Customer Reviews

Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze?: And 114 Other Questions

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Bought this after seeing it paired with PETER CAVE'S CAN A ROBOT BE HUMAN?
2 really good books geared to getting you thinking in an enjoyable way. Just don't accept things -we need the reason why! I do recommend buying them together as they use your brain in a different sort of way and Cave's book made me laugh as well!

I'm not sure why there is so much excitement about this book. I've never read the "New Scientist", but I assumed the answers provided by the readers from the questions posed by the readers were well researched and/or with scientific merit. After reading the first 2-3 pages of the book, I quickly realized this was not the case. In many cases there were multiple answers to questions, and sometimes the responses were contradicting.

Here is an example of a question from page 4:

Question: ... people tend to sneeze when they go from dark conditions into very bright light. What is the reason for this?

Response summaries (paraphrasing where there are no quotes):

1. "Photons get up your nose!"

My comment: Very eloquent and thoughtful.

2. The warming of the air under the nostrils cause an upward movement of dust particles and hair fibres, and within seconds, sneezing occurs.

My comment: Anyone who has this condition knows that sneezing can occur instantly after the eyes are exposed to sunlight. Further, sneezing is possible by looking at artificial light, which provides no warming of the air from a distance.

3. This condition is evolutionary and gives the "sunsneezers" an advantage in added protection from harmful sunrays resulting from the depletion of the ozone layer.

My comment: The depletion of the ozone layer is a recent phenomenon. Genetic mutations resulting in improved functionality would take much longer than the time it has taken for ozone depletion to develop.

4. "...The sneeze occurs because the protective reflexes of the eyes and nose are closely linked. Likewise, when we sneeze our eyes close and also water...."

My comment: This response is probably the only correct one.

5. .. the cause is..the Drawing downe of the moisture of the Braine..."

My comment: Was this the humurous response?

As evident from the example above, some answers are downright ridiculous and not worth publishing, and I'm not referring to the humorous ones included purely for entertainment value. I quickly lost interest in the book, but that is not to say there aren't correct responses to some questions.

This book has more entertainment value than scientific merit.

This sequel stands out from its predecessor Does Anything Eat Wasps for one reason. There is a very realistic little drawing of an emperor penguin in the top right corner of the page. The penguin is has just hooked a fish and has it on the end of a fishing line that reaches the bottom of the page on page one. One each subsequent page the drawing is slightly altered so as you flip through the penguin firstly reels in the fish, the throws it up in the air, tilts its head back, opens its mouth and eats it. This is very clever, very well done and worth the price of the book alone.

Anyway the main emphasis of this book, like Does Anything Eat Wasps is a collection of 115 questions pondered by readers of New Scientist magazine, published in their popular Last Word column. This column sort of works like a hard copy version of an online discussion board where other readers write in with the answer to the question. Obviously a lot of readers of Newscientist are experts in a particular field or another but not all of them are and the so called experts also disagree with each other. There are also some funny answers by people who obviously have no idea but want to add something anyway. Such as one of the answers to Why Do Sheep Run Away in a Straight Line In Front of a Vehicle Down the Road Rather Than to the Side of the Road being because sheep know human psychology they know with bloodlust its harder to run down an animal than just hit it. Likewise someone answers why birds void themselves on you from a great height is because lower isn't much of a challenge!

The only disappointing thing about this book is that it doesn't indicate which is the correct answer, the book needs little symbols or something with correct, wrong or we haven't verified this answer yet. For example you have two experts from the same university in Tasmania contradicting each other answering the question is the myth that hot water freezes faster than cold true? Likewise a question about bananas turning brown in the fridge, I mean ice and bananas you can do an experiment yourself and come up with the answer but for some other questions there is no way you can come up with the answer yourself so having the editors indicate which is true would be very helpful.

Some of the other questions pondered inside are -
Why on a clear day is the sky blue?
If polar bears were transported to Antarctica could they survive?
How can aircraft fly upside down?
Why do parachutes have a hole at the top?
Why do lightbulbs usually blow when first turned on and not after being on for a while?

The best book in the educational and entertaining read genre are How Slow Can you Waterski? by Simon Rogers, (also released under the title Can You Drill a Hole Through Your Head and Survive?) Dr Karl Kruszelnicki's Great Mythconceptions: The Science Behind the Myths, Q & A with Dr. K, Pigeon Poo, the Universe & Car Paint: And Other Awesome Science Moments and the rest of his books. Do Blue Bedsheets Bring Babies?: The Truth Behind Old Wives' Tales, Why Do Men Have Nipples? Hundreds of Questions You'd Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Martini, Shocking Science, So Gross (Over 100 Gross-Worthy Facts) and Everything You Need to Know About the World by Simon Eliot.

This is a great addition to New Scientist's set of scientific inquiry books. Full of answers to questions I've posed to myself while bored and some I wasn't creative enough to think of alone, I thoroughly enjoyed reading a few entries in the book each night before going to bed. The editors have done a good job of parsing through the debate surrounding some questions and provide mostly fair and complete answers. There is a thread of humor throughout the book that can almost go unnoticed, but you're bound to find yourself smiling sometimes whether you know it or not. I recommend this book to anyone with a sense of humor and inquiring mind.

The New Scientist magazine started something bigger than they expected when they began the 'Last Word' column. It's a column where anything goes. Some of the questions covered: Why are left-handers at greater risk of accidental death? Should you pickle your conkers? (after all this is an English book) How do ants survive in the microwave? If you were in a free-falling elevator, would jumping before you hit the ground help? This book follows the wildly successful 'Does Anything Eat Wasps?' that was issued last year at just about Christmas time. It is, as the book says, 'science for the beople, by the people, a celebration of the trivial, idiosyncratic, baffling and strange.' Besides that, it's a great bathroom book.

The 'New Scientist' is a weekly magazine, first published in 1956, that covers the recent happenings in the scientific world. In 1994, the magazine launched a new column called "The Last Word" in which its driven by its readers - not all of whom are geeks in white coats. Here, they could not only pose a science-related question, but also provide the answers. In 2005, a selection of the questions asked and answered were gathered together for "Does Anything Eat Wasps ?" - a book that elbowed its way to the upper ends of the UK's bestseller's list. Unsurprisingly, with a great deal of material still available, New Scientist decided to follow it up with "Why Don't Penguin's Feet Freeze ?".

The book is divided into chapters, depending on the focus of the questions selected - our bodies, plants and animals, and weird weather for example. While the book is informative, it is equally as likely to raise a smile - the overall tone is not that of a difficult, highbrow scientific paper. Some of the questions that are dealt with include : "Why do birds never fall off their perches when sleeping ?", "Fish don't fart, why is this ?", "Why doesn't superglue stick to the inside of the tube ?", "What time is it at the North Pole ?" and - from a nine year old boy - "Is it a coincidence that a human finger fits exactly into a human nostril ?"

An enjoyable and informative book - it's one I tend to dip into once in a while, rather than reading it from cover to cover.

the book is one of those that answers some of lifes little questions that sometimes gets overlooked. My boy loved it, with me reading some of the factoids for him before bed. Like Karl Kruzelniski's books, they're fun as well as informative. a good read for young and old

Anyone who has ever claimed that science is boring has never spent any time talking with a scientist. However, some people have done so, and in the process, they ask lots of interesting questions such as; Why don't birds fall off their perches when they are asleep? How do you make transparent ice cubes like those in Scotch advertisements? What time is it at the North Pole? Why are traffic signals arranged red over amber over green whereas railroad signals are arranged green over amber over red? If you have wondered about things like this, then you will enjoy Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze? And 114 Other Questions, a collection of questions posed by readers of NewScientist Magazine that are answered by fellow readers in their "Last Word" column (NYC: Free Press; 2007). Incidentally, those of you who roam the blogosphere will discover that some of the answers were provided by people whose names are familiar to you.

NewScientist's popular "Last Word" column is similar to an online discussion forum where readers ask and answer each other's questions, and the best of those columns were gathered together and published in this book. I found it interesting to read the different writing styles when multiple answers to a particular question were published. Also interesting were those answers where readers disagreed each other, especially those who are experts in the field, because this gives the reader (you) a rare glimpse into some of the reasons that science is a dynamic and often rapidly changing discipline. I was amused by the witty responses provided by some clever but nonetheless clueless readers who still wanted to add their own two-cents' worth to the discussion. [But see Bob O'Hara's response below].

Unfortunately, it was sometimes difficult to identify which response is correct when more than one plausible explanation was provided, thereby implying that we still don't really know all the answers to even some everyday phenomena. One especially interesting example of this were the responses from two professors from the same university who contradicted each other as to whether hot or cold water take longer to freeze, and why.

In addition to being educational and interesting, this book also has one illustration: a cute little drawing of an emperor penguin in the top right-hand corner of each page. This penguin is holding a fishing pole that has hooked a fish, which is at the bottom right-hand corner of the page. Each subsequent drawing has been changed just a little so that if you flip through the pages rapidly, you can watch this penguin reel in the fish, toss it into the air while tilting his head back, open his mouth to catch the fish in mid air and swallow it -- just like watching a cartoon.

This book is trade paperback sized and consists of 212 pages that are divided into nine chapters with titles like Plants and Animals, Domestic Science, Weird Weather, and Troublesome Transport. It also has a user-friendly index of topics in the back. Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze? will appeal to almost anyone, and it certainly makes for a fun and entertaining read while commuting by public transit or while stuck in traffic jams. And who knows, perhaps you will enjoy learning why fish don't fart while you read this book in the bathroom, or why snot is often green while waiting for your doctor's appointment?

So, to answer the question posed by the book's title, Why don't penguins' feet freeze? The answer is counter-current exchange. If you want to know the full details, you'll just have to buy the book!

In 1994, the New Scientist started a column, The last word, devoted to everyday science questions asked by readers, with answers also provided by readers. Originally expected to survive for between one and five years, the column survived way beyond that and as far as I know, it is still going strong. Two books compiled from these columns didn't do much business but a third (Does anything eat wasps?) was a huge success. Its success prompted a subsequent volume (this one), that selects questions and answers from those two unsuccessful volumes and adds questions of more recent origin. A further volume, Do polar bears get lonely?, has also proved hugely successful.

This book consists of nine chapters covering our bodies, feeling OK, plants and animals, food and drink, domestic science, our planet and universe, weird weather, troublesome transport and, for questions that don't fit easily into any of those categories, best of the rest. Note that these chapter headings are slightly different from the previous volume. Two new ones (feeling OK, food and drink) have been added while our planet and universe are combined in one chapter here.

The question that gives the book its title provoked some very good answers explaining how penguins cope with life in the Antarctic, but there`s a more interesting (at least to me) penguin question elsewhere in the book. If polar bears and penguins swapped places, could they survive. The answer seems to be that polar bears would survive in the Antarctic but they would devastate the eco-system and penguins would be particularly vulnerable. Penguins might be capable of surviving in those parts of the Arctic where there are no polar bears, but there's another species that would make their life difficult - us. Attempts to establish northern penguin colonies have failed because people couldn't co-exist with them.

Another question that particularly grabbed my attention was what the time is at the North pole. It sounds easy but of course it isn't, since the pole is on Earth's axis and therefore not in any particular time zone. A variety of answers are supplied, some serious, some not. One of the serious answers explains how it would be possible, using astronomy, to set up some kind of clock, summing that you didn't take a clock or watch with you. One of the less serious answers points out that Father Christmas lives there and, it being in no particular time zone, explains how he is able to deliver all his presents so quickly. Another answer suggests that the North Pole is the true spiritual home of all politicians, because the time can be whatever you want.

The variety of the questions asked and the answers provided is incredible, although I confess that I wouldn't have actually considered asking most of these questions. While this book provides very informative answers, I suspect that you'll have most fun with it if you share it with family and friends.

Fun to read. It also caught the attention of my teenagers. It has many interesting facts that worked their way into meal time discussions and questions during a long road trip. It makes science into fun, and is a book equal to the Discovery and History Channels.