With fertilizers that supply phosphorus–what Asimov called “life’s bottleneck”– people broke the circle of life. Dan Egan’s new book The Devil’s Element traces the history of this essential element from curiosity to crop miracle. Egan documents the mayhem unleashed by a flood of phosphorus, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and discusses how people can act to stop phosphorus-fueled blooms of algae that are closing beaches, killing animals and sickening people.
#446 Frogs From the Skin In
#445 AI: Ant Intelligence
#444 The V-Word (Rebroadcast)
#443 Batteries
#442 From Nobel to Ig Nobel
#441 Superhuman
#440 Weapons of Math Destruction (Rebroadcast)
#439 Flooded
#438 Big Chicken
#437 Tiny Bubbles, Big Impact
#436 Beauty is A Beast (Rebroadcast)
#435 Total Eclipse of the Sun
#434 The Dictionary
#433 The State of Science Journalism
#432 A Sting In The Tail (Rebroadcast)
#431 Memory and Emotion
#430 Bacteria in Bodies and On The Farm
#429 Gene Drives
#428 Cities of the Future (Rebroadcast)
#427 The Life Project
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