Brain Fizzing Facts

Why is your elbow called your funny bone? How could you escape the grip of a crocodile's jaw? Which animal can breathe through its bottom? And how do these things all link together? This brilliant book will have eyebrows raised and jaws dropping as it uncovers the amazing scientific explanations behind all sorts of questions that can pop into our heads. Can an egg bounce? How can a giraffe's ridiculously long neck contain the same number of bones as a human's? How much does the Internet weigh? Written by science superstar and STEM Ambassador Dr Emily Grossman, this book will answer all science questions you may or may not have wondered about. Each section in the book is linked to the one before it, creating a fantastically interactive structure, where a question answered brings up new curiosities and surprises. This is the perfect book for children who love learning about science or who need an extra nudge when it comes to STEM subjects. After all, who wouldn't want to find out how a hippo can use its own sweat as sunscreen?! This book has been shortlisted for the Teach Primary Book Awards 2020.

Why is your elbow called your funny bone? How could you escape the grip of a crocodile's jaw? Which animal can breathe through its bottom? And how do these things all link together? This brilliant book by the science expert Dr Emily Grossman will have eyebrows raised and jaws dropping as it uncovers the amazing scientific explanations behind all sorts of questions that can pop into our heads. Can an egg bounce? How can a giraffe's ridiculously long neck contain the same number of bones as a human's? How much does the Internet weigh? Written by science superstar and STEM Ambassador Emily Grossman, this book will answer all science questions you may or may not have wondered about. Each section in the book is linked to the one before it, creating a fantastically interactive structure, where a question answered brings up new curiosities and surprises. This is the perfect book for children who love learning about science or who need an extra nudge when it comes to STEM subjects. After all, who wouldn't want to find out how a hippo can use its own sweat as sunscreen?

If you’re good at finding the one right answer to life’s multiple-choice questions, you’re ”smart.” But ”intelligence” is what you need when contemplating the leftovers in the refrigerator, trying to figure out what might go with them; or if you’re trying to speak a sentence that you’ve never spoken before. As Jean Piaget said, intelligence is what you use when you don’t know what to do, when all the standard answers are inadequate. This book tries to fathom how our inner life evolves from one topic to another, as we create and reject alternatives. Ever since Darwin, we’ve known that elegant things can emerge (indeed, self-organize) from ”simpler” beginnings. And, says theoretical neurophysiologist William H. Calvin, the bootstrapping of new ideas works much like the immune response or the evolution of a new animal species—except that the brain can turn the Darwinian crank a lot faster, on the time scale of thought and action. Drawing on anthropology, evolutionary biology, linguistics, and the neurosciences, Calvin also considers how a more intelligent brain developed using slow biological improvements over the last few million years. Long ago, evolving jack-of-all trades versatility was encouraged by abrupt climate changes. Now, evolving intelligence uses a nonbiological track: augmenting human intelligence and building intelligent machines.

Science fiction meets science fact in this brand new hilarious book from one of the UK and Ireland’s best-loved comedians. Genuinely qualified space expert, Dara O Briain, is here with all the answers to help you sort your Area 51s from your messages from Mars. Includes: • how life begins in the first place • how Earth was created • whether aliens might exist elsewhere in the Solar System • the search for other planets like our own • how we could possibly ever get there and . . . • would we really meet aliens? Alongside this runs the hilarious, but not very true story of Carl and his cat, Clive, who will join you on the journey of the book to help take you from novice alien-hunter to bona-fide space expert, with a brilliant final twist! So, is there anybody out there? NO. (Well, maybe.) And do aliens really exist? Probably. (Possibly.)

Join science expert Dr Ben Martynoga and illustrator extraordinaire Moose Allain on a fascinating, sometimes funny, and occasionally scary journey through the world of viruses.Explore the science behind viruses and the COVID-19 pandemic in a fascinating story of hijacked human cells and our own internal emergency services.Along the way, you'll learn what viruses are, how they work, and how we can overcome - or at least learn to live alongside - those that do us harm.

Why do testicles hang the way they do? Is there an adaptive function to the female orgasm? What does it feel like to want to kill yourself? Does "free will" really exist? And why is the penis shaped like that anyway? In Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?, the research psychologist and award-winning columnist Jesse Bering features more than thirty of his most popular essays from Scientific American and Slate, as well as two new pieces, that take readers on a bold and captivating journey through some of the most taboo issues related to evolution and human behavior. Exploring the history of cannibalism, the neurology of people who are sexually attracted to animals, the evolution of human body fluids, the science of homosexuality, and serious questions about life and death, Bering astutely covers a generous expanse of our kaleidoscope of quirks and origins. With his characteristic irreverence and trademark cheekiness, Bering leaves no topic unturned or curiosity unexamined, and he does it all with an audaciously original voice. Whether you're interested in the psychological history behind the many facets of sexual desire or the evolutionary patterns that have dictated our current mystique and phallic physique, Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That? is bound to create lively discussion and debate for years to come.

So you want to go into space? WHY?! (No, really - it's sort of a terrible idea. We humans are perfectly designed for life on Earth. We can walk around, breathe, drink water, eat vegetables, read books, not get poisoned or crushed to death when we go outside - it's lovely right where we are.) Not convinced? GOOD! People have been dreaming about space travel for centuries - there's something amazing about the idea of leaving our planet behind and setting out to explore the Universe - there's so much we still don't know. UK and Ireland's best-loved comedian Dara ” Briain takes you on a journey from the safety of your comfiest chair to the furthest reaches of space (and beyond!)

PREPARE TO LAUGH AND LEARN Scientific answers to mysteries kids really want to know. Sure a lot of kids want to grow up to be astronauts, but according to scientist Glenn Murphy, even MORE kids want to know what happens to astronaut farts. (Short answer: Not good things!) And they want to know: Why don't all fish die from lightening storms? Why haven't we all been sucked into a black hole? Do animals talk? Told in a back-and-forth conversational style, Why is Snot Green? presents science just the way kids want to learn it--with lots of laughter.