Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze? And 114 Other Questions, More Questions and Answers from the Popular Last Word Column

by New Scientist

Paperback, 2006

Status

Available

Call number

502

Series

New Scientist's readers (2)

New Scientist: The Last Word (4)

Genres

Publication

Profile Books (2006), Edition: 1st, 236 pages

Description

Science. Nonfiction. HTML: 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 questions turn out to have complex answers. And some that seem difficult have a very simple explanation. New Scientist's 'Last Word' is regularly voted the magazine's most popular section as it celebrates all questions - the trivial, idiosyncratic, baffling and strange. This new selection of the best is popular science at its most entertaining and enlightening.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member marcoha

A random bunch of questions sent to New Scientist's Last Word column. Most succesful, I think, when the answers are a combination of serious science and humour. Some of the answers were way too hard for me to follow, having never been very strong, though interested, in physics or chemistry.

Guaranteed to deliver some fresh insights, be it about the effect of mercury on airplanes (apparently they have to decommission the whole plane if there's a spillage) or about common myths (the Great Wall of China is *not* visible from the Moon!). I might try the follow-up, which is all about experiments you can try at home: cloning sheep and that sort of thing, I assume ;-)

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LibraryThing member pokarekareana

I'm not a scientist at all. The only reason I liked science at school was because it occasionally gave me the chance to spell long and unpronouncable words. Like its predecessor, Does Anything Eat Wasps, I found this to be really interesting and enjoyable. The format of the book works especially

well for somebody like me who has minimal knowledge of most areas of science; it's in the form of questions and answers posted by members of the public, so the answers range from impenetrable professorial tomes to homework answers written by nine-year-olds. It's gross in places, genuinely baffling in others, but I think I may even have learnt something from reading this. Hooray!

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LibraryThing member tole_lege

I hadn't realised that this was a collection of letters to New Scientist - as a result, I was expecting a much different tome. It's interesting but I'm in no hurry to buy the earlier book in the series....

LibraryThing member wyvernfriend

Covering a wide variety of topics, this is a great book for trivia hounds. Entertaining and informative it also points at the knowledge of people and the inquisivness of people.

Amusing and well worth dipping into.

LibraryThing member boogiebaby

Great for dipping into. Funny and entertaining. Pick up lots of bizzar facts to impress your friends with!

LibraryThing member flyheatherfly

I am not sure I like how this book reads. I do not read the New Scientist, which is a pereodical that the qusetions are posed in and answers sent to. I would have liked one definitive answer to each question rather than one answer, followed by another answer which says the prior answer is incorrect

, followed by another 'humourous' answer.

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LibraryThing member fieldri1

Science strives ever onwards in search of the answers to the big questions. Is there a grand unifying theory (GUT) of everything, is the Higgs Boson the key to this theory etc.But day to day the questions that people want to know the answers to are things like 'why is the sky blue?' and 'does hot

water freeze more quickly than cold water?'.And this is the book to find answers to lots of questions that you really want to know. The questions and answers all come from a column called 'The last word' in the New Scientist magazine, and this book is a follow up to an earlier book in a very similar vein.Interesting and funny.

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LibraryThing member theboylatham

Five out of ten.
Interesting scientific questions answered.

LibraryThing member psiloiordinary

Another eclectic mix of questions with their equally odd mix of answers.

My favourite and a good illustration of what the book does is a question in a letter to New Scientist some years ago about hot water freezing quicker than cold water. This is now understood (isn) and it the way the world

actually works. We see the full range of responses to the issue being raised and a little bit of history about how it was investigated. Fascinating stuff.

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LibraryThing member riida

my 100th book since joining LT! ^_^

i like trivia a lot, and i certainly picked up a lot of trivia from this book. but somehow, i seem to have not enjoyed it as much as i should have. maybe this book form (as opposed to the questions appearing originally in NewScientist magazine's Last Word column)

just didnt push the right buttons for me.

however, i applaud the idea behind the column. letting readers suggest answers to the questions have encouraged a lot of physical and thought experimentation among the contributors. i think that was a very cool achievement!

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LibraryThing member xuebi

This compendium of questions taken from the columns of the New Scientist magazine cover all sorts of scientific topics in an engaging manner. A quick and easy read, with minimum scientific jargon, this book will entertain and educate its readers.

LibraryThing member AprilBrown

What ages would I recommend it too? – Eight and up.

Length? – Most of a day’s read.

Characters? – No.

Setting? – Real World.

Written approximately? – 2006.

Does the story leave questions in the readers mind? – Ready to read more.

Any issues the author (or a more recent publisher) should

cover? No.

Short storyline: A mixture of odd science questions and answers.

Notes for the reader: There is sometimes a question about the reliability of some of the answers. Sometimes, they are conflicting. Then again, all science is theories, and what is today consider "true" in science may be proved "false" next year, or next decade. Read with caution.

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