Palasari Book

Dorion Sagan's 1990 paperback Biospheres: Reproducing Planet Earth (McGraw-Hill Publishing, ISBN 0-553-28883-0) does more than deliver a unique vision of the planet's life support system. It also challenges the traditional view of humanity as the dominant feature of life on Earth.
Perhaps that is no less than should be expected from the offspring of astronomer Carl Sagan and biologist Lynn Margulis, whose unorthodox view of evolutionary biology sees life forms merging to produce new ones. Sagan the younger is well known as an author of books on culture, evolution, and the philosophy of science.
Ecospheres to Biosphere 2
Among the more interesting features of the book are the mentions of still-existing institutions that are unexpectedly abiding features of the economic and technological landscape.
For example, Ecospheres Associates in Tucson, Arizona manufactures and sells sealed glass balls filled with water containing green algae, other microscopic biota, and tiny shrimp in a symbiotic community that illustrates the principle of closed life support. It is one illustration of what Sagan calls "permanently recycling systems." Called EcoSpheres, they come in a variety of sizes, from 4 inches in diameter to 9 inches, are priced like small kitchen appliances, and have "replacement periods" of up to a year. With care, they can last for many years. EcoSpheres are a NASA spin-off, the first product of US experiments to create closed ecosystems, ultimately for humans in space habitats.

At the beginning, Behe defines Darwinian evolution as 'a process whereby life arose from nonliving matter and subsequently developed entirely by natural means.' But he tempers evolution viability with questions raised from 'irreducible complexity' in the biochemical processes. Assailing unanswered questions arising in evolution theory, Behe contends: "At the tiniest levels of biology -- the chemical life of the cell -- we have discovered a complex world that radically changes the grounds on which Darwinian debates must be contested."
Behe admits to Catholic heritage in a biochemistry ambiance; as such, from the very first, he writes with one hand tied behind his back. The biological metaphysician in Behe is the Creationist in critique of Darwin's Evolution. Like all traditional religionists, he tempers conservative spirituality with generous helpings of liberal doctrinaire.
Science conceived the idea of cellular existence at about the same time as Darwin's voyage and evolutionary vision. He could not access Behe's considerable library on cellular structure, to advanced molecular knowledge, nor even to contemporaneous theoreticians Matthias Schleiden and Theodor Schwann, who concluded: "cells compose the entire bodies of animals and plants, and that in some way the cells are individual units with a life of their own." Behe described Schleiden and Schwann as biochemists at work in the early to middle 1800s -- the time of Darwin's travels and composing notes to write "The Origin of Species." In this regard, new discoveries in the field of biology were not available to the intrepid Darwin.

In his book, 'Man and his Planet: An Unauthorized History,' James E. Strickling Jr. presents an analysis of a topic that has been debated by scholars, scientists, and religious leaders for generations - Creation versus Evolution. In his book, he examines both sides and provides an argument that refutes both their conclusions. His argument is based on the following specific line of reasoning: "Natural selection is Science's equivalent to religious fundamentalism and Creationist's interpretation of the origin of life as the 'Great Mistake.'" The overall objective of 'Man and his Planet' is to show that the creationists' "fixity of species" and the evolutionists' "very orderly gradual evolution of life on earth" are in error, and it is disadvantageous for them not to listen to opposing views as there is another potential alternative to how life emerged and evolved.

Strickling contends that "the creationist system of belief offers little value to our understanding and enlightenment." He also challenges the evolutionary concept of speciation by natural selection by arguing: "By surviving, it produces a circle; the surviving species survive because they are the fittest, and they are adjudged to be the fittest because they survive. Explains nothing - survived has survived. There are no facts to support speciation by natural selection." Instead, Strickling argues that natural selection allows a species to maintain its identity by means of natural selection.

If you were wondering what "Julie did next?" after cooking her way through Julia Child's 'Mastering The Art Of French Cooking', this book contains all the answers. Apparently she went on to master the art of butchering by joining as an apprentice at a meat shop. Oh and before that she decided to have an affair.
Anyone who has either seen or read Julie & Julia would not believe that anything could disrupt the domestic bliss of the much married and seemingly much-in-love Julie and Eric. But Life has a different plan in mind and so Julie finds herself with a passionate paramour. It is more to escape from the self-brought on confusions and inner demons that pop up in her now complicated life, that she decides to learn butchering. Whether it helps and whether she manages to come to terms with herself forms the rest of the book.
'Cleaving', A Story Of Meat, Marriage And Obsession or so it says, contains many graphic and elaborate descriptions of slaughtering of live animals and processing of dead ones. Being a non-vegetarian myself, I didn't find it particularly repulsive although I did find it to be too much information. Afterall I don't think I am ever going to gut a pig in my life (I sincerely hope not!) So I found myself skimming over long paragraphs of such unnecessary and not to mention gory details. I can well understand if it makes some people squeamish too. I believe that she meant to draw parallels between the going-ons in her life and all the cutting, trimming and separating that she is doing, but frankly it was a little boring to wade through all that stuff.