Reading in the Content Area - Science

Black Apollo of Science: The Life of Ernest Everett Just

Science is a human endeavor. The facts written in a biology textbook came from people who collaborated and worked together to answer questions about the nature of living organisms and what makes the living different from nonliving materials. The facts are the result of the human endeavor in science. Ernest Everett Just (1883-1941) was one of those extraordinary scientists whose discoveries are written into textbooks as facts without the human background being mentioned as part of the established body of factual knowledge. Dr. Just studied sea urchin egg cells, cytoplasm of cells, and fertilization. He coined the word "ectoplasm" to denote the part of the cell's cytoplasm near the cell's surface. The previously mentioned areas of study are just part of his contributions to science. Mr. Manning, the author of Black Apollo of Science, has written a detailed and comprehensive biography of Dr. Just. The biography was thorough in its research and includes the story of Just's life, the time in history during which Just lived, and the people involved in Just's career. Everything, both good and bad is included. It is no wonder that the book won a Pulitzer Prize. At the back of the book, there is a complete bibliography of Just's published works. The bibliography is followed by 53 pages of research citations and acknowledgements; an index is included. I purchased and read the paperback version and am disappointed in Oxford University Press. The print is way too small to be comfortably read; smaller than newsprint or the phone book, and the pull quotes are even smaller; the paper is low quality. Therefore, I recommend getting a version that can be read electronically, so that the type can be adjusted to a larger size. I recommend this book to students (and their teachers) who are seriously thinking about a career in science. They will certainly have something to think about, after they have read about Just's career and life. There are shorter and more easily read biographies about Just for younger or curious learners on the internet. Some Locations: [South Carolina: Charleston, James Island, Colored Normal Industrial Agricultural and Mechanical College (now South Carolina State University) at Orangeburg; New Hampshire: Kimble Union Academy at Meriden, Dartmouth at Hanover; Chicago: University of Chicago; Washington D.C.: Howard University; Massachusetts: Woods Hole in Falmouth; Germany: Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institute in Berlin, Dahlem; Austria: Graz; Italy: Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn of Naples; Switzerland; France: The Station Biologique at Roscoff]