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Preface; Acknowledgements; Contents; 1 A Brief Introduction to the Players; 1.1 Silicon; 1.2 Silica; 1.3 Silicic Acid; 1.4 Silicate; 1.5 Silicone; 2 The Origin of Life Was Brought to You in Part by Silicate Rocks; 2.1 Setting the Stage; 2.2 A Flight of Fancy; 2.3 The Early Earth Was Not Hellacious; 2.4 A Fly in the Soup; 2.5 The Lost City; 2.6 Generating Organic Compounds; 2.7 Inventing Metabolism; 2.8 The World's Earliest Biological Carbon Fixation; 2.9 Replication; Further Reading; 3 The Making of Humankind: Silica Lends a Hand (and Maybe a Brain); 3.1 Stone Tools and Their Makers
3.1.1 The Earliest Stone Tools3.1.2 The Oldowan Industry and Its Practitioners; 3.1.3 The Acheulean Industry and Its Practitioners; 3.1.4 Neanderthals and the Levallois Technique; 3.1.5 Homo sapiens; 3.2 Hands and Brains; 3.2.1 Give Us a Hand; 3.2.2 If I Only Had a Brain; Further Reading; 4 Mystical Crystals of Silica; 4.1 What Is a Crystal?; 4.2 Pyroelectricity; 4.3 Piezoelectricity; 4.4 Sonar; 4.5 Quartz Oscillators; 4.6 But Why Is There a Piezoelectric Effect?; Further Reading; 5 Glass Houses and Nanotechnology; 5.1 Silica-Centric Musings on the Origin of Biomineralization
5.2 The Early Fossil Record of Silica Biomineralization5.3 Not All Biomineralization Is Silica Biomineralization; 5.4 The World's First Arms Race; 5.5 How to Make a Glass House: Man Versus Nature; 5.5.1 Man; 5.5.2 Nature; 5.6 Some Silica Biomineralizing Organisms that We Are Learning From; 5.6.1 Choanoflagellates; 5.6.2 Siliceous Sponges; 5.6.3 Diatoms; 5.7 Siliceous Nanotechnology; Further Reading; 6 Chicks Need Silica, Too; 6.1 It's All About the Chicks; 6.2 Silicosis; 6.3 The Dog Days of Silica Medical Research; 6.4 Collagen; 6.5 Do Human Beings Require Silica?
6.6 To Supplement or not to Supplement6.7 Silica, Aluminum, and Alzheimer's Disease; Further Reading; 7 Of Fields, Phytoliths, and Sewage; 7.1 All Plants Have Silica; 7.2 Opal Phytoliths; 7.3 The Benefits of Opal Phytoliths and of Dissolved Silica; 7.4 Is Silica an Essential Plant Nutrient?; 7.5 Impact of Agriculture on the Silica Cycle; 7.6 The Growing Creep of Silica Removal; 7.7 Let's Go for a Walk Through Time; 7.8 Silica in Sewage; 7.9 A Plea for Hardy Souls; Further Reading; 8 Silica, Be Dammed!; 8.1 To Put It in a Nutshell
8.2 A Brief History of Human Damming, or How Long Has This Been Going on8.3 Dams and Silica; 8.4 Dams, Eutrophication, and Silica; 8.5 Case Study #1: The Laurentian Great Lakes; 8.6 Case Study #2: The Baltic Sea; 8.7 Case Study #3: The Black Sea; 8.8 The Global View; Further Reading; 9 The Venerable Silica Cycle; 9.1 The Silica Cycle; 9.2 Silicate Weathering; 9.3 Getting Silica from Continent to Ocean; 9.4 The Weathering of Oceanic Crust; 9.5 Silica Biomineralization in the Ocean; 9.6 Silica's Return to the Mantle; 9.7 The Earth's Early Ocean Was a Tremendously Siliceous Place
3.1.1 The Earliest Stone Tools3.1.2 The Oldowan Industry and Its Practitioners; 3.1.3 The Acheulean Industry and Its Practitioners; 3.1.4 Neanderthals and the Levallois Technique; 3.1.5 Homo sapiens; 3.2 Hands and Brains; 3.2.1 Give Us a Hand; 3.2.2 If I Only Had a Brain; Further Reading; 4 Mystical Crystals of Silica; 4.1 What Is a Crystal?; 4.2 Pyroelectricity; 4.3 Piezoelectricity; 4.4 Sonar; 4.5 Quartz Oscillators; 4.6 But Why Is There a Piezoelectric Effect?; Further Reading; 5 Glass Houses and Nanotechnology; 5.1 Silica-Centric Musings on the Origin of Biomineralization
5.2 The Early Fossil Record of Silica Biomineralization5.3 Not All Biomineralization Is Silica Biomineralization; 5.4 The World's First Arms Race; 5.5 How to Make a Glass House: Man Versus Nature; 5.5.1 Man; 5.5.2 Nature; 5.6 Some Silica Biomineralizing Organisms that We Are Learning From; 5.6.1 Choanoflagellates; 5.6.2 Siliceous Sponges; 5.6.3 Diatoms; 5.7 Siliceous Nanotechnology; Further Reading; 6 Chicks Need Silica, Too; 6.1 It's All About the Chicks; 6.2 Silicosis; 6.3 The Dog Days of Silica Medical Research; 6.4 Collagen; 6.5 Do Human Beings Require Silica?
6.6 To Supplement or not to Supplement6.7 Silica, Aluminum, and Alzheimer's Disease; Further Reading; 7 Of Fields, Phytoliths, and Sewage; 7.1 All Plants Have Silica; 7.2 Opal Phytoliths; 7.3 The Benefits of Opal Phytoliths and of Dissolved Silica; 7.4 Is Silica an Essential Plant Nutrient?; 7.5 Impact of Agriculture on the Silica Cycle; 7.6 The Growing Creep of Silica Removal; 7.7 Let's Go for a Walk Through Time; 7.8 Silica in Sewage; 7.9 A Plea for Hardy Souls; Further Reading; 8 Silica, Be Dammed!; 8.1 To Put It in a Nutshell
8.2 A Brief History of Human Damming, or How Long Has This Been Going on8.3 Dams and Silica; 8.4 Dams, Eutrophication, and Silica; 8.5 Case Study #1: The Laurentian Great Lakes; 8.6 Case Study #2: The Baltic Sea; 8.7 Case Study #3: The Black Sea; 8.8 The Global View; Further Reading; 9 The Venerable Silica Cycle; 9.1 The Silica Cycle; 9.2 Silicate Weathering; 9.3 Getting Silica from Continent to Ocean; 9.4 The Weathering of Oceanic Crust; 9.5 Silica Biomineralization in the Ocean; 9.6 Silica's Return to the Mantle; 9.7 The Earth's Early Ocean Was a Tremendously Siliceous Place