Abstract
Breathe in. Statistically, that and every other breath you’ll ever take contains one of the roughly 25 sextillion molecules that Julius Caesar exhaled in his dying breath. That mind-boggling fact sets the stage for author Sam Kean’s latest book, appropriately titled “Caesar’s Last Breath: Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us.” Kean explores the components of the air we breathe with a stream of anecdotes about the science and scientists behind the molecules that make up our atmosphere. He takes the reader on a journey that wends through the early, fiery days on planet Earth to the atomic tests at Bikini Atoll, and from tumor surgery in a Boston operating theater to UFO landings in Roswell, N.M. After his first book, “The Disappearing Spoon,” about the elements, Kean took a break from chemistry, writing about genetics and the brain instead. Now he’s returned to the subject, sitting down with
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