Curious Folks Ask: 162 Real Answers on Amazing Inventions, Fascinating Products, and Medical Mysteries (FT Press Science) [Paperback]

Sherry Seethaler (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0137057385 | ISBN-13: 978-0137057382 | Publication Date: February 24, 2010 | Edition: 1

“Dr. Seethaler has written an excellent book for any interested student of science. She answers great questions about the world around us in this fascinating book. As a high school science teacher, I encounter many of these from my own students. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who has pondered questions starting with ‘how,’ ‘what,’ or ‘why.’”

–Ernest James Lo, Science Teacher, Woodside High School, Woodside, CA

 

Prepare to Be Fascinated!

Why does the flu change every year?

       • What makes glue sticky?

       • What causes out-of-body experiences?

       • Are all brands of gas the same?

       • Will adult stem cells work as well as embryonic stem cells?

       • Is one “horsepower” really equal to the power of one horse?

       • Why can’t you sneeze with your eyes open?

       • How much does a cremated body weigh?

 

These are just a few of the fascinating science and health questions real people have asked top science writer and San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Sherry Seethaler. Curious Folks Ask brings together 162 of her best answers–all crystal-clear, accurate, quick, and a pleasure to read. Seethaler is one of this generation’s best science explainers, and it shows: Every answer is accurate, fun to read, and distilled to a single page or less! Want to know how canned air works…or nuclear bombs? What causes goose bumps, earwax, dandruff, headaches? Whether it’s healthy to crack your knuckles, drink decaf, eat chocolate? What it costs to run all those LED lights around your house? It’s all here–and a whole lot more!

• Your body’s oddities: knees to knuckles, itches to sneezes
  Surprising facts about how your body grows and works
• Our ingenious inventions
  The past, present, and future of our relentless human inventiveness
• Pesky pathogens: viruses, bacteria, and prions
  How they keep outsmarting us, and why it’s so hard to stay healthy
• Common chemical concoctions
  The science behind the everyday products that have transformed our lives
• Uniquely human: how we got here, how we’re unique
  New lessons from genetics, archaeology, and evolutionary biology

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In the vein of David Feldman’s Imponderables books, here’s an interesting collection of questions and answers based on Seethaler’s column in the San Diego Union Tribune. The format is straightforward: first the question, then the answer. The questions are grouped into categories—ingenious inventions, body parts, pesky pathogens, health nuts, and so on—and the answers range in length from slightly more than a page to a few sentences. It’s the kind of book you read a bit at a time, and it’s just the thing for anyone who has been wondering why some people blink more than others, why California requires the use of snow tires in winter, why you don’t keep your eyes open when you sneeze, or what eyelashes are for. Not as lively or as entertaining as the Imponderables books, probably because the questions are generally a bit duller, the book is still informative and reasonably entertaining. Trivia fans will find much to amuse themselves with here. --David Pitt

Review

As seen on WebMD, Woman's Day Radio, The ManCow Show, and KPFA's Exploration radio show.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: FT Press; 1 edition (February 24, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0137057385
• ISBN-13: 978-0137057382
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #901,977 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sherry Seethaler is a science writer and educator at the University of California, San Diego. She also writes a weekly column for the San Diego Union-Tribune in which she answers readers' questions spanning nearly every imaginable science topic from "Why do I sneeze when I look toward the sun?" to "Is a lightsaber possible?" to "Is one horsepower really equal to the power of one horse?" to "Why do lizards do push-ups" to "What causes out-of-body experiences?" That last question really does fall under the purview of science! You can read the answers to these and 345 other questions in Seethaler's books, Curious Folks Ask: 162 Real answers on amazing inventions, fascinating products, and medical mysteries (FT Press Science, 2010) and Curious Folks Ask 2: 188 Real answers on our fellow creatures, our planet, and beyond (FT Press Science, 2011).

Seethaler earned a bachelor of science in biochemistry and chemistry from the University of Toronto, a Master of Science and a Master of Philosophy in biology from Yale University and a Doctor of Philosophy in science and mathematics education from the University of California, Berkeley. She has studied theories of learning and the extensive literature on people's alternative ideas about mathematical and scientific concepts. Her dissertation research examined how eighth-grade students and undergraduates make sense of scientific controversy, with a focus on the genetic engineering of food.

Her passion is to help people rediscover the wonder about science that we all shared as children, before we had concluded that science meant facts to be memorized from a textbook. Back then science meant bugs and slugs, trees and seas, stars and scars, rocks and... (well, you get the picture). Science is also a way of approaching problems and a way of thinking about the world that we can each apply to making better reasoned health, political and consumer decisions. Unfortunately, precollege and even college science classes often fail to teach us how to do this. To fill that gap, her book Lies, Damned Lies, and Science: How to sort through the noise around global warming, the latest health claims, and other scientific controversies (FT Press Science, 2009) is an empowering yet palatable set of tools for making sense of the health and science-related issues we encounter in our daily lives.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a fun book ! Great for high school and middle school science teachers to make their classes more interesting !, April 2, 2010

By 

R. Neil Scott "Writer, Professor & User Servi... (Murfreesboro, TN USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Curious Folks Ask: 162 Real Answers on Amazing Inventions, Fascinating Products, and Medical Mysteries (FT Press Science) (Paperback)

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Open the book to any page and you're bound to find a captivating question with a well-written and interesting answer. It's perfect for teachers wanting to add some spice to their lectures...and makes for an excellent gift for the budding genius of the family.

Here's a sampling of the questions:

Is a lightsaber (yes, the Star Wars sword) possible?

Why does my radio crackle with static or some other interference?

Since contact lenses move with your eyes as they move, how are bifocal contact lenses possible?

Why is it so difficult to make a hearing aid that works?

Why do certain electrical cords (those used by fans, in particular) curl over time? Certain others do not.

Why is the adhesiveness of white glues, such as Elmer's, stronger than that of glue sticks?

How come I can use cold water in my washing machine but I have to use hot water in my dishwasher?

Fun stuff!

Seethaler is a Science Writer for the San Diego Union-Tribune. She holds a B.S. in Biochemistry (University of Toronto), a M.S. in Biology (Yale) and the Ph.D. in Science and Mathematics Education (Univ. of California-Berkeley), thus, readers can be confident that her answers are based upon good data and reliable information sources.

Highly recommended for school, public and college library collections and consideration for gifts to bright, curious and inquisitive individuals of all ages.

R. Neil Scott
Middle Tennessee State University

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Curiosity Rewarded, April 26, 2010

By 

Spudman (Pasadena, MD United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Curious Folks Ask: 162 Real Answers on Amazing Inventions, Fascinating Products, and Medical Mysteries (FT Press Science) (Paperback)

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Can you define geophagy? What about zoopharmacognosy? I couldn't either until reading "Curious Folks Ask." Now I know why my dog sometimes eats dirt and that animals occasionally eat things for pharmacological reasons that are not normally part of their diets.

"Curious Folks Ask" is the book to read by the incurably curious, the hopelessly nescient, and even the pseudo-omniscient in need of humility and reality. The entire book is a collection of questions and answers organized into 8 categories: ingenious inventions, chemical concoctions, body parts, bodily functions, pesky pathogens, assorted ailments, uniquely human, and health nuts.

This reader likes Seethaler's book quite a bit. It's a book that one can read in a few sittings or read sporadically during the day to turn empty minutes into mini science lessons. If one has no interest in a question topic or finds it too difficult, one can skip and move on to the next one. I surprised myself by skipping very few questions, and even gave a cursory read to the "skipped" ones.

Some of Seethaler's answers seem to have been written by a politician. She begins on topic and somehow she disarmingly ends up on a somewhat related but different topic. Her book is so fascinating, however, that these few transgressions are easy to forgive.

In a nut shell, I enjoyed this book, learned from it, and would recommend it.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A bit long winded for me, April 21, 2010

By 

Bill Nicholas - See all my reviews

This review is from: Curious Folks Ask: 162 Real Answers on Amazing Inventions, Fascinating Products, and Medical Mysteries (FT Press Science) (Paperback)

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In the movie Dragnet, Officer Friday's partner asked him a question, and after a very long-winded answer he quipped, "Well, I know one thing for sure." "What's that?" "I'll never ask that question again." That's how I felt sometimes with this book. Quality of the questions aside, I wish they took the advice given to Jimmy Carter after his first debate: Answer the question first, then explain. The answers too often start out with a complete history of the subject before they ever get to an answer. This type of book, I believe, needs to be quicker to the point.