From the same editors that brought you Why Don’t Penguins’ Feet Freeze? and Does Anything Eat Wasps?, an exploration of the weird and wonderful margins of science—the latest volume in the brilliant New Scientist series.
Science tells us grand things about the universe: how fast light travels, and why stones fall to earth. But scientific endeavor goes far beyond these obvious foundations. There are some fields we don`t often hear about because they are so specialized, 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 an atomic weapon.
Real scientific breakthroughs sometimes come out of the most surprising and unpromising work. Do Sparrows Like Bach? is about the margins of science—investigating everything from what it`s like to die to exploding pants and recycled urine. Who on earth would burn off their beard with a laser? Produce a fireproof umbrella that doubles as a parachute? Replace sniffer dogs with gerbils? Could a chemical component of flatulence be the next Viagra? Do sparrows (and even fish for that matter) prefer Bach to Led Zeppelin? The editors at New Scientist magazine have the answers to all these questions and more in this celebration of outrageous, outlandish, and brilliant discoveries on the fringes of scientific research.
This extraordinary collection is an astonishing reminder that even at its most misguided, science is intensely creative, often hilarious, and can spark the imagination like nothing else.
From Booklist
The editors at New Scientist magazine (Does Anything Eat Wasps?, 2005) are at it again, dredging up from the magazine’s archives stories that bring to life the wacky side of science and scientists. This time the organizing principle is the remarkable ingenuity shown by hard-working scientists, ingenuity that sometimes verges on, well, craziness. Think of this book as a science edition of the Darwin Awards, only (mostly) not so fatal: these are stories of hands-on research performed by dedicated, if often decidedly offbeat, individuals. Like the biologist who tried to use a remote-controlled miniature helicopter to capture freshly expelled whale snot; or the researchers who used models of turkeys to determine the “minimum stimulus it takes to excite a male turkey”; or the physician who tried to measure the weight of a human using a dying patient and a wooden beam; or the Italian fellow who told police he could determine a suspect’s guilt or innocence by examining his internal organs. A deeply fascinating and occasionally rib-tickling book. --David Pitt
Review
“A deeply fascinating and occasionally rib-tickling book.” (Booklist )
Description:
From the same editors that brought you Why Don’t Penguins’ Feet Freeze? and Does Anything Eat Wasps?, an exploration of the weird and wonderful margins of science—the latest volume in the brilliant New Scientist series.
Science tells us grand things about the universe: how fast light travels, and why stones fall to earth. But scientific endeavor goes far beyond these obvious foundations. There are some fields we don`t often hear about because they are so specialized, 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 an atomic weapon.
Real scientific breakthroughs sometimes come out of the most surprising and unpromising work. Do Sparrows Like Bach? is about the margins of science—investigating everything from what it`s like to die to exploding pants and recycled urine. Who on earth would burn off their beard with a laser? Produce a fireproof umbrella that doubles as a parachute? Replace sniffer dogs with gerbils? Could a chemical component of flatulence be the next Viagra? Do sparrows (and even fish for that matter) prefer Bach to Led Zeppelin? The editors at New Scientist magazine have the answers to all these questions and more in this celebration of outrageous, outlandish, and brilliant discoveries on the fringes of scientific research.
This extraordinary collection is an astonishing reminder that even at its most misguided, science is intensely creative, often hilarious, and can spark the imagination like nothing else.
From Booklist
The editors at New Scientist magazine (Does Anything Eat Wasps?, 2005) are at it again, dredging up from the magazine’s archives stories that bring to life the wacky side of science and scientists. This time the organizing principle is the remarkable ingenuity shown by hard-working scientists, ingenuity that sometimes verges on, well, craziness. Think of this book as a science edition of the Darwin Awards, only (mostly) not so fatal: these are stories of hands-on research performed by dedicated, if often decidedly offbeat, individuals. Like the biologist who tried to use a remote-controlled miniature helicopter to capture freshly expelled whale snot; or the researchers who used models of turkeys to determine the “minimum stimulus it takes to excite a male turkey”; or the physician who tried to measure the weight of a human using a dying patient and a wooden beam; or the Italian fellow who told police he could determine a suspect’s guilt or innocence by examining his internal organs. A deeply fascinating and occasionally rib-tickling book. --David Pitt
Review
“A deeply fascinating and occasionally rib-tickling book.” (Booklist )