Exploring the scientific principles behind everyday recipes, this informative blend of lab book and cookbook reveals that cooks are actually chemists. Following or modifying recipes is shown to be an experiment with acids and bases, emulsions and suspensions, gels and foams. This easy-to-follow primer includes recipes that demonstrate the scientific concepts, such as Whipped Creamsicle Topping (a foam), Cherry Dream Cheese (a protein gel), and Lemonade with Chameleon Eggs (an acid indicato...

When it comes to chemistry, most kids have more questions than answers. Why do you get cavities when you eat too much sugar? How does sun block protect your skin from getting a sunburn? What makes soda so fizzy? And why do you need antifreeze in your car? Teenager Alexa Coelho quizzed her neighbor, chemist Simon Field, with hundreds of perplexing questions, and now she has the answers. Field covers a wide variety of concepts from simple to complex, but always with straightforward, easy-to-...

Black powder, the world's first chemical explosive, was originally developed during the Tang dynasty in China.It was a crude mixture at first, but over time chemists discovered the optimum proportion of sulfur, charcoal, and nitrates, as well as the best way to mix them for a complete and powerful reaction. Author and chemistry buff Simon Quellen Field takes readers on a decades-long journey through the history of things that go boom, from the early days of black powder to today's modern p...

How much do you really know about how the human body works—how it reacts to food, exercise, nutrition, and the environment? While most of us have read about at least one fad diet, we're left wondering about the greater biochemistry, psychology, sociology, and physiology of the obesity crisis in the United States. Gut Reactions by chemist Simon Quellen Field shows us how our bodies react to food and the environment, how our brain affects what and how much we eat, and why some diets...

What would it be like to be genetically engineered? To have your genes selected from thousands of the most successful athletes, scientists, businessmen, and scholars from all over the world? Jack Wright knows because that's just what was done to him. Growing up with the expectations of greatness, all his successes taken for granted, all his accomplishments attributed to his genes, he can run faster than any Olympian, but will never get a medal, since genetic enhancements are considered unf...

Sarah is used to waking up in strange places.Her multiple personalities are not aware of one another. But this time is special. She is in a hospital after brain surgery to cure her condition.The personality that checked into the hospital is not Sarah, however, and Sarah learns that in the past seven years, she has married, and then killed her husband in the last few days.She is now in a race to stay ahead of the police while she finds out what her other selves have ...

Randall Story isn't from around here.He knows he can get home. He just has to work to make the world a better place, a little bit at a time.But a lifetime of work is now threatened by people who have learned how to extract energy from the order of the universe.They seem to be unaware that every watt they extract makes the world descend a little more into chaos.

Sam hears voices. They bother him and occasionally scare the daylights out of him.He does not want to go the way of his father, whose delusions ended in suicide.But he can't shake the feeling that the voices are real, and they lead him to a beautiful world of telepathic communion that he finds addictive.But this new world has its own, very real dangers, and Sam is soon caught up in deadly serious trouble.

When two body dump cases land on his desk, detective Matt London soon finds himself unraveling a web of marijuana growers, dealers, money launderers, and more dead bodies than the county Sheriff's department has ever seen.But none of the shady characters he encounters seem more than peripherally involved in the killings.Are they suspects, or the next victims?

Jerry has half a brain, and half a mind to use it.After his accident left him missing large parts of his brain, a computer chip was implanted to try to connect the pieces that were left. This left him, in his words, funny.He lives with other funny people in a clinic for people like him, each of them with a unique take on life, given to them by their special gifts.But when Jerry meets a funny little man who is very much out of this world, his own abilities b...

In the last few years, research has exploded in the field of longevity. We now have an understanding of most of the mechanisms of aging, giving us a handle on slowing the process, and a pathway to reversing it.Explore the reasons we age, why we age more slowly than most other animals, what goes wrong, and what to do about it. Delve into the latest science and what is in store for the very near future.

When she's not on the medication that keeps her sane, Raven is highly intelligent.But during one of her lucid periods, she discovers that she is transmitting radio signals from an implanted device in her spine.Is this what causes her symptoms? Who is tracking her? And why?She and her new friends race to find out because the medications are killing her, and she doesn't have a lot of time left.