| Preface | |
| Acknowledgments | |
| Benjamin Franklin and the Swatches on the Snow | p. 1 |
| Once You've Had It, You Can't Catch It Again | p. 1 |
| Why Is the Sky Blue? | p. 2 |
| Static Electricity | p. 3 |
| Why One Rotten Apple Can Spoil the Barrel | p. 4 |
| Superconductors | p. 5 |
| Does Smoking Cause Lung Cancer? | p. 6 |
| What Is a Gene? | p. 6 |
| Why Do Cats' Eyes Glow at Night? | p. 7 |
| Paul Ehrlich, Dyes, and Drugs | p. 9 |
| Why You Can Never Get to the End of the Rainbow | p. 10 |
| The Difference between a Square and a Diamond | p. 10 |
| Sounds over a Lake at Evening | p. 11 |
| Do the Best Dogs Come from the Pound? | p. 12 |
| Flip a Coin, Beat the Odds | p. 13 |
| Stroboscopic Stagecoach Wheels | p. 13 |
| Why Are Bells Made of Metal? | p. 14 |
| Why Rivers Don't Flow in a Straight Line | p. 15 |
| What's Your Average Speed? | p. 16 |
| The Basic Unit of Life | p. 17 |
| How Aspirin Got Its Name | p. 18 |
| Cold Water at the Bottom of a Lake | p. 19 |
| Why Do Women Live Longer Than Men? | p. 19 |
| A Thirty Percent Chance of Rain | p. 20 |
| Limeys | p. 21 |
| How Does Lung Cancer Start? | p. 22 |
| The Light of Spring | p. 23 |
| Vitamines and Vitamins | p. 24 |
| Colors and Their Opposites | p. 24 |
| How Does the World Look to a Bee? | p. 25 |
| Death of the Dinosaurs: A Quick Review | p. 26 |
| Why Do We Put Cut Flowers in Water? | p. 27 |
| Life without Zero | p. 28 |
| Prostaglandins | p. 29 |
| Sweetened Condensed Milk | p. 29 |
| What the Weather Report Doesn't Tell You | p. 30 |
| Why Mowing the Lawn Doesn't Kill the Grass | p. 31 |
| A Mirror Riddle | p. 32 |
| Galileo's Job Application | p. 33 |
| The Consequences of Smallness | p. 34 |
| Ozone and Ice | p. 35 |
| Benjamin Franklin's Madeira Wine Surprise | p. 36 |
| Viruses Attack Bacteria | p. 36 |
| The Birth of the Atomic Age | p. 37 |
| Honest Answers to Personal Questions | p. 38 |
| Risk Assessment | p. 39 |
| Broken Symmetry: Cosmetic or Cosmic? | p. 40 |
| Antimatter | p. 41 |
| The Secret of Clear Ice Cubes | p. 42 |
| Broken Cups and Atoms | p. 42 |
| Trapdoor Codes | p. 43 |
| Late-Night Radio | p. 44 |
| Does Nature Abhor a Vacuum? | p. 45 |
| How Does Water Get to the Top of a Tree? | p. 46 |
| Adding and Subtracting Colors | p. 47 |
| What Could Change Earth's Climate? | p. 48 |
| Polarized Light and a Quiet Lake | p. 48 |
| Are Forest Fires Always Bad? | p. 49 |
| Death of the Dinosaurs Revisited | p. 50 |
| Breaking a Coffee Cup | p. 51 |
| How Bacteria Resist Antibiotics | p. 52 |
| Cool Wind before a Thunderstorm | p. 53 |
| Lightning | p. 53 |
| Thunder | p. 54 |
| Heat Lightning | p. 55 |
| How Many Girls, How Many Boys? | p. 56 |
| Modern Biology in a Monastery Garden | p. 57 |
| See Yourself as Others See You | p. 58 |
| Neutrinos and the End of the Universe | p. 58 |
| Cooking an Egg | p. 59 |
| How a Field Can Become a Forest | p. 60 |
| The Most Important Fly in the History of Science | p. 61 |
| How Plants Fight | p. 62 |
| How Fast Are the Clouds Moving? | p. 63 |
| Sort Nuts by Shaking the Can | p. 64 |
| Everybody Talks about Genes - But What Do They Do? | p. 65 |
| Looking High and Low at Leaves | p. 66 |
| A Taste Test | p. 66 |
| Why a Rubber Band Snaps Back | p. 67 |
| Breaking the Tension | p. 68 |
| How Cockroaches Get Away | p. 69 |
| The Moon Illusion | p. 70 |
| Polarizing Sunglasses | p. 71 |
| Pros and Cons of the Mercator Projection | p. 72 |
| A Surprise at a Shadow's Edge | p. 72 |
| Algae as a Thermostat | p. 73 |
| Balance a Yardstick without Looking | p. 74 |
| A Rock in a Rowboat | p. 75 |
| Whiter and Brighter Than New | p. 76 |
| Hormone Insecticides | p. 77 |
| An Inverted Image | p. 78 |
| A New Person from a Nose? | p. 78 |
| The Mysterious Number Pi | p. 79 |
| Springs in the Cafeteria | p. 80 |
| Firefly Signals | p. 81 |
| Mirages | p. 82 |
| Seeing Yellow | p. 83 |
| Why Cotton Wrinkles | p. 84 |
| DNA Caught in the Act | p. 85 |
| Newton's Rainbow | p. 86 |
| The Elastic Ruler | p. 86 |
| Uncorking a Mystery | p. 87 |
| Psychological Accounting | p. 88 |
| Color Is in the Eye of the Beholder | p. 89 |
| Wine and Life | p. 90 |
| The Sweet Spot on a Baseball Bat | p. 91 |
| Make an Image without a Lens | p. 92 |
| Chimes, for Your Ears Only | p. 93 |
| It's Not Just the Heat; It's the Humidity | p. 93 |
| Fluorescent Lamps | p. 94 |
| The Truth about Bleach | p. 95 |
| Carbon Dating | p. 96 |
| Soap Bubbles and Butterfly Wings | p. 97 |
| Tracing the Roots of Energy | p. 98 |
| Why Fan Blades Stay Dirty | p. 99 |
| Brown Apples and Brown Tea | p. 100 |
| Optics and Glue | p. 101 |
| Light Takes Time | p. 102 |
| Read Fine Print through a Pinhole | p. 103 |
| Get Your Bearings with Two Thumbtacks | p. 103 |
| A Globe as a Sundial | p. 104 |
| An Ink Ring in a Glass of Water | p. 105 |
| Why After-Dinner Mints Taste Cool | p. 106 |
| A Leaf Falls | p. 107 |
| A Dot, a Line, a Crease, a Beautiful Curve | p. 108 |
| Directing a Living Cell | p. 109 |
| Dancing Pollen Grains | p. 110 |
| Wet Weather Means Brighter Colors | p. 110 |
| The Spinning Earth and the Weather | p. 111 |
| Infection: A Struggle between Two Organisms | p. 112 |
| Why Doesn't a Pregnant Woman Reject Her Fetus? | p. 113 |
| The Floating Cork Trick | p. 114 |
| A Thousandth of a Second | p. 115 |
| Touching and Being Touched | p. 116 |
| On a Clear Day, How Far Can You See? | p. 117 |
| Edison and the Bulge-heads | p. 118 |
| The Shape of Sound | p. 119 |
| The Wrong Formula for Water | p. 120 |
| Discovering Viruses | p. 121 |
| Cells Get Old and Die | p. 122 |
| Sorting Out Musical Pitches | p. 122 |
| The Echo of a Train | p. 124 |
| Microbursts and Airplane Crashes | p. 124 |
| What's inside an Atom? | p. 125 |
| Dew-bows | p. 126 |
| Halogen Lamps | p. 127 |
| When Pop Bottles Don't Blow Up ... and When They Do | p. 128 |
| It's Not What You Hear - It's When You Hear It | p. 129 |
| Weightless Water | p. 130 |
| Warmth from a Cold Lamp | p. 131 |
| Mirror, Mirror on the Wall | p. 132 |
| Artificial Flavoring Means Fewer "Chemicals" | p. 132 |
| Catch a Falling Dollar | p. 133 |
| Cosmic Rays | p. 134 |
| Chocolate Bloom | p. 135 |
| Getting Robbed in the Camera Obscura | p. 136 |
| CFCs and CO[subscript 2] | p. 137 |
| The Shapes of Snow | p. 138 |
| Skidding Downhill | p. 139 |
| Infrared | p. 140 |
| Dark Meat and Light Meat | p. 141 |
| Sperm Meets Egg: What Really Happens | p. 142 |
| Do You Really Have a One-Track Mind? | p. 143 |
| The Season of Static Electricity | p. 143 |
| What Soap Does to Water | p. 144 |
| Roll Over, George Washington | p. 145 |
| Don't Believe Your Fingers | p. 146 |
| The Curve of a Meandering River | p. 147 |
| Curved Space in a Christmas Ornament | p. 147 |
| Guests in Every Cell | p. 148 |
| The Glory | p. 149 |
| The Waterfall Effect | p. 150 |
| White Sky, Gray Snow | p. 151 |
| Why Chickens Don't Have Webbed Feet | p. 152 |
| Can You Draw a Penny from Memory? | p. 153 |
| Clouds in a Jar | p. 154 |
| Ultraviolet | p. 155 |
| Reproduction and Sex: What's the Difference? | p. 155 |
| A Comb, a Sock, and a Faucet | p. 156 |
| Our Most Distant Relatives | p. 157 |
| Cheap Imitation Ivory | p. 158 |
| Freezing Hot Water Pipes | p. 159 |
| The Rising Water Mystery | p. 160 |
| Would You Drink This? | p. 161 |
| Is It Ever Too Cold to Snow? | p. 162 |
| Is It Ever Too Warm to Snow? | p. 162 |
| Alcohol Content | p. 163 |
| Summer Antifreeze and Candy | p. 164 |
| Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved. |
