"How many hairs are there
on a person's head?
You have about 100,000
head hairs...you lose about
50 head hairs a day. That's
more than 18,000 a year!
Good thing they don't fall out
all at once."
If you are, or you know, someone whose brain is constantly awash with questions about the world and how it works, this is the book for you. It was published first in 1996, and this year has been revised and updated for a new audience. There are four sections, and they include questions and answers about the human body:
"What can bend and twist, feel firm and soft, be fuzzy and smooth, feel pain and pleasure, make noise on the inside and stay silent on the outside, all at the same time?"
and about everyday things:
"As you know regular ices melts into water, but frozen carbon dioxide melts straight from a solid into a thick, cloudy gas, without becoming a liquid in between. Dry ice is so cold it burns if you handle it without gloves. But it's fun to watch in rock videos and -ta da!- magic shows."
and about space:
"Sound travels through the air as vibrations. When the vibrating air touches your ear drum and sets it vibrating, you hear the sound. There is no air in space for sound waves to travel on, so space is totally silent."
and about plants and animals:
"If your cat yawns around you, don't be insulted. All it's saying is "I'm relaxed around you." Yawn back or blink slowly and you'll give your cat the same message."
That is such a small sampling of the many questions asked and answered in this book. If you don't walk away from reading with new information to share, you haven't been paying attention! The impressive photographs and brightly colored illustrations add to the fun and fascination for its readers. The table of contents and index provide a quick path to pertinent information. The questions were solicited from children and that is what gives this book its immediacy and appeal for all those kids who are constantly asking 'why?'
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