Phosphorus is a vital mineral that plays a crucial role in everyday life. It is essential for the formation of bones and teeth, working alongside calcium to keep them strong and healthy. Phosphorus also helps the body produce energy by aiding in the conversion of nutrients into ATP, the main energy source for cells. Additionally, it supports kidney function, muscle contractions, and nerve signaling. Found in foods like meat, dairy, nuts, and legumes, phosphorus is a key part of a balanced diet. Without it, many of the body’s essential systems would not function properly, highlighting its importance to overall health.
For readers interested in the subject, the new book “White Light” by Jack Lohmann might be of interest.
Jack Lohmann is a science writer and author of “White Light.” Lohmann has been awarded the John McPhee Award for Interdisciplinary Reporting. He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University where he majored in English and Environmental Studies. He currently lives in Scotland. (Pantheon Books/Penguin Random House, 2025)
“White Light” – A profound and lyrical reflection on the cyclical nature of life, what happens when we break that cycle, and how to repair it—told through the fate of phosphorus: in our bedrock, in our fertilizers, in our food, and in our cells.
“There would be no life without constant death.” So begins Jack Lohmann’s remarkable debut, “White Light,” a mesmerizing swirl of ecology, geology, chemistry, history, agricultural science, investigative reporting, and the poetry of the natural world. Wherever life has roamed, its record is left in the sediment; over centuries, that dead matter is compacted into rock; and in that rock is phosphate—one phosphorus atom bonded to four oxygen atoms—life preserved in death, with all its surging force.
In 1842, when the naturalist John Stevens Henslow, Darwin’s beloved botany professor, discovered the potential of that rock as a fertilizer, little did he know his countrymen would soon be grinding up the bones of dead soldiers and mummified Egyptian cats to exploit their phosphate content. Little did he know he’d spawn a global mining industry that would change our diets, our lifestyle, and the face of the planet.
Lohmann guides us from Henslow’s Suffolk, where the phosphate fertilizer industry took root, to Bone Valley in Central Florida, where it has boomed alongside big ag—leaving wreckage like the Piney Point disaster in its wake—to far-flung Nauru, an island stripped of its life force by the ravenous young industry. We sift through the Earth’s geological layers and eras, speak in depth with experts and locals, and explore our past relationship with cyclical farming—including in seventeenth century Japan, when one could pay their rent with their excrement—before we started wasting just as much phosphate as we mine. Sui generis, filled with passion and rigorous reporting, “White Light” invites us to renew our broken relationship not just with the Earth but with our own death—and the life it brings after us.
PRAISE FOR ‘WHITE LIGHT’
“A surprisingly riveting look at the role of death, in life, as illustrated via a single element.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“In this winding debut history, science writer Lohmann traces how phosphorus has shaped the natural world and human history. […] A stimulating study.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Via lyric, literary prose and journalistic storytelling, Lohmann lays bare a hidden ecological tragedy for scientifically curious readers.”
—Library Journal
“Lohmann robustly reports on the serious health hazards and environmental consequences of phosphate mining and processing.”
—Booklist
SA Examiner 