4 minute read
The Bookworm Sez
Everybody raise your hand. how our comfort might be hurt-
Go ahead, high in the air. Raise your ing our planet. This book might hand if you like ice cream, vacations, not completely change minds, French fries, good dogs, or free snacks. Put but it might alter a few hab‘em up if you can remember your mom’s its... birthday, the name of your First Love, and Look for the reviewed book at all the words to “The Star Spangled a bookstore or a library near Banner.” Read “The Joy of Sweat” by you. You may also find the book Sarah Everts and wave your hand over More than anything, though, your head if you … no, wait. Never mind. sweat is “just a body trying its best
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It’s hot outside, and just walking from to do its thing, to stay alive.” home to car is enough to put a sheen on Welcome to mid-summer, and you’ve your face, a trickle down your spine, and already done that old raise-your-armhooo-weee under your arms. Nearly everybody over-your-head-take-a-whiff thing and wrung out sweats, but we Earthlings spend some $75 billion on two t-shirts. Isn’t it time to get “The Joy of Sweat” substances to help us pretend we don’t. in your wet, clammy hands?
You’re sweating right now, in fact. Humans are It is, because author Sarah Everts turns what “always sweating, at least a little bit,” says Everts, might be an embarrassment into a SuperPower, but get physical, and things get critical. On a hot helping readers to see why we should welcome that day or after any kind of overexertion, “your internal mid-afternoon sheen or post-workout wetness. temperature could easily reach life-threatening lev- Along the way, she takes us into laboratories and els” without some sort of cooling-off. Sweat, in a sort boardrooms, perfumeries and sauna theatre to see of collaboration with bipedalism, is evolution’s way the future of sweat and, most surprisingly, how it’s of protecting you from heat stroke. perceived remotely. Be thankful for it. Some creatures use urine, feces and vomit to keep cool. There’s just enough science here to inform a reader, a few answers to some sweaty questions and a 30 COLORS 26-29 GAUGE Standard all around durability Nope, you’re in luck: eccrine sweat glands cover most of your body and are responsible for rushing sweat to the surface of your skin so the sweat can big maybe, just enough eeeeeuuuwww to entertain, a bit of humor to make you forget your disgust, and a whole lot of fun. evaporate for a “net cooling effect.” Apocrine sweat It almost makes you want to go outside today and glands are found along hair follicles, such as on do something. your groin, armpits, or scalp. They’re larger than your eccrine glands and are responsible for “chemical communication” and sexual selection. Where you have apocrine glands is where you have a “stink zone.” That something may be to go find this book, and get more appreciation for your perspiration. Because, really – missing “The Joy of Sweat” would be the pits. 30 COLORS 26-29 GAUGE Standing seam architecture look for half the price
But sweat isn’t just a smelly, wet, potential embarn rassment. It can tell scientists what foods and medi- Sweat’s cool and so is air conditioning but there’s cines you consume and diseases you might have; it a price to pay. In “After Cooling: On Freon, Global can make you manipulatable, and it can help solve Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort” by Eric crimes via fingerprints (which are basically just Dean Wilson, you’ll see how we (finally!) learned to “sweatprints”). control the climate of our rooms and homes, and
THE BOOKWORM SEZ By Terri Schlichenmeyer
“The Joy of Sweat: The Strange Science of Perspiration” by Sarah Everts c.2021, Norton $26.95 / $35.95 Canada 285 pages at online book retailers. The Bookworm is Terri Schlichenmeyer. Terri has been reading since she was 3 years old and never goes anywhere without a book. She lives in Wisconsin with three dogs and 10,000 books. v
Help needed with farm safety, health survey
ROCHESTER, Minn. — University of Minnesota Extension is currently conducting a survey of Minnesota farmers to determine their most pertinent farm safety and health needs. The five-minute survey includes questions about pressing topic areas, the type of education needed, and current barriers to safety on farms.
“The results of this survey will help us prioritize our work in farm safety and health,” said Emily Krekelberg, Extension Educator in Farm Safety and Health. “Farmers know safety is important, and this is an opportunity for them to share with us what they think is most critical.”
Farmers are asked to complete the survey by Aug. 31.
The survey can be found online at z.umn.edu/ FarmSafetySurvey. If you have any questions, or would like to complete the survey in a different format, contact Krekelberg at krek0033@umn.edu or (612) 756-3977.
This article was submitted by University of Minnesota Extension. v
