Science magazine meets The Onion, Mental Floss, and Mad magazine in this ingenious guide to the science behind the newsFor more than a decade , the intrepid folks at whyfiles.org-the #1 science destination on the web-have been exploring the science behind newsworthy events. Now condensed into a book written with the site's characteristic wit, The Why Files features scores of articles organized into sections that mirror any city's...

If the world as we know it ended tomorrow, how would you survive?A nuclear war, viral pandemic or asteroid strike. The world as we know it has ended. You and the other survivors must start again. What knowledge would you need to start rebuilding civilisation from scratch?How do you grow food, generate power, prepare medicines, or get metal out of rocks? Could you avert another Dark Ages, or take shortcuts to accelerate redevelopment? Living in the modern wor...

Check out the weird and wonderful facts in this massive encyclopedia of alphabetized oddities:HUMANS ARE THE ONLY ANIMALS THAT ENJOY SPICY FOOD (there’s a reason no one sells Tabasco-flavored cat food).NAPPING CAN SAVE YOU FROM A HEART ATTACK (assuming you are not operating heavy machinery at the time).PSYCHOLOGISTS CAN ASSESS YOUR PERSONALITY FROM HOW YOU DIP FRIES IN KETCHUP (nice fries, sociopath).SURFING THE INTERNET ACTUALLY MAKES YOU SMARTER (but not a...

In this extensively revised and enlarged edition of his best-selling book, David Suzuki reflects on the increasingly radical changes in nature and science — from global warming to the science behind mother/baby interactions — and examines what they mean for humankind’s place in the world. The book begins by presenting the concept of people as creatures of the Earth who depend on its gifts of air, water, soil, and sun energy. The author explains how people are genetically p...

Repackaged with a new afterword, this "valuable and entertaining" (New York Times Book Review) book explores how scientists are adapting nature's best ideas for sustainability, solving tough 21st century problems.Biomimicry, a revolutionary approach to innovation inspired by nature, is rapidly transforming life on earth. Biomimics study nature's most successful ideas over the past 3.5 million years, and adapt them for human use. The results are revolutioni...

In the history of planet earth, mass species extinctions have occurred five times, about once every 100 million years. A "sixth extinction" is known to be underway now, with over 200 species dying off every day. Not only that, but the cause of the sixth extinction is also the source of single biggest threat to human life: our own inventions.What this bleak future will truly hold, though, is much in dispute. Will our immune systems be attacked by so-called super bugs, always evolvin...

The green movement used to protect the earth from mankind; now they need to protect mankind from the earth. In Whole Earth Discipline, Stewart Brand argues that in order to do this, they urgently need to abandon much conventional environmental wisdom, and embrace new science and engineering. Cities are actually greener than the countryside, he argues, and urbanization should be encouraged; we must invest massively in nuclear energy; and genetic engineering has the potential to sti...

When a farmer in Spain captured a two-headed snake in 2002, scientists wanted to study it. When National Geographic Daily News published a story about the discovery, people wanted to read all about it. More than a million people clicked on the site and kept coming back for more unbelievably true stories. An Internet sensation was born. Since then, more than 100 million individuals have clicked on stories put together by David Braun and his crack team of editors for National Geographic Dail...

In this New York Times bestseller, "you'll see star births described in pen and ink, antimatter realized in collage, and a hand-painted black hole" ( Discover Magazine).A science book like no other, The Where, the Why, and the How turns loose seventy-five of today's hottest artists onto life's vast questions, from how we got here to where we are going. Inside these pages some of the biggest (and smallest) mysteries of the natural world are explaine...

In its 4.5 billion–year history, life on Earth has been almost erased at least half a dozen times: shattered by asteroid impacts, entombed in ice, smothered by methane, and torn apart by unfathomably powerful megavolcanoes. And we know that another global disaster is eventually headed our way. Can we survive it? How?As a species, Homo sapiens is at a crossroads. Study of our planet’s turbulent past suggests that we are overdue for a catastrophic disaster, ...

• Is there really such a thing as a blue moon?• What time is it at the North Pole?• Why don’t woodpeckers get concussed?• Why don’t snorers wake themselves with the racket they make?• Do insects sleep?These are just a few of the intriguing questions asked and answered in The Quirks & Quarks Question Book, the first question and answer book to come out of CBC Radio’s enormously popular weekly science program. Quirks & Quarks producers ha...

There have been at least 25 prototype humans. We are but one more model, and there is no evidence evolution has stopped. So unless you think Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern are the be all and end all of creation, and it just does not get any better, then one has to ask what is next? Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans, two of the worlds most eminent science authors, researchers, and entrepreneurs, answer this by takin g you into a world where humans increasingly shape their environment, their o...