Customer Reviews

Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The book focuses on photosynthesis and it's relation to plant life, animal life, and the history of life and the climate. It is the only popular science book I know that focuses on the amazing and wonderful process of photosynthesis.

The first section - Carbon, Energy, and Light - describes the discovery of various aspects of photosynthesis. This history, and the scientists involved are the focus. Consequently, there are interesting stories of various scientists, often competing with each other.

The second section - Beginnings, Fossils, Forests and Feedback, Grass - looks at how plant life began, developed, and worked to allow animal life to develop. This section focuses on the science rather than the people, although contributors are noted.

The third section - Humanity, Energy - looks at the future: climate change and human activity that affects it. It is the shortest section, and doesn't look at these topics in depth. But this is understandable, as by the time we start this section, we have already read 314 pages of dense content.

I really enjoyed this book, especially how it drew together the strands of plant and animal energetics. It develops long, and often subtle, strands of scientific fact and reasoning. However, in small parts the writing can be annoying: foot notes not fundamentally related to the topic, philosphical musing and "waxing poetically". A few parts I skipped because they didn't seem interesting to me (e.g., Priestly and the discovery of oxygen).

Another reviewer condemned the book to a 2 star rating on the basis of one point in the context of a 450+ page book. I am not competent to judge his point, nor the overall scientific content of the book, but the book made sense to me, and to other reviewers including a professor of the history of science at Harvard, a director of a botantical garden, and well-respected The Independent (London). That leads me to believe that overall the accurancy of the book is not a problem.

Yes, it is true that science writers are not necessarily excellent scientists themselves, but who really expects them to be? Morton, as any science writer of quality, does a fine job of telling a technical story to inform the popular reading audience, but also to make the science interesting - interesting, to the point of whetting the appetite for more detailed study elsewhere. His story is photosynthesis, a topic that everyone knows a little about (carbon dioxide in, oxygen out, leaves are green), but few know just how fascinatingly intricate is the biochemistry and the biophysics. Does anyone recall that carbon dioxide does not get split to release oxygen, but rather to make the sugars and proteins in the plants?

The biophysics part clearly is the jewel in "Eating the Sun." Morton's repeated demonstrations of light energy translating to chemical energy, and the marvelous variations here, will cause the reader to keep saying, "Oh, yeah!" Because the author is a skilled writer and storyteller, the fabric of plant life / animal life gets explained well. He also does a decent job of describing the evolution of photosynthesis through the eons, including the changing biochemistry of life and the atmospheric compositions. Scientists he deems crucial to the discoveries on photosynthesis receive his good press.

One could complain that the author's bias toward those various scientists could make a reader smile. He appears to like scientists who show modesty, display a bit of eccentricity, and express (or feign) interest in nonscientific activities (hiking, gardening, etc.). Since he also has a tepid confidence in free markets, these choices probably blend understandably. Still, it can be irritating to run across haughty statements to the effect that an occasional maverick [scientist] might stumble across a breaking discovery, even without being part of the "community." Just ignore him. The last section of "Eating the Sun" seems to be everyone's choice as the weakest. This part tends to wander, and the science is overly speculative. Fortunately this is the shortest part, and few writers are gifted (or lucky) enough to get future predictions correct anyway. The rest of the book is good enough to be well worth reading.

Oliver Morton has woven a cloth of pure gold from the threads that trace the story of photosynthesis. Eating the Sun is a model of science writing for the nonscientist and an exemplary chapter in the history of science, written with integrative intelligence, leavened with deft, humorous biographical characterizations, and punctuated by a series of concluding statements of startling, poetic power.

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QUESTION: Why should anyone want to pay homage to chloroplasts?

ANSWER: Chloroplasts are the specialised structures in which photosynthesis takes place in, for example, plant cells. In the type of photosynthesis that occurs in plants, carbon dioxide and water react in the presence of sunlight to produce life-producing and life-maintaining oxygen.

Thus, this book looks into photosynthesis, one of the miracles of evolution. The author of this book is Oliver Morton, an award-winning science journalist. He is editor of the science publication "Nature." (Morton also has an asteroid named after him.)

This book is divided into three parts:

Part 1: describes how scientists used the analytical tools of the 20TH century to discover the molecular machinery of photosynthesis. (Note that some of the steps of photosynthesis are still not completely understood.)

Part 2: tells how the molecules discovered in (part 1) came to dominate the Earth's chemistry, to reshape its atmosphere, and to drive changes in its climate and habitability.

Part 3: tells what our use of fossil fuels is doing to the carbon cycle (the flow of carbon through the Earth system), and what this affected carbon cycle is doing to the climate. It's also about how our understanding of photosynthesis might help us choose a wiser future. (This is my favourite part.)

The most scientifically technical parts of this book are concentrated towards the beginning. Do you have to read these chapters to understand the rest of the book? Answer: NO. You can skip forward if you desire without losing the thread of the book. There is a handy glossary to help with technical terms if you missed their explanations earlier.

What begins as an essay on an under-appreciated part of the history of science turns into something much richer. The result is wonder, intellectual excitement, clear explanations, lyrical writing, and a new insight into how the world works, linking the very small with the very large.

In reading this book, you will encounter many disciplines such as: history, history of science, physics, physiology, chemistry, biochemistry, and biology.

Finally, there are seven diagrams in this book, all of them helpful. I would have, though, liked to have seen more diagrams.

In conclusion, this book reveals how life is made from light by detailing the most important process on the planet...photosynthesis.

(first published 2008; list of illustrations; author's note; introduction; 3 parts or 9 chapters; main narrative 410 pages; glossary; bibliography; further reading; acknowledgements; index)

<<Stephen Pletko, London, Ontario, Canada>>

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Buy the book because Oliver Morton deserves the royalties, but don't read it - that way I'll look smarter because you won't know when I'm stealing from the book. I don't know how anyone could give this book less than five stars. This is a science book that people will be reading and pointing to 30 years from now, like "The Selfish Gene" or "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions"

I definitely agree with the earlier reviewer, who stated that he couldn't understand how anyone could give this book less than five stars! This is by far the best book on photosynthesis (and its meaning, history and implications) that's available, and I should know since I have spent a lot of time searching for just such exquisite and detailed writing concerning this subject.

Furthermore, I've bought multiple copies, because it is such a gem (both in terms of its writing style and its content). There are so many incredible
ideas and facts contained in this volume, that I find it hard to imagine just HOW the author researched and composed such a beautiful book.

The first 1/3rd of this book is an excellent history of photosynthesis. Morton walks us though the personalities, some of the key experiments and explains a little of the biochemistry as he goes. He has visited some of the pioneers who are still alive. It wasn't until after WW2, when radioactive isotopes and heavy isotopes became available, that details of the carbon fixing cycle of photosynthesis were decoded, and only in the last ten years has it been figured out how light energy is able to break apart the stable water molecule. Morton knows the biochemistry of photosynthesis well and nicely walks the line between being too detailed or too vague. This is difficult science writing and Morton is good at it.

Photosynthesis is without question one of the most important biological processes in all of life. But it's also fun. One of the key molecular machines in photosynthesis is ATPsynthase. I have seen biologist often fail to mention how interesting this little beauty is. It is a rotating molecular machine, a real, high speed (few hundred rotations/sec) double, reversible rotating machine. One of only two rotating molecular machines known in all of life. It has a proton turbine on one end, located in a membrane channel, that is spun by protons diffusing across the membrane. On the other end is an ATP making machine that works by 'sqeezing' phosphate groups onto ADP. Morton describes this rotating machine on p87.

If you want a good history of photosynthesis combined with a quick overview of both its light and dark reactions, this is the book.

This is one of the BEST books I have come across to help anyone understand how our World works, and the importance of that understanding. It takes the reader through the necessary steps of vocabulary, glossary, integrated systems, ecological insights, as well as myths and misunderstandings. Anyone reading this book will come away with new knowledge and fresh ideas that will effect their thinking about plants, the sun and the world hence forward. This is a scientific discourse without boredom or pedantics. And it's easy to quote and enjoy. You will most certainly feel and be smarter after this read.

popular science tends to be written by one of two types of people. scientists who have decided that telling the world about science is as important as working in their lab and writers, usually journalists from magazines that got interested in some aspect of science, wrote a longish piece and then thought enough to make it into a book. this author is the second type but he writes, especially the first 1/3 of the book, on chlorophyll like a passionate scientist. good stuff.

the first part reminded me of _crystal fire, another popular science book that approached the topic both historically and by making the people come alive as in a good novel, coupled with good science. neat trick, rarely done well, which makes my first reading recommendation any of the first 3 chapters, to decide if you want to pursue the whole thing. it's on the higher side of science, potentially a bit of a slough for some, stick with it, finish one chapter before you give up.

the second 1/3 of the book is the level up from chlorophyll, the plants and how they interact with the environment. a lot less science, a lot more speculation and i must admit my enthusiasm waned a bit here. however i could see his big idea and really wanted to understand the whole thing. for this reason, if you decide to read the whole book, read it front to back, some of the meaning is in the relationships built up sequentially, which you'll miss jumping around as i often read.

the last roughly 1/3 is about global warming plus. unfortunately somewhere here my attention continued to wane and reading became looking a words on paper and lost that absorption that was so present earlier. if the author releases another edition it would be nice to see if this could be rewritten to the same level as the first 3rd. what imho is lacking is that person story structure he uses so effectively in part 1. the structure is him walking and thinking about his place and though interesting not as convincing as the interplay of personalities before.

it's a good book. important and timely topic, but best of all it is a good jumpoff point to recommend to get everyone up to speed on these crucial issues: mankind and our effects on our environment. i could see it as a textbook or reading group choice.

note:
fitting together as well as acorns and their shells or a couple spooning. he has a novelist's command of word pictures.

Although the book gets a good deal of the science right - particularly the biochemical part, Morton's assertion (on p. 199 of the hardcover edition) that "...as Harold Urey pointed out in 1950s that when water and CO2 are both present..." [the resulting carbonic acid] "... turn(s) silicate rocks ... into carbonate rocks, a process known as chemical weathering." This assertion is flat wrong, and SO wrong as to destroy Morton's authority for me for the entirety of the book. He's obviously not up on his geochemistry, and no fact-checker came to his aid here.

Carbonate rocks (limestone [sedimentary] and Marble [metamorphosed limestone] are formed by living organisms in the sea in which CO2 is dissolved and available for body-structure and shell-making. The cast off shells and corals of sealife find their way to sea bottoms over thousands of millennia and are compressed and cooked by the continuously delivered overlying sediments into limestones miles in depth.

One does NOT get carbonate rocks out of the chemical weathering of silicates unless there's a "...then a miracle occurs... (the miracle of sea life and deposition)" clause in Urey's alledged assertion that Morton so blithely accepts and delivers.

Otherwise, some of his writing is positively eloquent - poetic, even - as on the last two paragraphs on p. 141.