We tend to think of America's days of frontier exploration as being behind us, but that's because we tend not to think of the other 71% of our blue planet.
Remember that sign they hung up in an EPA office during the Reagan administration, "No good deed goes unpunished"? Under George Bush, no good science goes unpunished.
Bruce Parker's The Power of the Sea is an engaging and essential history of science. It’s also a terrific account of survival on our wild blue planet.
Any time I get to blow bubbles pretty much lights me up.