As a Legal Nurse Consultant and active Operating Room Nurse I found this text to be an excellent resource. It is easy to use with each condition referenced in an easy-to-read, concise table format. The table of contents is divided into 34 alphabetically listed conditions. I highly recommend it for nurses caring for critically ill patients (includes just about every nurse these days!) as well as those needing to reference care for a particular emergency condition.

Even after many years as an ER nurse, I found this book to be an excellent resource about emergency medicine. It is nicely laid out, easy to read and full of current information about emergency procedures and medications. I highly recommend it not only for EDs but for ICU, med-surg and outpatient medical offices.

This book is a godsend in this world of changing healthcare. Nurses are frequently asked to cover departments that they know nothing about. Now,when they are asked to work in the Emergency Department they can bring Pat's book and know how to deal with the most common ED complaints. This book explains patient care from triage to discharge in a precise, consistent and easy to read format. Every Emergency Department should have at least one copy of this book. If you work in the Emergency Department and have float nurses coming to help you GIVE THEM THIS BOOK!

I find this book fantastic. It will help students learn how to read passages, charts, cartoons or ads. It has five chapters and on page 1 to 11 there is a pre-test. The test will show students on what chapter they should focus. Besides, there is a post-test at the last part of this book. Students can evaluate their work and will know what to review. "Main Idea and Details","Summarizing and Paraphrasing","Making Inferences" or "Predicting" are included in some chapters. By using this textbook, students will acquire critical reading and thinking skills. I am going to use this book as a textbook for my English class.

The book utilizes various strategies to assist students with reading comprehension. The examples are easy to understand and they allow for students to develop and test concepts taught. The book has been extremely helpful for students with disabilities who struggle with reading comprehension. If one approach does not work there was always another approach provided by the author. I've used several strategies to assist a student with comprehending classroom material and preparing for state exams.

Alice writes in the voice of her daughter about her daughter's favorite recipes and adventures at the restaurant. Wonderful reading and DELICIOUS recipes. At first looks a little like a children's book, but great for adults!

This book is written as Fanny telling about her life with her mom, the fantastic chef Alice Waters(she wrote the book). MyDaughters & I share in our love of this book, to read it...enjoying the pictures which are wonderful to the eye. then the bits on cooking and the pleasure of food & preparing it along with flavor is shared in such a great way. Allow yourself to sit down and get lost in the spirit of this book.

I would have to say the book made a little more wiser especially when it comes to buying a house, car or my favorite shopping for clothes!!!! Now I will have more money in my pocket thanks to the book! I recommend this book to everyone because we all been taken for a ride by some salesperson.

After reading your book, Dirty Little Tricks, a thought was evoked in my mind of the Latin truism "Non scholae, sed vital discimus--We learn not for the school but for the life." You as a learned individual and a vast background in business describe in this book the amoral practices in merchandising and the pitfalls thereof with a judicious and eclectic manner. Since you passed through your profession from the very bottom up to the top, you know both the bright and dark sides of the enterprise. You are indeed a teacher of the truth which is often camouflaged in all walks of our life. It is said that a picture is more eloquent than any sophisticated word. And your book employs this veracity. Moreoever, many a clipping from sundry newspapers form a suitable frame to the content of the respective narratives. Your linguistic dexterity, non-convoluted phraseology, and truly businesslike insights create a mosaic pleasing to a beholder. Tom, my appreciation for your book can be hardly expressed by mere words.

The first thought that came to mind after finishing "Dirty Little Tricks: How Sales People are Robbing You Blind" was I've been robbed! Mr. Crowel has spared no professional occupation as he opens my eyes to the world of "shading dealings." This book is definitely a page-turning as it sheds light on the value of caution and points directly to the fact that not all salespeople are honest or have your best interest in mind when they're repairing your vehicle, diagnosing a health problem, selling you a car or trying to get you to sell their products to family and friends. Because of the author's open review of companies and their dirty tricks, I've committed to being an educated consumer. This book is a must for anyone who's contemplating the world of sales.

While not the first reference book I would recommend for a general library, it is certainly one a library or chemist's office shouldn't be without.

This is an encyclopedia, with abstracts on zillions of chemicals. Is this the most authoritative book on the planet? No. If you want that, go read Chem Abstracts.

If you want an handy reference which will give you a pointer in the right direction for information on chemicals/drugs/biologics, then this is for you.

Got chloroform in your waste water and wondering how it might have inadvertently developed from miscellaneous stuff dumped down the drain? Wow - acetone + bleach powder catalyzed with sulfuric acid = chloroform, with citations.

Not always the most useful, but definately a good resource.

This edition of "The Merck Index: An Encyclopedia of Chemicals, Drugs, & Biologicals" shows remarkable improvement over its predecessor.
Boasting of diverse groups of chemicals and pharmaceuticals, it is a success in its own right. There are just plenty to be explored! The book brims with accurate up-to-date information. Pharmacists, Medics, Chemists, Biologists, Physicists, Agriculturists, and many other professionals who work with elements, compounds and mixtures will find this book very useful. It is revised, and is complemented with detailed descriptions, which include molecular formulae, molecular weights, as well as the percentage compositions of constituent chemicals in a compound or mixture.
It is a valuable reference tool.

This book must be the most organized reference book I have ever used. Its so fulfilling to be able to find exactly what you're looking for when you need it. Includes a common name index, chemical formula index, as well as registry numbers, therapeutic categories for drugs, useful tables, and organic chemical equations. highly recommended!

My company has given out at least 500 of these books. We have senior citizen seminars and read a few excerpts from this book and give one away when attendees make an appointment with us. It is the "light" side of our seminar and we get so many questions on where to get this book - people love to use it as a gift! Some people tell us there are more than 1003 things and some tell us there isn't one good reason! However this book can lighten up even the cogiest old coot!! Love it!!

More like three and a half stars than four, this is a decent little gift.

I received this book as a gift when I turned -- well, that's not important. What is important is that this turned out to be a nice gift - not roll over laughing funny, but good for a cheerful, smile-provoking gift for friends turning one of the Big O's.

In this thick, but palm-sized paperback, the editors combined more than just a selection of platitudes, but provides a variety of semi-useful bits of information.

"What's so great about turning...." gives sappy reasons why your age - from 1 to 100 - is so good. There are reasons kids think being old is better ("I want to be older so I can make out checks and be a millionaire." John Semple, age seven) ; great things people have said about getting older; parting statements; how old you'd be if you lived on various planets (I personally prefer Mars, where a 50 year old is 27); a list of things life is now to short to do (doing push-ups; wondering if you should have gone to medical school instead); birthdates of several stars (from Mickey Rooney to Maccauley Caulkin) and bunches of other useless but amusing tidbits.

Those not amused by maturing might not find this a good gift, but for office gag gifts and add-ons to more meaningful gifts for that someone going over the hill (from 30 to 50 or so), this is a nice purchase for that "under $10.00" limit.

Here was the surprise book of the era. Something I give to every friend who turns 40 and over. Lots of laffs--yes with two ffs and seasoned pros behind it. Well done.

Ann A. Estill writes:

This scholarly feminist anthology offers essays on several topics where feminist thinking casts new light on old thinking and writing...As with any anthology, readers are drawn to some topics more than others, but all will be rewarded with well-researched material to aid them in the never-ending task of seeking to be informed feminists.

Excerpt from a review in "Theology", July-August 1999.

As someone who struggled to get feminist theology taken seriously in Cambridge in the 1980s, I was delighted to find that this volume contains lectures delivered in a series called "women's voices in theology" which began almost ten years ago, and is clearly still going strong.

This series continues to offer a platform for the wide range of disciplines and interests which cluster under the broad umbrella of feminist theology. As such this volume offers a window into the state of the subject today. It is clear that a lot has happened in the last decade....Extremely illuminating work continues to emerge from the interface between gender studies and both biblical studies and church history.

Feminist theology continues to engage in a competent and often original way with the "high theory" of philosophy and social theory.

Linda Woodhead Lancaster University

I purchased this as a gift for my grandmother. When I visit she always tells me lovely and amusing stories of years past. With this book she is able to jot them down in order, or when her hands are tired she can just recite them into a tape recorder. She loves the book and was pleased to know how interesting I, and to find out, everyone, all find her life and how we want to preserve it. The older generation is among the wisest and it's nice to have a personal reference book to look upon. Everyone else in the family are now requesting copies and I haven't been able to locate it at any stores. With so many people to buy for the price is perfect.

After a short intro on why one should write an autobiography and some general suggestions, most of the rest of the book is groups (by topic) of questions that, when answered, will result in your autobiography. A quick look through the book left me thinking "I can do that". It takes a very big project (especially for us non-writers) and breaks it into small bit sized pieces. My 84 year old father has started on his autobiography - something he never would have done without this gem of a book.

I liked this book quite a bit, but then there are things that leave me wondering as well. It is the story of a little boy who wants to go to school, but his mother says that he is too young. One day, when his mother and father are at work, he notices that his grandmother, who is supposed to be watching him, has fallen asleep. So Philipok goes to school, and it is quite an adventure getting there. He does arrive, and is afraid to go in, because the teacher might be angry, but he is also afraid to go back and face the things which hindered his journey. I think this book portrays that fear well - that fear that comes when one is doing something that they maybe aren't supposed to, but have gone so far that it's just as scary, if not scarier, going back. As for the "moral" of the book, i'm a bit torn. On one hand, I feel that going to school is a noble endeavour, and that it wasn't wrong for Philipok to want to go, but on the other hand, i'm not sure that i totally agree with the way things turned out at the end. Children SHOULD listen to their parents, and they meant him no harm in saying that he wasn't old enough. However, i do think the book was pretty good. The illustrations, while not bright, are very intricate and set the mood well. I love the very Russian setting, and the use of Russian words (with Cyrillic characters) in some of the illustrations. There was the minor glitch, however, when Philipok is spelling his name. This book was translated (this IS Tolstoy) and when Philipok spells his name for the teacher, he spells it "Filipok" - which is closer to the Russian letters, rather than Philipok, which is how it is spelled in the book. I know, it's a minor glitch, but it bugged me a little nonetheless, especially with the emphasis on knowing the alphabet toward the end of the story.

In this book DiGregorio admirably discusses evidence for the conclusion that the Viking missions did in fact discover life on Mars. This is the view of Drs. Gilbert Levin and Patricia Ann Straat, who developed one of the instruments, the Labeled Release experiment, that flew on Viking. The book presents very exciting up to date information on exotic organisms, extremophiles, that might be found on other planets. NASA itself is investigating such possibilities with its Astrobiology program. Finally, the book argues that since some experiments on Viking gave very definite life signs, missions such as Mars Sample Return should not be undertaken until the issue is resolved conclusively.

For the last twenty years, Dr. Levin has consistently argued that no non-biological explanation faithfully reproduces the results seen in his experiment. Dr. Levin has shown great insight in regards to the life on Mars issue. As discussed in DiGregorio's book, he suggested to the imaging team that there were other colors on Mars than just dull browns and reds. This was verified by members of the Viking imaging team who confirmed there were blue and green patches on rocks that changed seasonally. Levin argued that the dry conditions and (apparent) low organic content in the Mars soil did not preclude the existence of life. Since the Viking missions, it has been confirmed that certain organisms can live within igneous rock surving on non-organic chemicals for nutrients and on water that trickles through cracks in the rock. Levin argued in a paper on liquid water on Mars that a widely cited paper concluding that liquid water could not exist on the Martian surface was based on a faulty assumption that water vapor was evenly distributed through the Martian atmospheric column. The Pathfinder mission confirmed that water vapor was restricted to the bottom 1 to 3km above the Martian surface.

Another factor that Digregorio discusses in his book is the evidence that there may be active volcanism on Mars. This is important to the life issue since this indicates heat and or hydrothemal systems on the Martian surface. And the National Science Foundation's report on the Mars Sample Return mission admits that such would increase the chance for life on Mars. Recently from Mars Global Surveyor images it has been concluded that Mars lava flows could be as young as 200 thousand years, which would make it virtually certain that volcanism continues today.

In reading over the history of the controversy over the conflicting results from the Vking missions, it occurs to me there is a basic flaw in subsequent investigations to resolve the issue. They all assume there was something wrong with Levin's Labeled Release experiment and the GCMS, which indicated no organics on Mars, was right. DiGregorio discusses the fact that it was first believed there was a problem in the LRx when it gave positive responses. But the engineering team confirmed it was operating properly. In contrast, there was one important factor with the GCMS that was definitely wrong, and two others that possibly were "wrong". As DiGregorio mentions, the Viking GCMS NEVER GOT AN INDICATION THAT SAMPLES WERE ACTUALLY DELIVERED TO THE CHAMBER. This indicates that either there was a flaw in the mechanism detecting sample delivery or the GCMS never got a large enough sample to register. If the second is true then that has clear implications for its failure to detect organics on Mars. Two other failings of the Viking GCMS is that it could be "poisoned" by soil with high sulfur content, known to be true of Mars, and the fact that it could not detect the organic equivalent of fewer than a million cells per gram.

Given these facts you would think that at least some research would have gone into showing how the GCMS could have given a wrong result. Yet all the research (other than Levin's) went to showing why the LRx was wrong. Why? Scientists are a conservative bunch. Rather than making the truly revolutionary claim that life had been discovered on Mars, they simply preferred to make the safe assumption that the instruments indicating life present were flawed. However, the history of science shows that great discoveries are made when scientists with insight go beyond the safe assumptions, and view the evidence dispassionately and go wherever it leads. What should have given scientists pause is the fact that the conclusion that the GCMS was right and the LRx wrong was based not on scientific factors but solely on the assumption that that is the way things should be.

So how can we determine whether it was the LRx or the GCMS that was flawed? A recent paper by Yen, Murray, and Rossman may give a clue: Water content of the Martian soil: Laboratory simulations of reflectance spectra Authors: YEN, A. S.; MURRAY, B. C.; ROSSMAN, G. R. Journal: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 103, No. E5, p. 11,125 (1998).

This paper shows there is a discepancy between the water content of the Martian soil as determined by the GCMS and determined by all other Earth-based and orbiter observations, perhaps by a factor of 1 to 2 orders of magnitude. The upcoming Mars Polar Lander due to land on Mars in December will test the water content of the Martian soil. If it confirms the high water content of all the observations other than the GCMS, then that would indicate a gross error in the GCMS water analysis and by extension in the organic analysis as well.

Bob Clark

The August 1997 NASA announcement of the discovery of possible fossilized bacteria in meteorite ALH 84001 of Martian origin grabbed the attention of millions of people across the world. Cover stories of science and general interest newsmagazines, front-page coverage from the world's leading international newspapers and extensive coverage on the nightly news renewed centuries-old interest in Earth's neighbor, Mars. The speculation of life on Mars stirred debates in scientific and technical circles, as well as raising philosophical and theological questions. However, this was not the first time in the second half of this century that the scientific community has had to struggle with the possible fact that there is life on Mars.

The quest for determining if there is life on Mars has its origins in fundamental research about Earth's environment. Sophisticated scientific experiments were part of the 1976 Viking Mission to Mars. The Viking Lander 1 and Lander 2 were carrying cargo for three biological experiments designed to determine if life forms were found on the surface of Mars, which was the primary objective of the Viking Mission. The Gas Exchange experiment (Gex), the Pyrolytic Release experiment (PR), and the Labeled Release experiment (LR) were selected from the 164 original proposals to develop automated, life-detection experiments to test Martian soil. A fourth test to measure the presence of organicmatter only, the Gas-Chromatograph Mass Spectrophotometer (GCMS) test, was onboard the Viking Mission. This chemical test would discount the findings of the biological tests and play a pivotal role in the conclusions of the existence of life on Mars -- conclusions staunchly defended by NASA.

The first two chapters of DiGregorio's book provide a rather interesting history of the study of Mars. The story traces the planet's role from the ancient religions to the source of intensive scientific scrutiny. Subsequent chapters provide detailed explanations of the scientific research that paved the way for the experiments carried on the Viking Landers. These sections describe not only the scientific research but also the researchers who were engaged in some of the most cutting edge scientific study in microbiology - the study of microbial life in Earth's most extreme, desolate, and hostile environments - searing hot deserts and the frigid ice fields of the Antarctic. This research would pave the way for the development and maturation of anew branch of microbiology examining extremophile bacteria (bacteria that can withstand the extreme environmental conditions of extremely low or extremely high temperatures, excessively salty, or other chemically challenged environments, including cryptoendolithic forms that live inside rocks!).

Wolf Vladimir Vishniac studied algae, molds, and bacteria. His research areas included the origins of life and exobiology (the study of life beyond the boundaries of Earth). Vishniac's development of an in situ test (done in real time -- on the spot), the Wolf Trap, would provide important insights for the concurrent tests by Gilbert V. Levin, whose LR design would be on the Viking Landers. Vishniac and University of Rochester graduate assistant, Stanley Mainzer, developed a series of tests to test for the evidence of microbial life in previously thought sterile ice fields of the Antarctic. It was Vishniac's belief that if life could exist and reproduce in the ice-cemented soils of the Antarctic, life could survive in the harsh environments of Mars.

Vishniac's work also describes the rigors and dangers of such research. On a December summer day in a valley between the Antarctic's Mount Baldr and Mount Thor, Vishniac set to explore a new area to place equipment to continue his studies. Tragically, Vishniac slipped and slid off the edge of a one thousand foot cliff in the Asgard Mountains. The second rigor of research at these levels deals with the acceptance and support of research, especially by NASA and NASA-supported scientists. Vishniac's Wolf Trap and life-testing experimentswere not included in the Viking Landers. The official reason given by NASA for the exclusion was the "weight" of the equipment needed, and that Vishniac's experiments required water, which NASA scientists had already concluded would not be found on Mars.

DiGregorio outlines in the remainder of his book the mounting evidence that Levin's LR experiments did indeed discover life on Mars and how Levin endured the scorn, humiliation, and wrath of the scientific community. The major thrust of the remainder of MARS: THE LIVING PLANET is the decades-long cover up of scientific evidence of life on Mars. DiGregorio describes, in chilling fashion, the role NASA has played in altering, concealing, and distorting data from the Viking Mission. He also describes NASA's attempts to tarnish the careers of research scientists who dare to challenge prevailing NASA thoughts about life on Mars. DiGregorio establishes the premise that NASA has turned its back on settling this incredibly important issue, and then sets forth to answer his own question, "Why?"

MARS: THE LIVING PLANET is, as described on the book's jacket, "a highly readable science story." While some readers might get a little bogged-down in the scientific and technical aspects described in the book's middle chapters, it is this very essence of thoroughness that adds to the compelling story that DiGregorio unfolds. While reading this book, I was compelled to think of three other authors and their subject matter and manner of delivery: Carl Sagan's CONTACT, Kurt Vonnegut's concept of Ice Nine, and Michael Crichton's microbial thriller, ANDROMEDA STRAIN. The difference between these classics and DiGregorio is that Sagan, Vonnegut, and Crichton were writing fiction.

Barry DiGregorio's new book about the discovery of microbial life on the surface of Mars only has re-inforced what I have suspected all along --that if NASA ever did find life on the other planets they would contain the information to themselves fearing funding cuts by those that would protest "the truth about nature" because it interfers with their religious cosmologies. Former NASA scientist Gilbert Levin presents a good argument (Levin guest writes chapter 9) and gives readers an inside look at what it is like to work as a NASA exobiologist and the political obstacles he has had to endure. All in all, Mars The Living Planet is one of the best books on Mars I have ever read (and I have read most of them) and highly recomended it to anyone that is curious about how NASA conducts its research in this area. Though the search for life is one of NASA's top three stated goals for Mars, DiGregorio points out that no microbiologists are being included on any of the NASA science teams and that biological testing experiments are being rejected by the agency. --John Miller, Amherst, N