The book takes an interesting and potentially alarming concept and makes it bland. Parts were very repetitive. I got the impression the author was trying to make the book longer. I didn't walk away from this book with new knowledge - almost everything is stuff I have heard before. You could get the same information from a much shorter article. The Great Wall of People, is set in China. The main topic is a revealing look at China’s one-child policy, instituted in 1979. _see here_ I. Many countries are experiencing increases in issues related to gender identity, gender fluidity, and gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria refers to the feeling that one’s emotional and psychological identity as male or female is out of sync with one’s biological sex. (You’ll read more about this in chapter 4.) I was much expecting a scary downhill line chart of how our sperms have been going down year after year in the past century. None was in the book. Numerically speaking, I could only find 1 paragraph describing WHO estimates of our sperm count threshold had been reduced. The final third of COUNTDOWN, set on United States soil in NYC, is a real time-bomb of a reading experience. To say that things are tense would be an extreme understatement. What impressed me most about the pairing of Patterson and DuBois was how they were able to keep up the high-octane intensity all the way to the end of this long story without providing a moment for the reader to catch their breath. This is a tribute to Patterson and his master plotting work, and I look forward to his next pairing with Brendan DuBois!

And again, this isn’t just about men. Not only is women’s fertility being affected, even if less obviously or dramatically, but sperm quality can be altered by changes that occur when male fetuses are in the mother’s womb. At that time the fetus is affected by the mother’s choices and habits, which means that women can serve as conduits for potentially harmful chemical exposures. Contrary to previous belief, the womb does not protect the fetus against chemical assault, and a developing fetus has few defenses against the infiltration of chemicals. Looked at another way, the most important events in a male’s life, in terms of sexual and reproductive development, occur while he’s still in utero. Babies and children are more vulnerable to these chemical assaults than adults, but those who are most vulnerable haven’t been born. Safe Sex. Thailand. According to World Bank figures, Thailand had a fertility rate of 6.15 in 1960; in 1970 it had started slightly downward, to 5.6. But by 1990 it had plunged to 2.11, and today (2011) it stands at 1.56 – below replacement. Weisman visits an extraordinary range of the world’s cultures, religions, nationalities, tribes, and political systems to learn what in their beliefs, histories, liturgies, or current circumstances might suggest that sometimes it’s in their own best interest to limit their growth. The result is a landmark work of reporting: devastating, urgent, and, ultimately, deeply hopeful. The tone of the book is annoying. The whole thing could have been much shorter. I already knew most of the info, but it is still important. eco-friendly" алтернативи. На доста места срещаме изсмукани от пръстите спекулации, базирани на далечна екстраполация на несвързани данни. Черешката на тортата е твърдението, че някои ендокринно активни вещества са по-опасни в ПО-НИСКИ дози, отколкото в по-високи. Брадфорд Хил се обръща в гроба си.Then one on Kerala, starting with all the wonderful accomplishments of this state, and ending with a very disheartening telling of recent changes in the state brought on by a new rise of wealth; the source of the wealth being Indians returning to Kerala from jobs in the Arab Gulf states. The changes involving (in Weisman’s recount) conspicuous consumption, materialism, consumerism, development, building, greed, what have you. (This is the sort of thing I envision occurring in Cuba if consumer capitalism somehow flowers there.) Massively disappointing. I’ve had this in my “to read” queue for over a year and was really excited when it was finally available through my library. Unfortunately, this book contains about one lengthy article’s worth of information stretched out to fill a book. Seriously, if you’ve read any credible article on the subject in recent years you already know everything this book can teach you. If on the other hand, you have never even heard of this issue, then this might be a good introduction to the subject. Two things annoy me: restaurant food is the worst, I get that, but ALL restaurant food? Fast food and five star restaurants? I need more information on that one.

Shrink and Prosper.Japan. Japan’s demographers and economists have been worrying for many years about the coming situation in which they will have so many old people relative to younger people of working age. They definitely are not contemplating trying to breed their way out of the problem. Nor are they attempting to encourage immigration, since they are a very homogeneous society and like it that way. It's just my personal opinion, but this one felt a bit over-done for my tastes. It followed the formula so much that it became predictable and I lost some of my empathy with the characters and their feeling real. At times, the storylines came across as more clinical than creating any emotional connection, as if the writers were trying to do too much rather than finding a good writing rhythm and creating three-dimensional characters that draw the reader in and feel part of the story.After reading the book, I have to say the podcast was much more interesting than the book itself. It was not well written. It was just hard to read with scientific jargon and not-so-interesting stories. By the end of the year, my scientific paper “Temporal Trends in Sperm Count: A Systematic Review and Meta-Regression Analysis,” which sparked these stories—and hundreds of others around the world—was ranked number 26 among all referenced scientific papers published worldwide, according to Altmetric’s 2017 report. Who will fund the pensions of the elderly? The ratio of old people to working people may change drastically. The status quo has persisted for too long—and it’s endangering the reproductive health and survival of human beings and other species. The time to correct course is overdue and more important now than ever." The reason I gave this book one less star is twofold: one is the topic is depressing and the other is that she really never talked about how the cost of childcare contributes to this issue. I know many people opting to have one child instead of two solely based on the rising cost of raising children in the United States. It is strange that she never delves into this topic as Universal Child Care is a hot button issue whose day has come.