The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science (edit title)

Timothy Gray approved graphicstudent’s request to combine 2 books, including The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, Friday, August 28 2009.

Shelfari edited the description of The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science Friday, July 31 2009.

• From the Pulitzer Prize winner and best-selling author of Woman, a playful, passionate guide to the science all around us With the singular intelligence and exuberance that made Woman an international sensation, Natalie Angier takes us on a whirligig tour of the scientific canon. She draws on conversations with hundreds of the world's top scientists and on her own work as a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for the New York Times to create a thoroughly entertaining guide to scientific literacy. Angier's gifts are on full display in The Canon, an ebullient celebration of science that stands to become a classic. The Canon is vital reading for anyone who wants to understand the great issues of our time -- from stem cells and bird flu to evolution and global warming. And it's for every parent who has ever panicked when a child asked how the earth was formed or what electricity is. Angier's sparkling prose and memorable metaphors bring the science to life, reigniting our own childhood delight in discovering how the world works. "Of course you should know about science," writes Angier, "for the same reason Dr. Seuss counsels his readers to sing with a Ying or play Ring the Gack: These things are fun and fun is good." The Canon is a joyride through the major scientific disciplines: physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy. Along the way, we learn what is actually happening when our ice cream melts or our coffee gets cold, what our liver cells do when we eat a caramel, why the horse is an example of evolution at work, and how we're all really made of stardust. It's Lewis Carroll meets Lewis Thomas -- a book that will enrapture, inspire, and enlighten.

graphicstudent submitted a request to combine 2 books, including The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, Friday, July 31 2009.

Shelfari edited the contributors of The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science Thursday, July 23 2009.

• Added a contributor: Natalie Angier: (Primary Author)

Shelfari edited the first sentence of The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science Friday, July 17 2009.

• SCOTT STROBEL, A BIOCHEMIST at Yale University, is tall, tidy, and boyishly severe, his complexion a polished apple, his jaw ajut, his hair a sergeant's clipped command.