Mercury Stories

An interdisciplinary analysis of human interactions with mercury through history that sheds light on efforts to promote and achieve sustainability. In Mercury Stories, Henrik Selin and Noelle Eckley Selin examine sustainability through analyzing human interactions with mercury over thousands of years. They explore how people have made beneficial use of this volatile element, how they have been harmed by its toxic properties, and how they have tried to protect themselves and the environment from its damaging effects. Taking a systems approach, they develop and apply an analytical framework that can inform other efforts to evaluate and promote sustainability.

History and the speculative collide with the modern world when a group of high school girls form a secret society after discovering they can communicate with boys from the past, in this powerful look at female desire, jealousy, and the shifting lines between friendship and rivalry. After her life is upended by divorce and a cross-country move, 16-year-old Saskia Brown feels like an outsider at her new school—not only is she a transplant, but she’s also biracial in a population of mostly white students. One day while visiting her only friend at her part-time library job, Saskia encounters a vial of liquid mercury, then touches an old daguerreotype—the precursor of the modern-day photograph—and makes a startling discovery. She is somehow able to visit the man in the portrait: Robert Cornelius, a brilliant young inventor from the nineteenth century. The hitch: she can see him only in her dreams. Saskia shares her revelation with some classmates, hoping to find connection and friendship among strangers. Under her guidance, the other girls steal portraits of young men from a local college’s daguerreotype collection and try the dangerous experiment for themselves. Soon, they each form a bond with their own “Mercury Boy,” from an injured Union soldier to a charming pickpocket in New York City. At night, the girls visit the boys in their dreams. During the day, they hold clandestine meetings of their new secret society. At first, the Mercury Boys Club is a thrilling diversion from their troubled everyday lives, but it’s not long before jealousy, violence and secrets threaten everything the girls hold dear.

What is an estuary? Where do they occur? How do they work? Who lives there? And why are estuaries important to our planet? This collection will answer all of these questions and more. Estuaries are places where fresh water from rivers moving downstream from the mountains mixes with salty water moving upstream from the ocean. Estuaries thus contain both fresh and salty water habitats (places) where many kinds of plants and animals can live and grow. San Francisco Estuary is the largest estuary on the West Coast of the United States and is home to millions of people, plants and animals. Our scientists have been studying all aspects of the San Francisco Estuary for nearly 50 years and we have 35 stories to tell about the people, plants, and animals in the estuary. We will tell you horror stories of how tiny poisonous plants and vampire fish kill other fish, and we have success stories of how conservation saves the lives of tiny mice in marshes and birds along the Pacific Flyway. The Collection of stories is divided into six sections, so you can easily find the stories that interest you the most. The first section describes the many kinds of habitats in the estuary, including rivers, shallow bays, wetlands, and marshes, and what makes them a good home for plants, animals, and people. In the second section, the water quality scientists will describe how they use boats, special instruments, and new technology to determine whether the water is healthy for people, plants, and animals. In the third and fourth sections we will tell stories about how plants and animals live in the estuary. Microbiologists will describe the tiny, microscopic plants and animals that live in the estuary, what makes them grow, how important they are as food for animals and why they are sometimes poisonous. Fish scientists will describe the many kinds of fish in the estuary and how we measure their growth, determine where they are, what they eat, and the ways they use both fresh and saltwater habitats to grow and raise their young. In the fifth section, scientists will discuss how invasions of plants and animals from outside of the estuary have changed habitats and the survival of native plants and animals. Lastly, in the sixth section, we will share how scientists in the estuary are using new technologies and management actions to control invasions of unwanted plants and animals, increase the growth of native plants and animals, improve water quality and restore habitats in the estuary.

An interdisciplinary analysis of human interactions with mercury through history that sheds light on efforts to promote and achieve sustainability. In Mercury Stories, Henrik Selin and Noelle Eckley Selin examine sustainability through analyzing human interactions with mercury over thousands of years. They explore how people have made beneficial use of this volatile element, how they have been harmed by its toxic properties, and how they have tried to protect themselves and the environment from its damaging effects. Taking a systems approach, they develop and apply an analytical framework that can inform other efforts to evaluate and promote sustainability. After introducing the framework, which uses the lens of a human-technical environmental system and a matrix-based approach to analyze mercury use and exposure, the authors examine five topical mercury systems that each illustrate important issues in mercury science and governance: global cycling of mercury through the atmosphere, land, oceans, and societies; mercury's dangers to human health, including from occupational, medical, and dietary exposure; mercury emissions to the atmosphere from industrial sources; mercury in commercial products and production processes; and mercury use in artisanal and small-scale gold mining. Finally, looking across the five mercury systems, they distill insights for sustainability analysis more broadly, and draw lessons for researchers, decision-makers, and concerned citizens.

Worried she'll fail psychology and ruin her GPA, a young college girl named Julia agrees to be the guinea pig for a secret experiment - and accidentally winds up in 1977 with none other than her obsession, Freddie Mercury. Her only wish is to get back home, but in the meantime she uses this impossible chance to really discover the man behind the mask- and gets much more than she bargained for. This is her story.