| OUT OF THIN AIR Dinosaurs, Birds, and Earth's Ancient Atmosphere Peter D. Ward David W. Ehlert (Illus.) Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press, 2006 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-0-309-10061-8 | ||||
| ISBN 0-309-10061-5 | 282p. | HC/BWI | $27.95 | |
| Page 9: | "For many species however, the demonstration of successful interbreeding was impossible (especially for animals from the deep sea or from continents far from Europe, the site of most of this work and of course for all the fossil forms now extinct.)" |
| Misplaced parenthesis: S/B "the site of most of this work) and of course for all the fossil forms now extinct." Also, a comma is needed after "species". |
| Page 9: | "The distinction between was arbitrary unlike a species, which has an objective definition (interbreeding)." |
| S/B "definition of". Also, a comma is needed after "arbitrary". |
| Pages 9-10: | "...members of a phylum shared a distinct suite of characters that could be called a "body plan". For example, all vertebrates have a backbone with a nerve cord, so this characteristic becomes the body plan of all vertebrates. All sponges show only two cell layers with a similar kind of cell allowing them to pump water through the body. This is another kind of body plan. Ultimately, the naturalists could find only 32 distinct kinds of body plans among animals and these became formalized later as the 37 animal phyla." |
| How, by this definition, can 32 body plans result in 37 phyla? |
| Page 14: | "While there is a wide range of chemical electron acceptors, the one that is most energetically favorable is oxygen and the species that use oxygen in this way." |
| Missing phrase: S/B "and the species that use oxygen, use oxygen in this way." |
| Page 18: | "Oxygen and carbon dioxide also have different solubility in water. Carbon dioxide is far more soluble in water than is oxygen. However, even with this property there is never so much carbon dioxide in the water as to poison animals." |
| Ward never explains why this is so. |
| Page 33: | "Present-day composition of volcano effluents are 50-60 percent water vapor, 24 percent carbon dioxide, 13 percent sulfur, and about 6 percent nitrogen, with traces of other gases, a composition that differs markedly from the current atmospheric composition." |
| Number error: S/B "composition of volcanic effluents is". |
| Page 34: | "Before about 2.5 billion years ago, the formation of 'red beds' ... did not form. Instead there was formation of 'banded iron formations'..." |
| Redundant words: S/B "did not occur. Instead there were". (I feel the presence of a presence...) |
| Page 38: | "Another method involves computer modeling of past oxygen and carbon dioxide levels through time, based on a set of equations and then checking these model values with the mineralological or palentological evidence to validate the models." |
| Missing comma: S/B "equations, and then checking these model values". Also, S/B "mineralogical or paleontological". |
| Page 43: | "Swings in ocean salinity and pH have been even relatively less extreme." |
| Word order: S/B "relatively even less extreme." |
| Page 47: | "Hypothesis 2.1: Reduced levels of oxygen stimulate higher rates of disparity (the diversity of body plans) than do high levels of oxygen." |
| Wording: S/B "more disparity" or "higher rates of disparity growth". |
| Page 68: | "Long thought to have gone extinct at the end of the Permian, the discovery of living monoplacophorans in deep sea settings in the 1950s..." |
| Dangling participle: S/B "living monoplacophorans were discovered". |
| Page 83: | "There were reefs back then, but they were made up of the remarkable archeocyathids, sponges that build cylindrical and vase-shaped skeletons and are very much smaller in size." |
| Smaller in size than what? |
| Page 90: | "...an enormous variety of forms are seen." |
| Number: S/B "is seen." |
| Page 142: | "If deep-water hydrogen sulfide concentrations increased beyond a critical threshold during oceanic anoxic intervals (times when the ocean bottom and perhaps even its surface regions lose oxygen), then the oceanic conditions (such as those in the modern Black Sea) separating sulfur-rich deep waters from oxygenated surface waters could have risen abruptly to the ocean surface." |
| Dangling participle, or just a garbled sentence. |
| Page 143: | "It turns out that the lethality of hydrogen sulfide increases with temperature, based on hideous lab experiments where various animal and plants are exposed to increasing doses of hydrogen in closed chambers." |
| Missing word: S/B "hydrogen sulfide". |
| Page 146: | "...and thus there is a huge advantage to keeping the cell ... within a fairly narrow chemical range." |
| Word choice: S/B "temperature range". |
| Page 149: | "...and, in some lineages, nasal turbinals bones." |
| Typo: S/B "turbinal bones" or "turbinals". |
| Page 162: | "All are panting heavily and give the impression of animals having just engaged in strenuous exercise." |
| How is this known?" |
| Page 169: | "This is why dinosaurs may have arisen." |
| Try "This may be why dinosaurs arose." Although that's not its meaning, the first suggests doubt about whether they did or did not arise. |
| Page 174: | "But we do have indirect evidence, enough to have stimulated the air sac in dinosaurs group to posit..." |
| Missing hyphens: S/B "the air-sac-in-dinosaurs group". |
| Page 185: | "The world was a very different place from the Triassic world, it was one closer to our own, where oxygen was no longer a limiting factor for metabolism." |
| Wording: S/B "where oxygen was no longer the limiting factor for metabolism." Being vital to metabolism, oxygen is always a limiting factor for it. |
| Page 203: | "The radiation of the nonavian dinosaurs, by comparison to the Paleocene mammals was sluggish and unconstrained." |
| Missing comma: S/B "mammals, was sluggish and unconstrained." |
| Page 212: | "Parchment eggs can also be kept within the mother's body for extended periods of time, where it is maintained in an oxygen-rich environment." |
| Number: S/B "where they are". |
| Page 232: | "Australia will have moved northward, closing the regions that are now composed of Papua New Guinea and Indonesia..." |
| Missing word: S/B "closing with". |
| Page 233: | "It was the burial of all this organic matter before it could oxidize that caused the rise in temperature, not the merging of continents." |
| Should this not be "the drop in temperature"? |
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