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• What time is it at the North Pole? • What's the chemical formula for a human being? • Why do boomerangs come back? • Why do flying fish fly? • Do the living really outnumber the dead? • Why does lightning fork? • Why does the end of a whip crack? Everyone has at one time or another thought up odd questions like these, questions that are strange, intriguing, maybe even impossible to answer. Making your morning omelet, perhaps you've wondered why most eggs are egg shaped. Or maybe, the last time you walked on the beach, you felt compelled to ask why the sea is salty. Watching Polly sit on her perch, have you ever marveled at how she stays there -- even when she's asleep? Well, ...
Every year, readers send in thousands of questions to New Scientist, the world's best-selling science weekly, in the hope that the answers to them will be given in the 'Last Word' column - regularly voted the most popular section of the magazine. Does Anything Eat Wasps? is a collection of the best that have appeared, including: Why can't we eat green potatoes? Why do airliners suddenly plummet? Does a compass work in space? Why do all the local dogs howl at emergency sirens? How can a tree grow out of a chimney stack? Why do bruises go through a range of colours? Why is the sea blue inside caves? Many seemingly simple questions are actually very complex to answer. And some that seem difficult have a very simple explanation. New Scientist's 'Last Word' celebrates all questions - the trivial, the idiosyncratic, the baffling and the strange. This selection of the best is popular science at its most entertaining and enlightening.
Fun science and nature trivia with full-color photos in a “deeply fascinating and occasionally rib-tickling book” (Booklist). From the editor at New Scientist who brought us such works as How to Fossilize Your Hamster, this is an illustrated compendium of facts that reveal the beauty, complexity, and mystery of the world around us. Drawing on the magazine’s popular “Last Word” column, Why Are Orangutans Orange? covers everything from bubbles to bugs, as well as why tigers have stripes and blue-footed boobies have, well, blue feet. With over two million copies sold, this series of question-and-answer compendiums is a delight for anyone who loves to learn!
Do Polar Bears Get Lonely? is the third compilation of readers' answers to the questions in the 'Last Word' column of New Scientist, the world's best-selling science weekly. Following the phenomenal success of Does Anything Eat Wasps? (2005) and the even more spectacularly successful Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze? (2006), this latest collection includes a bumper crop of wise and wonderful answers never before seen in book form. As usual, the simplest questions often have the most complex answers - while some that seem the knottiest have very simple explanations. New Scientist's 'Last Word' is regularly voted the magazine's most popular section as it celebrates all questions - the trivial, idiosyncratic, baffling and strange. This all-new and eagerly awaited selection of the best again presents popular science at its most entertaining and enlightening.
Outrageously entertaining and educational experiments from the team behind the phenomenal international bestseller Does Anything Eat Wasps? How can you measure the speed of light with a bar of chocolate and a microwave oven? To keep a banana from decaying, are you better off rubbing it with lemon juice or refrigerating it? How can you figure out how much your head weighs? Mick O'Hare, who created the New Scientist's popular science sensations Does Anything Eat Wasps? and Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze?, has the answers. In this fascinating and irresistible new book, O'Hare and the New Scientist team guide you through one hundred intriguing experiments that show essential scientific principles (and human curiosity) in action. Explaining everything from the unusual chemical reaction between Mentos and cola that provokes a geyser to the geological conditions necessary to preserve a family pet for eternity, How to Fossilize Your Hamster is fun, hands-on science that everyone will want to try at home.
All science begins with questions... - Why is the night sky black, even though it's full of stars? - How do pebbles skim on water? - Why doesn't your own snoring wake you up? - And why is the Large Hadron Collider so ... er ... large? And as these intriguing, imaginative and occasionally bonkers questions and answers drawn from New Scientist magazine's archives show: question everything and you might find your way to amazing, unexpected insights into our minds, bodies and the universe, and the science behind the scenes that keeps them ticking. As you would expect from New Scientist, this is top-flight science at its most accessible, unpredictable and entertaining. This latest mind-bending addition to the No. 1 bestselling series will fascinate 'Last Word' fans and new readers alike.
Why do boomerangs come back? Would parachutists be able to play a game of catch while falling? Why does grilled cheese go stringy? What would happen to a pint of beer in space? Why doesn't cling film cling to metal properly? Why does the wind blow in gusts? A follow-up to the highly successful The Last Word, this new paperback brings you more questions and answers from The New Scientist's popular column. Readers of the leading science weekly are invited to write in with enquiries about everyday scientific phenomena and other readers respond. Thisnew selection of the most interesting examples covers an enormous range of subjects from everyday household products, to plants, animals, the human body, gadgets, and our environment. This is a fun, fascinating, and enlightening read for anyone who asks themselves these questions.
Science tells us grand things about the universe: how fast light travels, and why stones fall to earth. But scientific endeavour goes far beyond these obvious foundations. There are some fields we don't often hear about because they are so specialised, or turn out to be dead ends. Yet researchers have given hallucinogenic drugs to blind people (seriously), tried to weigh the soul as it departs the body and planned to blast a new Panama Canal with atomic weapons. Real scientific breakthroughs sometimes come out of the most surprising and unpromising work. How to Make a Tornado is about the margins of science - not the research down tried-and-tested routes, but some of its zanier and more brilliant by-ways. Investigating everything from what it's like to die, to exploding trousers and recycled urine, this book is a reminder that science is intensely creative and often very amusing - and when their minds run free, scientists can fire the imagination like nobody else.
Combining the latest scientific advances with storytelling skills unmatched in the cosmos, an award-winning astrophysicist and popular writer leads us on a tour of some of the greatest mysteries of our universe. In the constellation of Eridanus, there lurks a cosmic mystery: It’s as if something has taken a huge bite out of the universe. But what is the culprit? The hole in the universe is just one of many puzzles keeping cosmologists busy. Supermassive black holes, bubbles of nothingness gobbling up space, monster universes swallowing others—these and many other bizarre ideas are being pursued by scientists. Due to breathtaking progress in astronomy, the history of our universe is now b...
First published in 1949, 'Guerilla Days in Ireland' is an extraordinary story of the Irish War of Independence and the fight between two unequal forces, which ended in the withdrawal of the British from twenty-six counties. Seven weeks before the Truce of July 1921, the British presence in County Cork consisted of a total of over 12,500 men. Against these British forces stood the Irish Republican Army whose flying columns never exceeded 310 riflemen in the whole of the county. These flying columns were small groups of dedicated Volunteers, severely commanded and disciplined. Constantly on the move, their paramount objective was merely to exist, to strike when conditions were favourable and to avoid disaster at all costs. In 'Guerilla Days in Ireland' Tom Barry describes the setting up of the West Cork flying column, its training and the plan of campaign, which he implemented. In particular he gives his account of the Kilmichael ambush, one of the most controversial episodes of the War of Independence.