Category: Science

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Join CPRC at our 2014 Annual Spring Meeting – April 27-28

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CPRC logoThe following is a cross-posting from the Chesapeake-Potomac Regional Chapter of SETAC. Get more information here.

2014 CPRC Annual Spring Meeting

The CPRC-SETAC Annual Spring Meeting will be held Monday April 28th, 2014 at the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center in Grasonville, MD

 Registration

Registration is $65 for non-members (includes 2014 CPRC-SETAC membership), $50 for professional members and $25 for students.  The fee includes the optional “Day On The Bay” Sunday April 27th to take advantage of all that CBEC and Chesapeake Bay have to offer.  The fee also includes all of the catered food and drink (breakfast, breaks, lunch and happy hour!) during the meeting day on Monday April 28th.

To register, please fill out the 2014 Meeting Registration Form  and email to treasurer.cprc.setac@gmail.com.  Payments can be submitted via PayPal (no PayPal account is required) by following this link.

 Day On The Bay!

On April 27th, we will have a lot of fun helping the environment! CPRC along with MatrixNeworld, CBEC, and Restore the Earth Foundation organized a Coastal Wetland Restoration project where volunteers will plant nearly 600 plants over a 2,000 square foot area to restore a coastal wetland and help prevent further shoreline erosion. See attached flyer for more details.  Please take a look at the attached flyer for more details and RSVP sending an email to vice.president.cprc.setac@gmail.com.

Area hotels (pdf with map)

Best Western Kent Narrows Inn in Gasonville, MD has agreed to hold a block of rooms at the rate of $79/night for Sunday April 27th and Monday April 28th.  To get the block rate, call (410-827-6767) and tell them you are with CPRC.  They are holding only 11 rooms and the rooms will be released for general booking on March 27th.  Please contact vice.president.cprc.setac@gmail.com with any issues or difficulties.

Area restaurants (pdf with map)

 Carpooling 

Please email cprc.setac@gmail.com with 1) your name, 2) phone number, 3) address, and 4) route taken to meeting or if you need a ride.  We’ll hook you up!

Contact

If you have any questions about the meeting, feel free to contact CPRC-SETAC at cprc.setac@gmail.com.

This website, Science Traveler, is a proud sponsor of CPRC and SETAC. I’ll also be presenting at the CPRC meeting – my topic: Remembering the Big Picture – Communicating Local Science to a Global Audience. [With scenes from Argentina as my backdrop]

Come join us for a day on the bay. Make that two days on the bay!

David J. Kent is an avid traveler and the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity. You can order a signed copy directly from me, download the ebook at barnesandnoble.com, and find hard copies exclusively at Barnes and Noble bookstores.

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Up Close and Personal with the Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina

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You’ve probably seen photographs of the Perito Moreno Glacier. One of the most photogenic glaciers in the world, the Perito Moreno is a site to behold. And behold we did. It was one of the final scenic stops on our trip to Patagonia in southern Argentina, and it was worth the wait. I took hundreds of photographs, so picking the few that I use below was difficult. There will be more in the future, but let’s at least get in some of the highlights. Driving along the Peninsula Magallanes, we rounded a turn and, as a group, in unison, all exclaimed, “Wow!,” as we saw this:

Perito Moreno first look

Unlike many of the glaciers we had already encountered on the trip, this one is both massive and dramatically intrudes onto the lakes. If you look closely at the photo above, near the shore in the middle right, you’ll see a boat. That boat is roughly the length of the boats that take you into the mist at Niagara Falls. Luckily there was no mist (as it would have been ice cubes), for we were about to go on that boat right up close to the south face of the glacier. The north face, which I’ll get to later in this piece, is just off the right side of the above photo. Staying on this side for now, this is what the south face looks like up close.

Perito Moreno south face

To give you some perspective, those mountains in the background are between 2100 and 3000 meters high (6900 to 9800 feet). The face of the glacier runs about 50-55 meters above the waterline (165-180 feet), but remember that most of an iceberg is below water? Well, the total depth of the ice is actually more like 150 meters (nearly 500 feet). To get a really intimate look we decided to nudge up closer:

Perito Moreno glacier

Imagine that much ice hovering over your head. Here’s another close up shot:

Perito Moreno glacier

You can see how uneven and ragged the surface is of the glacier. Even more amazing, you can hear it. There is constant groaning and popping and cracking from all over the glacier. Every so often a chunk falls off into the water. And by chunk I mean anything ranging from small (the size of your chair) to medium (your car) to large (your house).

Okay, enough of the south face. Let’s get back onshore and drive around the point to the front and north faces of the Perito Moreno glacier. Look back at the first photo in this post; we’re going off to the right, around that little point of land in the middle. This is the first view you’ll have when you arrive:

Perito Moreno glacier

See that little gray rock outcropping in the middle back of the ice field (not the mountain in the background, the little jagged rocks with ice surrounding it). That point is 14 kilometers (almost 9 miles) from the front face of the glacier (which is in the foreground, partially hidden by trees). Here’s an overhead shot (complements of Wiki Commons) to give you an idea of how massive it is as the glacier fans out toward the shore.

Perito Moreno glacier - from Wiki Commons

The front face in my photo is the tiny edge that touches the land on the right side of the Wiki photo. The lower face is the south face that I showed you above from the boat. But let’s go around to the north face (top right in the Wiki photo).

Perito Moreno glacier - front and north faces

In the photo above you can see where the front face (left) meets the north face (right). By this time (mid-February) the front of the glacier had separated from the land (see the exciting video below). The icebergs in the water are from pieces of the glacier that have calved (broken off), a process that occurs sporadically but constantly as the glacier creeps towards us from the distant mountains. And just to remind you of the size, that shoreline in the right background? It’s about 2.5 kilometers away (1.5 miles).

Okay, one more photo – a close up of the north face:

Perito Moreno glacier

Since the name of this site is Science Traveler it’s virtually imperative that I mention the state of the glaciers in Argentina. The Perito Moreno glacier is one of 48 glaciers in the South Patagonia ice field (with many more in other ice field further north). Of those 48 glaciers, Perito Moreno is one of only three that is actually growing. Scientists aren’t entirely sure why this one is growing while 94% of the glaciers are shrinking, but any ice growth in an otherwise warming planet is good news [or not, since it’s likely the growth is due to changing weather patterns as a result of man-made climate change].

Another cool science bit for this glacier is the periodic rupturing it undergoes. Because of the unique flow pattern and geography of the region, the Perito Moreno glacier tends to push up against the shores of the Peninsula Magallanes (right in the Wiki photo). Usually the glacier melts back a bit during the summer (which was when I was there). But roughly every 4 to 5 years it creates an imbalance that results in a spectacular display. As the glacier blocks off the flow between the two arms of the lake, it raises the water level of the Brazo Rico as much as 30 meters (100 feet). The pressure caused by the weight of the water starts to strain the section of the glacier that has dammed it in. Eventually the ice is worn away enough to create an ice bridge. Slowly the combined stresses of forward moving glacier, downward water pressure, and seasonal melting cause big chunks (the house size) to fall out of the bridge. Until the whole thing collapses in a huge splash.

The last rupture in January of 2013, but the most magnificent rupture occurred in 2004 where, over the course of nine months, the ice dam formed, eroded, and eventually shattered. The video below documents the process.

I’ve provided only a handful of the many fantastic photos I took at the Perito Moreno glacier. I hope you got at least a small sense of the wonder of the location. It’s an experience I won’t soon forget. For more photos and stories of our trip to Argentina click here and scroll down.

Fire of Genius

Click to Barnes and Noble

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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Is Nikola Tesla’s Vision of Wireless Electricity Finally Happening?

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Nikola TeslaMore than a hundred years ago, Nikola Tesla invented wireless communication and power generation. He was a man far ahead of his time. Now it looks like the modern world maybe be catching up to his vision. Wireless electricity may be here.

A Boston-based company by the name of WiTricity has come up with a way of transmitting electricity without wires. As the company’s Chief Technology Officer reports to CNN, “we’re not actually putting electricity in the air. What we’re doing is putting a magnetic field in the air.” They do this by building a “source resonator,” which essentially is a coil of wire that generates a magnetic field when power is attached. Bringing a second coil in close proximity will generate an electrical charge.

Sound familiar? According to Arron Hirst:

The technology appears to based upon the original findings of Nikola Tesla. In a patent filed at the U.S Patent and Trademark Office on February 19, 1900, entitled “Apparatus for Transmission of Electrical Energy,” Tesla describes a similar system for delivering electricity from one static point, to another.

Tesla-PSJul1956

Tesla, after advancing wireless communication technology in Colorado Springs, began work on Long Island at Wardenclyffe. His ultimate goal was not only to provide international wireless communication (radio) but develop his system of wireless electrical power transmission. The technology itself seems simple by today’s standards, but it was groundbreaking when Tesla first envisioned the idea. WiTricity has already used the technology “to power laptops, cell-phones, and TVs by attaching resonator coils to batteries.” They are also working on a way to recharge electric cars. On their website they note the potential of wireless power:

Cell phones, game controllers, laptop computers, mobile robots, even electric vehicles capable of re-charging themselves without ever being plugged in. Flat screen TV’s and digital picture frames that hang on the wall—without requiring a wire and plug for power. Industrial systems and medical devices made more reliable by eliminating trouble prone wiring and replaceable batteries.

So perhaps after all these years Nikola Tesla’s technology will finally be coming to fruition. Hopefully WiTricity’s advances will recognize Tesla’s amazing contributions to the field. For more on how wireless power works (including your electric toothbrush), check out this very readable article. And for a fun read, check out author Thomas Waite’s use of Tesla’s wireless idea in his novel, Terminal Velocity.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

David J. Kent is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, now available. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (both Fall River Press). He has also written two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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Science Traveler and Science Traveling

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Candied hawthorns in Olympic Park, Beijing

Candied hawthorns at Olympic Park, Beijing

I call this site Science Traveler. And I’m currently out science traveling. So, what is science traveling? I’m glad you asked. Though the answer isn’t as clear cut as it might seem.

I’ve been a scientist for many years, and as a result have done a little bit of travel. Emphasis on “little” and “bit.” Besides the many wonderful days spent in luxurious locales such as oil refineries, sewage treatment plants, and mud bogs, I regularly attended scientific conferences in cities around the United States and Canada. A delightfully drenched week in Vancouver spent entirely inside a convention center epitomizes the excitement of that annual opportunity. For the last 15 years, however, travel has became a lot more interesting.

I’ve been lucky enough to live overseas on three different occasions, in St. George’s, Bermuda; Edinburgh, Scotland; and most recently, Brussels, Belgium. I’ve been to Asia several times, tootled around a good part of Europe, and currently am trekking through a couple of countries south of the equator. Now that I’m writing books and freelancing full time, my travels will become more frequent and more adventurous. They will also become story lines. And those story lines will usually contain some science angle.

Science traveler. Like asking whether Galileo actually did drop balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and if he did, was someone at the bottom to catch them? Like, how is it that I could carry on a conversation with an elderly (and slightly inebriated) Japanese gentleman when neither one of us spoke the others language? Like, how many Argentinian students does it take to get a visiting scientist to wade into a stream alongside an electroshock fisherman?

Of course, science traveling can also mean simply appreciating the ephemeral beauty of a sinking sunset over a Mexican beach, the astonishing talent of a renaissance artist in the Vatican, or the portentous river of water sluicing down a melting glacier in Chile. It might also include crawling through caves in Tennessee after overlooking one of the Civil War’s most infamous battle sites, admiring the orchids of Tenerife, or visiting the latest in a long list of aquariums.

Science traveling most definitely includes photographs. Thousands of photographs. And with each photo comes a story…or many stories. Science traveler will tell those stories.

So while I’m out science traveling I’ll post some photos, some stories, and hopefully some scientific insights that will bring the world closer to everyone.

David J. Kent is an avid traveler and the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity. You can order a signed copy directly from me, download the ebook at barnesandnoble.com, and find hard copies exclusively at Barnes and Noble bookstores.

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Oh What a Year (aka, Tesla Rules!)

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David J. Kent, Science TravelerIt seems like January 2013 was a blink away, but somehow an entire year has passed and that blink away is now January 2014. But oh what a year it was. A year of transitions, a year of excitement, and even a year with some major anxieties. But it is a year I will always remember – the year of Tesla.

Tesla – The Wizard of 2013!

The obvious hallmark was the release of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity. Nine months after it had been accepted by the publisher the book finally hit the stores in July 2013. Prominently displayed on shelves at Barnes and Noble entrances, many stores quickly sold out and reordered. Even after the warehouse was empty the books continued to sell, limited only by people’s ability to locate them. By the end of the year we had sold out almost the entire (large) first printing. Even better, a second printing of double the initial run is due out July 2014.

[Off-] Broadway Bound!

The success of Tesla has had another benefit – all the great people I’ve met. Besides Nikola, Sherry, Sam and many others with the Tesla Science Foundation, there are the great folks at Tesla Ambassadors and other Facebook groups. I even got to meet Mr. William H. Terbo, the only living relative of Nikola Tesla. Mr. Terbo is the grand-nephew and actually met Tesla himself when he was ten years old. Another highlight of the year was being invited to speak to the cast of the off-Broadway play, TESLA, then attending opening night of the wildly successful show. Sanja Bestic as director and Sheri Graubert as writer worked so well as a team that they have another show coming out this spring – Jackie and Marilyn. I can’t wait.

Even the bad things worked out!

Of course, there were some downer parts of the year too. Most notably my father’s aneurysm surgery in February turned out to be more dramatic than expected. I’m happy to say that after having several aorta re-plumbed, a series of strokes and seizures, four days of coma, no movement on one side for a few more days, and months of rehab, Dad is doing very well. Meanwhile, the toxicity of my own work environment finally led to the decision to leave my long-standing scientific career and become a full-time writer. Notwithstanding the sudden lack of income, it was a great decision. It’s even been good for my health – after putting on weight in the spring I’ve dropped 10 pounds and live a much healthier lifestyle.

Science Traveler alert!

Along the way I managed to squeeze in a little bit of travel, including several trips to my home town for family events, four times to New York City for writing/Tesla events, a road trip to Tennessee, and even a quick weekend in Jamaica. Travel will get more emphasis in 2014, starting with a trip to NYC in January and to Argentina in February. Summer may bring me to the west coast and/or Moscow and/or Iceland and/or a country to be named later. I’ll be posting much more on travel (and aquariums) this coming year as Science Traveler starts catching up to its moniker.

150 Years of Abraham Lincoln!

Not to be forgotten is Abraham Lincoln. As a member of the Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia I’ve had the privilege of joining monthly dinners with some of the most knowledgeable Lincolnophiles in the area. And since each dinner has a guest speaker, I’ve met Lincoln scholars such Douglas L. Wilson, Walter Stahr, and many others. [Eric Foner will receive the Lincoln Award from us in January 2014] One of my most cherished activities of this past year has been the monthly Lincoln Group book club. We’ve been reading the version of Herndon’s Lincoln edited by the aforementioned Doug Wilson and his colleague Rodney O. Davis. Having the combined expertise and insights of the dozen or so group members – all Lincoln scholars – is priceless.

My Presidency Ends!

With all this going on I somehow managed to perform my duties as President of the Chesapeake-Potomac Regional Chapter of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. This was my second go-around as President (the first was in 2001), and I’ve loved every minute of my involvement. As I hand over the Presidency to this year’s VP, Brad Pratt, I’ll remain as a Contributing Editor to the CPRC newsletter and an active Past-President.

Reading is Fundamental!

And then there were the books. As has been my norm in recent years I’ve finished reading about 60 books this year. Because of research for my next book, at least a dozen were Abraham Lincoln-related. But there were also many on Nikola Tesla, some great memoirs, and the trade of writing/publishing. I even read a half dozen fiction books (a rarity for me). Better yet, I was able to read some great books by authors I know personally, most notably Thomas Waite, R.C. (Chuck) Larlham, and Sam Hawksworth. Check them out.

All in all, 2013 was a very good year. I’m looking forward to an even better 2014, where I’ll meet more great people, do more great travel, and write more great books (and yes, I’ll shortly have more info on my Tesla book due out in the spring).

See you all again soon…and Happy New Year!!

David J. Kent is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity. You can order a signed copy directly from me, download the ebook at barnesandnoble.com, and find hard copies exclusively at Barnes and Noble bookstores.

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Book Review – The Discovery of Global Warming by Spencer R. Weart

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Spencer Weart The Discovery of Global WarmingSpencer Weart takes us on a journey into the past.  In The Discovery of Global Warming, Weart provides a history of the science that has now come to be known as Anthropomorphic Global Warming (AGW), or more simply, man-made climate change. And in doing so he demonstrates just how robust and voluminous is the scientific case for human induced climate change.

He begins by recounting the early discoveries by such well-known names as Joseph Fourier, Guy Stewart Callendar, John Tyndall and Svante Arrhenius.  Lesser known but also providing significant contributions to the developing science include such scientists as James Croll, Vladimir Verdansky, Charles Greeley Abbot, Milutin Milankovitch, Gilbert Plass, Hans Suess, David Keeling and many others.  As he takes us through the years in come names such as Roger Revelle, Wally Broecker, J. Murray Mitchell, Ed Lorenz, and on to names more familiar to us in the modern day like Stephen Schneider, James Hansen, Gavin Schmidt and Michael Mann.  In all, Weart reviewed a thousand studies and says that each study has 10 more like it and 10 more beyond that.

Weart’s narrative gives us a sense of the trials and tribulations of early scientists trying to make sense of myriad observations as they tested hypothesis after hypothesis.  Was the Earth warming or cooling? What influences were there from sunspots, volcanoes, aerosols and particulates?  How to deal with uncertainties and feedback mechanisms? We see how the science developed piece by piece in fits and starts as scientists first worked on the periphery of fields tangential to their own, then eventually realizing that the growing awareness of climate was inter- and multidisciplinary. All of these questions being addressed as technology advanced from doing calculations by hand through early computers to the supercomputers used today.  From simple measurements using thermometers to satellites that scan the globe day and night.

As the case for man-made climate change grew there became a need for an way to synthesis the thousands of studies into a cohesive summary of the state-of-the-science.  And so the IPCC was born.  As more data came in and was compiled the conclusions moved from “discernible effects” to “unequivocal warming” and “very likely” (90-99% certainty) that is was being caused by humans.  Data since the last report has not only made the case for a human cause even more certain, the rate and magnitude of change is even greater than previously thought.

Anyone interested in global warming/climate change would do well to read this book.  It provides a valuable history of the development of the science, and demonstrates without a doubt the robustness of the scientific consensus that the planet is warming and that human activity is the main contributor.  As Weart himself says, “the few who contest these facts are either ignorant or so committed to their viewpoint that they will seize on any excuse to deny the risk.” The science is unequivocal; whether we act is our choice.  A choice that has major ramifications for our future and the futures of our children and grandchildren.

David J. Kent is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity. You can order a signed copy directly from me, download the ebook at barnesandnoble.com, and find hard copies exclusively at Barnes and Noble bookstores. He is currently working on a book about Abraham Lincoln.

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Book Review – Am I Making Myself Clear? A Scientist’s Guide to Talking to the Public by Cornelia Dean

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Am I Making Myself Clear? Am I Making Myself Clear? A Scientist’s Guide to Talking to the Public is a much needed book for scientific and non-scientific communities alike.  Written by science writer (and former New York Times editor) Cornelia Dean, the book makes the case that scientists need to make “their work more accessible to the media, and thus to the public.”  This doesn’t come naturally to most scientists, and so the book gives some practical tips on how scientists can accomplish this goal.

Dean starts with “an invitation to researchers” to put aside their natural reticence and distrust of the media and help themselves and journalists get the key messages of their science across to the public.  This is important because there are plenty of people out there who don’t hesitate to misinform the public about the science in order to protect their own interests (e.g., the climate change debate).  In ensuing chapters she provides some insights into how scientists can better “know your audience,” help educate and work with journalists, and how to get the message across on radio and TV, online, and in the courtroom.  She also offers tips on writing books, writing Op-Eds and letters to news outlets, and writing about science and technology in other venues.

Two of the most valuable chapters actually have to do with how journalists cover science issues.  In “Covering Science,” Dean notes some of the differences in style and communication between journalism and scientific writing.  These differences set up an inherent conflict.  Scientific researchers view journalists as being superficial, insufficiently concerned with accuracy, focused on controversy, and even “ignorant.”  In turn, journalists view researchers as boring, “caveating things to death,” prone to incomprehensible jargon, and incapable of drawing a definitive conclusion.  In “The Problem of Objectivity,” Dean discusses the limitations of journalistic “balance” in which one opposing voice is given equal weight to the thousands of proponent voices because both sides are represented.  This journalistic trait is exploited by, for example, climate change deniers, who know that TV interviews with one scientist and one naysayer (even if he is a non-scientist) looks to the public like “two sides” of a debate, even when the science is overwhelmingly in favor of one view.  Given that it is often difficult for a journalist to know the state-of-the-art of the science, this opens the door for imbalance in an effort to provide balance.

Perhaps the most valuable chapter to scientists is “The Scientist as Source.” Here Dean provides some practical hints as to how scientists can best interact with journalists.  Again she encourages scientists to put aside their hesitations to speak to the press and to embrace the opportunity to get out a message that accurately reflects both the research itself and the ramifications of that research to the public.

Am I Making Myself Clear? is quite readable, as one might expect from a science journalist.  I recommend reading this book along with Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum’s Unscientific America and Randy Olson’s Don’t Be Such a Scientist.  All three books are useful to the scientist to help him or her relate better to the public, and to the public at large to better understand how science works.

David J. Kent is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity. You can order a signed copy directly from me, download the ebook at barnesandnoble.com, and find hard copies exclusively at Barnes and Noble bookstores.

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Book Review – Archaea by Sam Hawksworth

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Archaea by Sam HawksworthWhat happens when you mix deadly microbes with religious zealots with animal rights activists? You get an extremely entertaining and well written mystery thriller by debut novelist Sam Hawksworth.

The book opens with a man being transferred against his will from a deep maximum security prison – “a clean version of hell” – and we quickly learn about the book’s title. An archaea is a single celled microorganism that by itself is safe and not pathogenic. But what happens if it is combined with a pathogenic component? As archaea are easily transmitted we suddenly have a mechanism for a worldwide epidemic of the attached pathogen. This one causes infertility, something that the secret organization manufacturing it sees as a plus. Unfortunately, it has the inconvenient side effect of being fatal to about a quarter of a million women worldwide.

That’s the starting point for a wild ride that intertwines the lives of an Ivy League professor, an FBI team out of Boston, a trio of animal rights activists concerned about a secret, paramilitary-protected compound in Texas, a few anti-abortion fanatics, and a smattering of white supremacists, all with their own reasons for supporting, or fighting, the cause.

Hawksworth deftly communicates the intricacies of biological agents while giving us insights into the motives and rationales of each character and group. Questions of morality and societal responsibility are raised as the book skates along the difficult issues of overpopulation and disease. His plot twists keep the story moving, and not always in the direction you think it is going. I found myself racing through the pages, eager to find out what happens next.

The book is available as an ebook through Amazon’s digital services and for a price so low that it was an easy decision to take a chance on an unknown author. I’m glad I did. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.

[NOTE: I periodically do reviews of some of the books I’m reading. This fiction book has a nice science aspect to it that I found fascinating. Click and scroll down for other book reviews.]

David J. Kent is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity. You can order a signed copy directly from me, download the ebook at barnesandnoble.com, and find hard copies exclusively at Barnes and Noble bookstores.

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How are Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla Connected?

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I’ve been a part time scholar of Abraham Lincoln for most of my life. And I’ve written a book on Nikola Tesla. Now it seems the two men are connected in many ways.

How can that be? After all, Nikola Tesla was born in 1856, so he was only 9-years-old when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Oh, and Tesla was born of Serbian heritage in an area that is now part of Croatia. He didn’t even make it to the United States until 1884 – almost a score years after “now he belongs to the ages” was uttered. So how could they possibly be connected?

I’ve actually come across at least a half dozen connections. I’ve already mentioned one of them on this site before. Thomas Edison, Tesla’s archrival in the war of the currents, was a big fan of “the life and character of Abraham Lincoln.”

My most recent discovery happened when I was the Library of Congress (LOC) obtaining my “Readers ID,” which is required of all scholarly researchers who want to actually touch the old letters and manuscripts. In the Thomas Jefferson building, one of three massive edifices that make up the Library of Congress, is a mural by Edwin Howland Blashfield. Circling the main reading room way up in the dome, the mural depicts about a dozen countries or regions and contributions they have made to society. Gazing upward you see this:

Abraham Lincoln LOC main reading room

Zooming in to the “one o’clock” position of the above you can see someone very familiar:

Abraham Lincoln LOC close up

According to the LOC’s Lincoln and Civil War expert Michelle Krowl, and quoting from the book On These Walls: Inscriptions & Quotations in the Library of Congress:

“America is represented by the field of science. The figure, an engineer whose face was modeled on that of Abraham Lincoln, sits pondering a problem. In front of him is an electric dynamo, representing the American contribution to advances in harnessing electricity.”

Well how about that? The visage of Abraham Lincoln is used to epitomize America, and our contribution to society is science, depicted by an electric dynamo harnessing electricity, something that Nikola Tesla was in the forefront of bringing to the American public.

How cool is that?

These are just two of several connections between Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla. I’m compiling these for an article I plan to submit this fall. Keep coming back for updates and more connections.

Meanwhile, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity continues to sell out the remainder of the stock in Barnes and Noble stores. Be sure to ask for it if you don’t see it on the shelves (some stores are down to their last copy). Of course, you can always buy a signed and inscribed copy directly from me on this website.

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Kyle Driebeek Donates Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity to Bear Path School

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Tesla: The Wizard of ElectricityOne of the things I treasure the most about the experience of publishing Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity is the chance to meet some great people. While I’ve met off-Broadway actors and writers (TESLA), authors and museum directors, and even Nikola Tesla’s grandnephew, one of the most inspiring has been 12-year-old Kyle Driebeek and his family.

I wrote about Kyle after meeting him several months ago at the annual Tesla conference in the New Yorker Hotel. His mother Betsy has kept me up-to-date on his activities since then, and we met again at Tesla Days in Philadelphia. Both Kyle and his brother Julian gave presentations about their first experiences trying to research Tesla for school projects. Kyle surprised me by mentioning he would be buying an extra copy of my book and donating it to the school library. He encouraged others to do the same.

On August 30th, Kyle presented the book to Mrs. Margo Nabors, librarian at the Bear Path School in Hamden, CT.

Kyle delvering book to Margo

Photo courtesy of Betsy Driebeek

The idea all began in 2010 when a third grade project required students to research a famous person. Kyle chose Nikola Tesla. Other students chose people like Einstein, Disney, Hershey, Edison, Michelle Obama, Orville Wright, and Helen Keller. They had no trouble finding sufficient material for their projects. Tesla? Not so easy. After searching through the library’s database Kyle couldn’t find anything on Tesla. Nothing. The librarian, like Kyle’s parents and most other people, had never heard of Nikola Tesla.

Flash forward three years. My book, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity, is released and, as Betsy Driebeek puts it, “reaches many ages and intellects.”  Seeing an opportunity to give something back to his elementary school, Kyle decided to donate the book to the school library so that new students would have a chance to learn about this important, but often overlooked, scientist and inventor. Even better, Kyle has volunteered his own extensive and ever-increasing knowledge to assist the next student who comes inquiring about Tesla.

I am honored that Kyle and his family chose to donate my book to further education. Two of my relatives, both long-time teachers, have also told me that they will donate a copy of the book to the local school and public town libraries, respectively. Others have suggested they will do the same. I am very happy that Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity is playing a role in bringing the work and life of Nikola Tesla to a wider audience.

As another Tesla friend said to me recently “Tesla awareness is growing rapidly!!!” It’s nice to be a small part of building that awareness.

David J. Kent is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity. You can order a signed copy directly from me, download the ebook at barnesandnoble.com, and find hard copies exclusively at Barnes and Noble bookstores. Stores are starting to sell out their stock, and restock, so get them while they are available.

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