She Blinded Me with Science
Does Anything Eat Wasps? And 101 Other Unsettling, Witty Answers to Questions You Never Thought You Wanted to Ask
Free Press
So, are you guys ready for yet another startling blog-inspired confession? In addition to loving Bruce Campbell and reading, ahem, the occasional business book, I have a secret addiction to popular science. Scary ... but true. If you must know, I blame my parents. As a little kid, copies of National Geographic were littered all over our house -- I couldn't help myself and just had to read them. To make matters worse, on Saturdays around lunchtime, my mom would sit me down at the kitchen table and I would munch on my pickles and carrot sticks while listening to Quirks and Quarks on CBC radio. Come to think of it, this may also explain my strange obsession with David Suzuki ... hmmmm.
Does Anything Eat Wasps? is a collection of questions posed to the editors of New Scientist magazine for their "Last Word" column. The questions are published and then responded to by the ur-Nerds that make up its readership. For the most part, the answers to the questions the book poses are delivered in layman's terms -- there are only a couple of cases where a reader might get bogged down by too much information and be tempted to scan. I was particularly pleased to learn why I have eyebrows and how much weight I will have to gain to become bulletproof. The questions range from the trivial to the fantastic and a great deal of the responses are articulate, witty, and in some cases, delightfully entertaining. Who said science can't be fun?
Rating? I'm giving this one 4 out of 5 Suzukis.
3 comments:
Aack. No, please don't leave me hanging: how much weight do I need to gain in order to become bullet-proof?????
prepared to be grossed out ... the estimates vary, of course, for the size of person, but generally speaking, you'd need to gain enough to have about a two foot layer of fat all over your body. it still won't protect you from a head shot. one guy estimated that the typical bullet proof person would weigh 1425 lbs. that's a lot fat. ick.
Ick indeed. But since I may have to go out to Scarborough for a visit I better get back to eating...
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