Jim E Riviere, DVM, PhD, Distinguished Professor Emeritus from both North Carolina and Kansas State Universities, an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, has authored the new book "Zero - Much To Do About Nothing?" that explores in an engaging popular text the intersection of mathematics, philosophy, chemistry and food safety in the context of how difficult it is to define zero. He has authored /edited 22 technical books, published over 600 scholarly manuscripts, and was Editor of the Journal of Veterinary Pharmacology and Therapeutics for over two decades. He has served on numerous national and international committees related to toxicology and food safety. The inspiration for him to explore zero was this service as well his work as co-founder of the USDA supported Food Animal Residue Avoidance and Depletion (FARAD) program in 1981 and his roles as as founding director of NCSU's Center for Chemical Toxicology Research and Pharmacokinetics, KSUs Institute of Comparative Computational Medicine and head of NCSU's Biomathematics graduate program. Zero appeared in all of these fields but its definition was never the same. Riviere earned his BS and MS from Boston College and DVM, PhD and DSc(hon) from Purdue University.