Slime: How Algae Created Us, Plague Us, and Just Might Save Us

“No organisms are more important to life as we know it than algae. In Slime, Ruth Kassinger gives this under-appreciated group its due.” —Elizabeth Kolbert

Say “algae” and most people think of pond scum. What they don’t know is that without algae, none of us would exist.

There are as many algae on Earth as stars in the universe, and they have been essential to life on our planet for eons. Algae created the Earth we know today, with its oxygen-rich atmosphere, abundant oceans, and coral reef...