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

New Scientist is a science magazine for everyone, young and old, amateur and professional. With a circulation approaching 160,000 and a worldwide readership of more than half a million, it is among the most popular of all popular science magazines.

• What time is it at the North Pole?

• What's the chemical formula for a human being?

• Why do boomerangs come back?

• Why do flying fish fly?

• Do the living really outnumber the dead?

• Why does lightning fork?

• Why does the end of a whip crack?

Everyone has at one time or another thought up odd questions like these, questions that are strange, intriguing, maybe even impossible to answer. Making your morning omelet, perhaps you've wondered why most eggs are egg shaped. Or maybe, the last time you walked on the beach, you felt compelled to ask why the sea is salty. Watching Polly sit on her perch, have you ever marveled at how she stays there -- even when she's asleep? Well, the readers of New Scientist's wildly popular, long-running column "The Last Word" thought of these questions, too, and weren't afraid to ask them.

Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze? is a brilliant collection of questions and answers for everyone who enjoyed the international, runaway bestseller Does Anything Eat Wasps? Guaranteed to amaze, inform, and delight with topics such as the human body, plants and animals, weird weather, and our wacky world, it'll stump you, enlighten you, entertain and amuse you.

Introduction     1
Our Bodies     3
Feeling OK?     30
Plants and Animals     41
Food and Drink     67
Domestic Science     106
Our Planet, Our Universe     129
Weird Weather     148
Troublesome Transport     154
Best of the Rest     175
Index     207