Slime - How Algae Created Us, Plage Us, and Just Might Save Us

Ruth Kassinger

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

2019

288 páginas

9h 36m

ISBN-10: 0544432932

There are tens of thousands of algal species, from microscopic diatoms to 200-foot-tall brown kelp, and most have been performing essential services for humanity since our inception. Microalgae created the Earth we know today, with its oxygen-rich atmosphere, abundant oceans, and coral reefs. Crude oil is made of dead algae, and algae are the ancestors of all plants. Today, seaweed produces six billion dollars of goods annually, from the nori in your sushi to emulsifiers in cocoa, beer, paint, toothpaste, and more.

In Slime we’ll meet the algae innovators working toward a sustainable future: from seaweed farmers in South Korea, to scientists using it to clean the dead zones in our waterways, to the entrepreneurs fighting to bring algae fuel to market.

With a multitude of lively, surprising science and history, Ruth Kassinger takes readers on an around-the-world, behind-the-scenes, and into-the-kitchen tour. Whether you thought algae was just the gunk in your fish tank or you eat seaweed with your oatmeal, Slime will delight and amaze with its stories of the good, the bad, and the slimy.