Lab Girl

Jahren walks through the process of life growth on the plant. The earth’s surface was barren for several billion years. After 60 million years, “a few single cells stuck together within the cracks of a rock” (177). After a few more million years, continents formed the first wetlands and forests. The process of urbanization has reversed that evolutionary process, making the planet less green. Baltimore is the most “tree-impoverished city”(178) in the U.S. When Jahren arrives in Baltimore from Georgia, she buys an old row house near the university in a city where only 30 percent appears green.

Jahren and Bill work on building a new lab at Johns Hopkins. They attend conferences, and Jahren notes: “I was getting my name out there and generally promoting a lab” (180). Jahren runs into her “academic uncle”(180)Ed, who is a retiring dean and a colleague of her dissertation advisor.Ed performed work on the “ups and downs of sea level over the eons” (180)and his work allowed a shell’s chemistry to be analyzed to determine how much ice was at the North Pole.

Ed is about to close his lab, so he offers his used equipment to Jahren. Bill and Jahren go to Cincinnati where they wrap and pack the equipment into a U-Haul.