Two recent publications offer different assessments of the career of the famous British nurse Florence Nightingale. A book by Anne Summers seeks to debunk the idealizations and present a reality at odds with Nightingale's heroic reputation. According to Summers, Nightingale's importance during the Crimean War has been exaggerated: not until near the war's end did she become supervisor of the female nurses. Additionally, Summers writes that the contribution of the nurses to the relief of the wounded was at best marginal. The prevailing problems of military medicine were caused by army organizational practices, and the addition of a few nurses to the medical staff could be no more than symbolic. Nightingale's place in the national pantheon, Summers asserts, is largely due to the propagandists efforts of contemporary newspaper reporters.
By contrast, the editors of a new volume of Nightingale's letters view Nightingale as a person who significantly influenced not only her own age but also subsequent generations. They highlight her ongoing efforts to reform sanitary conditions after the war. For example, when she learned that peacetime living conditions in British barracks were so horrible that the death rate of enlisted men far exceeded that of neighboring civilian populations, she succeeded in persuading the government to establish a Royal Commission on the Health of the Army. She used sums raised through public contributions to found a nurses' training hospital in London. Even in administrative matters, the editors assert, her practical intelligence was formidable: as recently as 1947 the British Army's medical services were still using the cost-accounting system she had devised in the 1860's.
I believe that the evidence of her letters supports continued respect for Nightingale's brilliance and creativity. When counseling a village schoolmaster to encourage children to use their faculties of observation, she sounds like a modern educator. Her insistence on classifying the problems of the needy in order to devise appropriate treatments is similar to the approach of modern social workers. In sum, although Nightingale may not have achieved all of her goals during the Crimean War, her breadth of vision and ability to realize ambitious projects have earned her an eminent place among the ranks of social pioneers.

Line	The argument for “monetizing”—or putting a
	monetary value on—ecosystem functions may be
	stated thus: Concern about the depletion of natural
	resources is widespread, but this concern, in the
(5)	absence of an economic argument for conservation,
	has not translated into significant conservational
	progress. Some critics blame this impasse on
	environmentalists, whom they believe fail to address
	the economic issues of environmental degradation.
(10)	Conservation can appear unprofitable when compared
	with the economic returns derived from converting
	natural assets (pristine coastlines, for example) into
	explicitly commercial ones (such as resort hotels).
	But according to David Pearce, that illusion stems
(15)	from the fact that “services” provided by ecological
	systems are not traded on the commodities market,
	and thus have no readily quantifiable value. To
	remedy this, says Pearce, one has to show that all
	ecosystems have economic value—indeed, that all
(20)	ecological services are economic services. Tourists
	visiting wildlife preserves, for example, create
	jobs and generate income for national economies;
	undisturbed forests and wetlands regulate water
	runoff and act as water-purifying systems, saving
(25)	millions of dollars worth of damage to property
	and to marine ecosystems. In Gretchen Daily’s
	view, monetization, while unpopular with many
	environmentalists, reflects the dominant role that
	economic considerations play in human behavior,
(30)	and the expression of economic value in a common
	currency helps inform environmental decision-making
	processes.

Line	When asteroids collide, some collisions cause
	an asteroid to spin faster; others slow it down. If
	asteroids are all monoliths—single rocks—undergoing
	random collisions, a graph of their rotation rates
(5)	should show a bell-shaped distribution with statistical
	“tails” of very fast and very slow rotators. If asteroids
	are rubble piles, however, the tail representing the
	very fast rotators would be missing, because any
	loose aggregate spinning faster than once every few
(10)	hours (depending on the asteroid’s bulk density)
	would fly apart. Researchers have discovered that
	all but five observed asteroids obey a strict limit on
	rate of rotation. The exceptions are all smaller than
	200 meters in diameter, with an abrupt cutoff for
(15)	asteroids larger than that.
	The evident conclusion—that asteroids larger than
	200 meters across are multicomponent structures or
	rubble piles—agrees with recent computer modeling
	of collisions, which also finds a transition at that
(20)	diameter. A collision can blast a large asteroid to bits,
	but after the collision those bits will usually move
	slower than their mutual escape velocity. Over several
	hours, gravity will reassemble all but the fastest
	pieces into a rubble pile. Because collisions among
(25)	asteroids are relatively frequent, most large bodies
	have already suffered this fate. Conversely, most
	small asteroids should be monolithic, because impact
	fragments easily escape their feeble gravity.