Written by best-selling author and media personality Jay Ingram, these investigations from the very edges of science are perhaps not Nobel Prize material, but they evoke the impressive breadth of the scientific mind and tell us much about how science works. In The Barmaid's Brain we learn, for example, how science adds to a re-examination of history with startling new theories about the Salem witches and a psychiatric profile of Joan of Arc. We witness remarkable battles--from the parasitic nastiness of cowbirds to the microscopic viciousness of bacteriophages. And we discover some of the odder concerns of scientists: Will we be able to build a ladder attaching earth to an orbiting satellite? Is it possible that early humans spent their lives in water instead of on land?
Strange, witty, and always edifying, The Barmaid's Brain serves up a splendid cocktail of fact, theory, and anecdote guaranteed to entertain and stimulate.
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