The Secret Life of Dust

Hannah Holmes

Description

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.
Acknowledgments.

Introduction.

The World in a Grain of Dust.

Life and Death among the Stars.

A Light and Intriguing Rain of Space Dust.

The (Deadly) Dust of Deserts.

A Steady Upward Rain of Dust.

Dust on the Wind Heeds No Borders.

Did Dust Do In the Ice Age?

A Steady, Downward Rain of Dust.

A Few Unsavory Characters from the Neighborhood.

Microscopic Monsters and Other Indoor Devils.

Dust to Dust.

Web Sites.

Bibliography.

Index.

Sujets

• Sciences de la nature
• Sciences de la terre
• Science de la Terre
• Science
• Hannah Holmes
• Sciences et techniques
• Earth Sciences

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 18 août 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780470589144
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE SECRET LIFE OF DUST
THE SECRET LIFE OF DUST
From the Cosmos to the Kitchen Counter, the Big Consequences of Little Things
Hannah Holmes

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
New York • Chichester • Weinheim • Brisbane • Singapore • Toronto
 
 
 
 
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright © 2001 by Hannah Holmes. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published simultaneously in Canada
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone]. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158-0012, [phone], fax [phone], e-mail: [e-mail].
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Holmes, Hannah
   The secret life of dust : from the cosmos to the kitchen counter, the big consequences of little things / Hannah Holmes.
     p.  cm.
  Includes bibliographical references and index.
  ISBN 0-471-37743-0 (acid-free paper)
  I. Science—Miscellanea. 2. Dust—Miscellanea. I. Title.
Q173.H733    2001
551.51'12—dc21                                                 2001022368
 
10   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1
To my big, fat muse, P. Earth
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
   1: The World in a Grain of Dust
   2: Life and Death among the Stars
   3: A Light and Intriguing Rain of Space Dust
   4: The (Deadly) Dust of Deserts
   5: A Steady Upward Rain of Dust
   6: Dust on the Wind Heeds No Borders
   7: Did Dust Do In the Ice Age?
   8: A Steady Downward Rain of Dust
   9: A Few Unsavory Characters from the Neighborhood
10: Microscopic Monsters and Other Indoor Devils
11: Dust to Dust
Web Sites
Bibliography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My profound gratitude goes to the hundreds of scientists who spent time talking with me, digging up obscure papers, and pointing me in fertile directions. Without those who gave so freely of both their knowledge and their enthusiasm for the subject, this book would not exist. Some of these dust scholars dedicated many precious hours to my education and to improving the manuscript, for which I am even more deeply indebted. They bear no blame for any inaccuracies that may remain. They are:
Chapter 2: David Leckrone, stargazer extraordinaire and a dear friend. Also Stanley Woosley, Neal Evans, Henry Throop, David Leisawitz, Max Bernstein, and Kim Sepulvur. Chapter 3: Don Brownlee, Susan Taylor, Ken Farley, Mike Zolensky, and Larry Nittler. Chapter 4: David Loope, David Fastovsky, and Marc Hendrix. Chapter 5: Estelle Levetin, Barry Huebert, David Pyle, and Hayley Duffell. Chapter 6: Dan Jaffe, Steve Warren, Douglas Westphal, and Joe Prospero. Chapter 7: Pierre Biscaye, Dean Hegg, Tamara Ledley, and David Rind. Chapter 8: Gene Shinn, Daniel Muhs, Richard Schlesinger and Morton Lippmann, Garriet Smith, Mary Silver, John Priscu, David Miller, and Charles Main. Chapter 9: Robert Castellan, Susanna Von Essen, Eileen Schneider, and Albert Heber. Chapter 10: Paul Lioy, Andy Liu, Lance Wallace, Eileen Abt, Bernard Harlow, Frank Vigil, Jens Ponikau, John Roberts, and Agile Redmon. Chapter 11: Lee Anne Willson, Fred Adams, and Ken Caldeira.
Special thanks to David Vardeman at the Portland Library of the University of Southern Maine, for reeling in some of the most esoteric journals on the planet. And thanks to all the staff there, for delivering the printed world to my doorstep.
Finally, thanks to my parents, whose kids grew up with a microscope on the kitchen table. Thanks to my friend and agent, Karen Nazor, for the kick in the pants. Dad and Kirsten, thanks for reading! And for cheerfully braving unreadable chapters, for sharp-eyed guidance, and for ensuring that Mr. Mookie Moe got his beach time, thank you to the Big Fish, Claude V. Z. Morgan.
INTRODUCTION
What got me started on dust?
The little subject suggested itself rather forcefully. A few years ago I was on assignment in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, writing about a dinosaur expedition. The pink-orange clouds of dust that billowed over the desert floor were impossible to ignore. The whirling specks invaded my eyes and nose. They infiltrated the pages of my books. They invaded the depths of my sleeping bag.
I had thought this rambling dust was just a local phenomenon. So I was immediately intrigued when expedition geologist David Loope told me that a thin veil of dust flows high across the sky, enveloping the entire planet. As we stood by a sandstone cliff, squinting against the ever-swirling grit, Loope explained how dust helped to create the Gobi’s fabulous fossils. Raindrops form on these high-flying dusts, he said. The falling rain drags down the dust, and that dust works a dark magic inside a sand dune.
Consider the larger implications of this: Worldwide, how many raindrops fall from the sky on any given day? And each raindrop contains a piece of dust. So how many specks must there be in the sky? Where do they all come from?
Another of our expedition mates warned me that I’d be digging Gobi dust out of my ears for six months after I left the desert. But some of the dust seems to have penetrated even more deeply. Back at home I discovered I had dust on the brain. When I look up at the sky, I search for a glimmer of that ubiquitous veil. When a raindrop pelts my arm, I stare at the splattered water, wondering what sort of speck brought this drop together. When I wipe my computer screen, I peer through a magnifying glass at the sparkly, fuzzy stuff caught among the sharp ridges of my fingerprint. Too small to distinguish are the individual fragments of a disintegrating world: the skin flakes, rock flecks, tree bark, bicycle paint, lampshade fibers, ant legs, sweater wool, brick shards, tire rubber, hamburger soot, and bacteria. The world is in a constant state of disintegration.
This invisible dust isn’t as harmless as it may appear. It can be a heartless little brute. In -ologies ranging from climatology to immunology, scientists are now calling dust onto the carpet. It is a central suspect in the mystery of how the planet’s climate is shifting. Billions of tons of it take to the sky each year, and this surely alters the behavior of the Earth’s atmosphere. And dust is taking new heat for killing lots of people—not just miners, sandblasters, and asbestos workers, but thousands, maybe millions , of ordinary people who simply live and breathe in dusty air. Although our bodies evolved to screen out most natural dusts, it seems that our lungs are vulnerable to the smaller, industrial-size specks. Dust’s relationship to asthma is another topic now coming to a boil. Traditionally, scientists thought the asthma epidemic might be caused by various house dusts. But new, jaw-dropping evidence suggests that asthma may be caused by too little house dust.
By necessity dust scholars are a creative bunch. Scientists who study elephants are spared much of the difficulty of locating a specimen. But a dust scientist must often invent a device simply to acquire the minuscule object of his or her curiosity. One woman created an underwater vacuum cleaner to collect her space dust from the bottom of a well. A fellow who studies the dust of the last ice age isolates his tiny samples of dust from glacial ice cores. And catching dust is only half the battle: both the handling and the analysis of dust are complicated by its dainty girth. The latter scientist rounds up his flighty grains with cling-wrapped fingers.
Since the day I stood in the Gobi Desert and contemplated the population of dust in the sky, I’ve come to see the air as a medium and dust as the message. Dust delivers the world news: the Rocky Mountains are eroding, and a volcano is erupting in the Philippines. It carries the local headlines, too: the neighborhood coffee roaster is burning the beans, and traffic is heavy on the turnpike. And it brings us the social pages, the news about human activity, for we are dusty creatures.
One purpose of this book is to help readers learn to decipher some of the messages that drift in the air. Our planet sometimes seems too enormous to really comprehend. But perhaps tuning in to the news bulletins issued by some of the planet’s smallest reporters can give us a better sense of how things are going for the whole.
Second, I’d be honored if I were able to introduce the reader to his own, personal dusts. Never mind that each of us is constantly enveloped in a haze of our own skin flakes and disintegrating clothing. In addition to that cloud, each match we strike, each light-switch we flick, and each mile we drive causes more dust to rise into the air. Taken in global quantities, our personal puffs of dust have planet-size consequences.
When the fragmenting skin of the Earth rises, both at nature’s urging and our own, it changes the weather, and even the climate. When it settles, this dust alters the seas and the soils and the delicate linings of our own lungs. In tiny things there is huge magic and colossal mayhem.
A few notes on jargon: Temperatures will be given in Fahrenheit. The subject of size is covered in Chapter 1. But for ease of reference, here is a sampl