By Mary Roach
What happens to humans in the great beyond? Well, some become crash test dummies and rhinoplasty test subjects. They help to make the world a better and safer place in their own way. They let car manufacturers know vital information like how much pressure can ribs take before they collapse and how to avoid brain damage when colliding with the windshield during a collision. Cadavers help plastic surgeons connect or disconnect the right tissue so when a live person is operated on, his or her skin is tightened instead of loosened.
Last Breath
By: Peter Stark
In the book are stories of fatal or near death experiences in the outdoors, which give insight to the way our body works under extreme circumstances. Included are stories following a skier forced to ski his way through a snowstorm, a kayaker stuck under water past his limit, and a fatal accident involving jellyfish along with many more. Each chapter gives a sense of death hovering over the characters as the story continues that only the reader seems to know as the character obliviously waits.
Dinner at the New Gene Cafe Book
It is deep in the late hours of the night at a farm, the farmer is asleep. Just a distance away is a field of corn, not just regular corn, but special kind of corn. There is some rustling in the bushes and a group of people walks up to the cornfield. Their faces are shrouded by the darkness of the night. They begin to attack the field of corn by tearing away the stalks and cutting them down with machetes. When the job is done they creep back into the night. In the morning the farmer finds the field destroyed and shakes his head in disbelief. He knows this was the work of saboteurs. The field of corn was actually genetically modified corn with a special gene that gave the corn resistance over herbicides, mainly Roundup, when used to kill weeds.
The Primal Teen Book
By: Barbara Strauch
Have you really ever wondered why teenagers act the way they do, or why they get into the moods they do that no one can quite seem to understand? Or maybe why they do such crazy actions that lack precaution? 'All of a sudden strange things are happening with the kids we know. These are good kids, bright kids, but the other day one stole some calculators from the high school and sold them, another can't finish their homework. Getting my own kids out the door in the morning now is this monumental thing. What is going on?? (Strauch 3)
The Golden Ratio
By Mario Livio
The Golden Ratio is used in famous paintings such as The Sacrament of the Last Supper by Salvador Dali and the main idea is based around a famous number that all mathematicians throughout History have included in their works. The number phi(1.6180339887) is used in real life problems such as in cutting objects into proportions. It could be proportions having to do with math, real-life problems, gambling, carpentry, and art. It all has to do with the perspective from which you look at the number and how you decide to use it.
Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife
By: Mary Roach
Is death really the end of life? Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife is a compilation of stories told in first person by Mary Roach. The book is full of great information on the subjects of reincarnation, seances, soul weighing, and much more. The stories are mostly about experiments and concepts made by scientists from long ago.
The Seven Daughters of Eve
By: Bryan Sykes
The Seven Daughters of Eve is a book based on an actual study made in 1994, by a genetics professor from England named Bryan Sykes. Professor Sykes, who teaches genetics at the Institute of Molecular Medicine at Oxford University, was asked to examine the body of a male who was discovered trapped in glacial ice in Northern Italy. The body was discovered by Erica and Helmut Simon while walking in the Italian Alps on Thursday September 19th, 1991. The body was soon named 'The Ice-Man' by the scientific world. The Ice-Man was believed to have been frozen for at least 5000 years. During his examination, Mr. Sykes was able to extract DNA for testing. Part of the results showed Professor Sykes that there was a link between the Ice-Man and people living today.
The Demon in the Freezer
By: Richard Preston
The story begins when a man named Robert Stevens goes hiking in the mountains with his wife. Overtime, Stevens comes down with an illness that has not been seen in the USA for sixteen years. When Stevens dies, the doctors try to figure out how he contracted this disease and had it been spread. This incident leads a chain of other viruses that soon spreads around the USA.
The Universe in a Nutshell
By: Stephen Hawking
In our world, our technology is evolving, from the ships out in the ocean to the airplanes up in our sky. This book shares with us the great discoveries in science from Albert Einstein's twins paradox to James Watson and Francis Crick's double helix.
Invisible Allies
By: Jeanette Farrell
Microbes shape our lives. Right now, there are thousands of them crawling on our bodies and there is no way we can get rid of them. She also describes how without them the world would end because the microscopic organisms play a very important role in the world.
This book disgusted me in so many ways. It opened my eyes to so many things and how no matter how "clean" I think I am I always have microscopic organisms crawling all around me.
Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation: the Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex
By: Olivia Judson
A “Dear Abby” style science column that answers the who, what, when, where, why, and how of a fascinating variety of sexual activity for all creatures, great and small.
Rat: How the World's Most Notorious Rodent Clawed Its Way to the Top
By: Jerry Langton
"It would be ugly to watch people poking sticks at a caged rat. It is uglier still to watch rats poking sticks at a caged person", as once said by Jean Harris. The book not only clues us in on what diseases they cause or what kinds of foods they hate to eat, but he also mentions a lot of human encounters with these filthy friends.
The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison
By: John Emsley
In this story John Emsley writes and talks about some of the most shocking and brutal murders that happen in the past. Some of which consist of who was behind the madness of King George the 3rd, the delusions of Isaac Newton and the very very strange murder of King Charles the 2nd done by the most dangerous and heartless killers. For example Mary Ann Cotton who used arsenic to murder her mother, three of her husbands, a lover, eight of her own children and seven of her step children
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