved the riddle of how Kennedy died. I'm 100% certain that he nailed it, although it will never be officially accepted, and the ludicrous verdict of the Warren Commission still stands as the official description of what happened when Kennedy was assassinated. There have been a couple of tv films, outlining Donahue's analysis, but it's never become mainstream. 

I think the tag of conspiracy theory is enough these days to stop people even looking, even though plenty of real conspiracies have been confirmed in the past. 

 

 

 

[Moontanman]

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

Oh that's interesting - I hadn't heard about the elemental rarity aspect in that broader sense.  Will look that up.  But, as I asked back there, isn't it possible alien genetic code could be strung along something other than a phosphate backbone?  Or maybe you just need phosphorus and nothing else will do?  

Not that they couldn't have other element bottlenecks.  

Arsenic has been suggested as a replacement but much like carbon other possibilities suffer from problems due to simply being similar doesn't mean able to replace. 

[Hugh Veide]

Confessions by Jean-Jacques Roussea 

[lucy brighton]

Ursula K. Le Guin's 'A Wizard of Earthsea'. The book is a mesmerizing journey into an intricate, magical world. It blends evocative storytelling with profound philosophical depths, akin to unfurling a vivid tapestry of pure imagination. The world of Earthsea, with its vivid islands and rich cultures, is a spellbinding backdrop, offering a boundless playground for Le Guin's explorations of power, balance, and self-identity. The novel expertly weaves themes of maturation, fear, and the cost of power into an unforgettable narrative, a testament to Le Guin's mastery of her craft. 'A Wizard of Earthsea' is a magical voyage that held me in its strings until the last page.

Lately, I have been studying a lot on child Psychology and that has been helping me in trying to relate and sympathize with my child's thoughts and actions. My studies gradually led me into Swiss Psychologist Jean Piaget's Transductive Reasoning - an erroneous method of thinking where a cause and effect relationship is drawn between two events that are not logically connected. It is super interesting to see how some kids do not overcome this reasoning due to multiple factors, and how sometimes superstitions and other fears imposed my parents affect children's mental outlook. I've been trying my best to create a safe space for my child from my upbringing perspective and reading child Psychology has helped.

[Steve81]

 

An interesting dive into shame, how it’s integral to human development and civilization, how its misuse causes various problems, and so forth. 

Edited August 11, 2023 by Steve81

[TheVat]

I just mentioned Ted Chiang in the "Artificial Consciousness is Impossible" thread and cannot restrain myself from praising this brilliant sci-fi and speculative fiction writer.  His short story, Exhalation , is a bit pertinent to that thread but I would recommend it to anyone who likes the genre.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhalation_(short_story)

After you're done reading, make sure you maintain proper air pressure!

[mar_mar]

Few years ago I read "Brave new world" by O.Huxley.  And since then I have always been recalling it, especially when it comes to science or religion. It tells about happy and stable  world in which people are cloned instead of birth. There is no God in that world and the science is controlled by the government. This is dystopian novel and this makes me sad, because I think it is a prophetic book. I have some quote from it. 

    "-But I like the inconveniences.

    -We don't, said the Controller. We prefer to do things comfortably.

    -But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.

    -In fact,said Mustapha Mond, you're claiming the right to be unhappy.

    -All right then, said the Savage defiantly, I'm claiming the right to be unhappy.

    -Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen to-morrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.

There was a long silence.

    -I claim them all, said the Savage at last.

    Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders.-You're welcome, he said." 

 

Sometimes I feel like that Savage. 

[Luc Turpin]

For those interested in health and nutrition, Dr. Michael Gregger just came out with another book tittled How Not to Age which has over 13,000 references.  All evidence based health and nutrition; everything is backed-up by science.  This is a book to read!

[HarvianRoid]

Hi, I'm new here) just finished this Mine!: How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives by Michael A. Heller and James Salzman. It was my first time reading not about science or history, it was a pleasant experience

[TheVat]

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45392/ulysses

And this gray spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

[exchemist]

Defying Hitler. 

Synopsis:
"Sebastian Haffner was a non-Jewish German who emigrated to England in 1938. This memoir (written in 1939 but only published now for the first time) begins in 1914 when the family summer holiday is cut short by the outbreak of war, and ends with Hitler's assumption of power in 1933. It is a portrait of himself and his own generation in Germany, those born between 1900 and 1910, and brilliantly explains through his own experiences and those of his friends how that generation came to be seduced by Hitler and Nazism."

I thought now would be a good time to read how a demagogue, encouraging a cult of personality, can subvert the institutions of the state and seduce a population, little by little.

 

[paulsutton]

Currently reading

Research data visualization and scientific graphics, by Martins Zaumanis,  which is the 2nd book in the peer recognized series, the first being How to write an impactful research paper.  I finished reading this first.

Nice series of books.

[exchemist]

The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Luis Ruiz Zafon, in English translation. 

[geordief]

"The Jewish Cemetery at Newport "

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow(1852)

 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44634/the-jewish-cemetery-at-newport

https://www.mainememory.net/sitebuilder/site/3327/page/5254/display?use_mmn=1

Edited May 2 by geordief

[exchemist]

2 hours ago, geordief said:

"The Jewish Cemetery at Newport "

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow(1852)

 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44634/the-jewish-cemetery-at-newport

https://www.mainememory.net/sitebuilder/site/3327/page/5254/display?use_mmn=1

I didn’t know this. Rather good. The reference to “Judenstrasse”, though fairly innocent in his time, has an eerie prescience. (I’ve just watched “Downfall”.) But he was wrong to say that dead nations don’t rise again, as it turned out.

I’m reading, or rather re-reading, Martin Brasier’s “Darwin’s Lost World”, about Ediacaran and other Precambrian life. I’m enjoying it more second time round. Now that I have a son at St. Andrew’s, in the university mountaineering club, I feel I want to go to Loch Torridan with a geologist’s hammer and climb Quinaig.

Edited May 2 by exchemist