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 emerge...

Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze? is the latest 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? - the Christmas 2005 surprise bestseller - this new collection includes recent answers never before published in book form, and also old favourites from the column's early days.Yet again, many seemingly simple questio...

We all want to be happier, more successful and less stressed, but what really works?From improving creativity to building confidence, self-care to self-esteem, forming better habits and feeling happier, Fix Your Life debunks the fads and explores the real science of self-help.Can you learn to make better decisions?Or break bad habits and form new ones?What should you eat to feel happier?

It's lucky you're here. But for a series of choices, accidents and coincidences - any of which could have gone otherwise - your life would have been very different.The same goes for reality. We live in just one of many possible worlds - but we can imagine parallel universes in which dinosaurs still rule the Earth, the Russians got to the moon first, everyone's a vegetarian or time itself flows backwards. And that's just for starters.What if the laws of physics were di...

How did it all begin? Where is it all going?A little over a century ago, a young Albert Einstein presented his general theory of relativity to the world and utterly transformed our understanding of the universe. His theory changed the way we think about space and time, revealed how our universe has been expanding from a hot dense state called the big bang and predicted black holes.WHERE THE UNIVERSE CAME FROM is a 13.8-billiion-year journey ...

If you thought you knew who you were, THINK AGAIN.Did you know that half your DNA isn't human? That somebody, somewhere has exactly the same face? Or that most of your memories are fiction?What about the fact that you are as hairy as a chimpanzee, various parts of your body don't belong to you, or that you can read other people's minds? Do you really know why you blush, yawn and cry? Why 90 per cent of laughter has nothing to do with humour? Or what will ha...

Congratulations! You're the proud owner of the most complex information processing device in the known universe. The human brain comes equipped with all sorts of useful design features, but also many bugs and weaknesses. Problem is you don't get an owner's manual. You have to just plug and play.As a result, most of us never properly understand how our brains work and what they're truly capable of. We fail get the best out of them, ignore some of their most useful features and strug...

As you read this, billions of neutrinos from the sun are passing through your body, antimatter is sprouting from your dinner and the core of your being is a chaotic mess of particles known only as quarks and gluons.If the recent discovery of the Higgs boson piqued your interest, then Why The Universe Exists will take you deeper into the world of particle physics, with leading physicists and New Scientist exploring how the universe functio...

The 2011 'Last Word' collection featured, for the first time, 108 full-colour photographs showing the beauty, complexity and mystery of the world around us.From ripples in glass to 'holograms' in ice, the natural world's wonders are unravelled by the magazine's knowledgeable readers. The book presents more resourceful, wry and well-informed answers to a remarkable range of baffling science questions.

This Is Planet Earth is dedicated to the wonders of Planet Earth, the most amazing place in the known Universe.The ancient Greeks called it Gaia; the Romans Terra. We know it simply as Earth, the planet we call home. And what a planet it is.Formed around 4.6 billion years ago from the debris of the big bang and long-dead stars, at first it was nothing special, but somehow it evolved to become the most amazing place in the known Universe. The only living planet we k...

We all want to be healthier, stronger and live longer, but what really works?From stress to saturated fats, HIIT to HRT, veganism to vitamins, This Book Could Save Your Life debunks the fads and explores the real science of better health.What's the best way to lose weight (and keep it off)?How can you ensure a good night's sleep?What are the real superfoods?How can y...

We all want to be happier, more successful and less stressed, but what really works?From building confidence and boosting creativity to forming better relationships and getting smarter (and healthier), This Book Could Fix Your Life explores the real science behind self-help.HOW TO BOOST YOUR IQTHE SCIENCE OF SUCCESSFUL DATINGHOW TO BREAK BAD HABITSHOW TO ACE EXAMS