Janet Mills

Countdown – Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth by Alan Weisman. This book is a follow-up to his first since The World Without Us. Weisman traveled to more than 20 countries to ask what experts agree are the most pressing problems about our world. With a million more of us every four and one-fifth days, it is no wonder that we are slowly running out of room. The next question is the lack of enough water and food needed for all the population, including animals and birds. Chapter eight is about China and the plan of one child per family. It has been lifted a little to help farmers raise more children to help work the fields. The next subject that Weisman writes about are the seas and the rise of water that will cause much damage to living conditions all over the world, specifically islands like the Philippines. Other chapters discuss major problems that the world needs to start thinking about.

Vanished – the 60 Year Search for the Missing Men of World War II by Wil S. Hylton. In the fall of 1944 many massive American bombers were shot down in the Pacific. These were the B-24’s carrying 11 men. Three parachutes were seen as one plane dove to the water after being shot down over Palau Islands. For 60 years the government had been unable to find the plane, even though two others lost that same day were found. A man named Scannon, representing the U.S. government, started to unravel the puzzle of where the plane could be. He made many trips to Palau and enlisted the help of scientists, natives and many more to help him find this one plane. Hylton also gives the reader information of MacArthur and Nimitz and the battles in the Pacific. It is a great book with so much information that I enjoyed since I was in high school at the time, while my husband to be was fighting in the Philippines.

Medicine Dog – The Miraculous Cure That Healed My Best Friend and Saved My Life by Julia Szabo. Szabo was a nationally known pet reporter when her dog Sam collapsed from osteoarthritis. She discovered a vet-stem who operated on Sam, taking his own stem cells from his own tissue. Just hours after the operation, he inserted the stem cells back into Sam, who began aging backwards. Julia wondered if this could be used in dogs, why not into people who had chronic inflammatory bowel disease? The first doctor to operate using a person’s own stem cells was in Spain. After four years, she found a group of doctors in California. It is being talked about on television. You will have to read this book to find out if it is possible.