While quackery—loosely defined as the spread of false "knowledge," often accompanied by various versions of "snake oil"—is not a novel phenomenon, it has never posed as great a threat to public health as today. In Quack Quack, Dr. Joe Schwarcz focuses on the deluge of anecdotes, cherry-picked data, pseudoscientific nonsense, and seductive baseless health claims that undermine efforts to educate the public about evidence-based science. The wide scope of the topics drawn from past and present aims to cast a life preserver to people drowning in a sea of misinformation.

The millions of people around the world who loved What If? still have questions, and those questions are getting stranger. Thank goodness xkcd creator Randall Munroe is here to help. Planning to ride a fire pole from the Moon back to Earth? The hardest part is sticking the landing. Hoping to cool the atmosphere by opening everyone’s freezer door at the same time? Maybe it’s time for a brief introduction to thermodynamics. Want to know what would happen if you rode a helicopter blade, made a lava lamp out of lava, or jumped on an erupting geyser? Okay, if you insist.

Interesting anecdotes and engaging tales make science fun, meaningful, and accessible. Separating sense from nonsense and fact from myth, these essays cover everything from the ups of helium to the downs of drain cleaners and provide answers to numerous mysteries, such as why bug juice is used to color ice cream and how spies used secret inks. Mercury in teeth, arsenic in water, lead in the environment, and aspartame in food are discussed.

Of all the dietary and nutritional claims pitched to us, what can we believe? How does cinnamon affect your health? How splendid is Splenda? Should you buy farmed, wild, or canned food? What's fishy about fish-oil supplements? Will a diet of Twinkies and M&M's lead to weight loss? Water from a tap or from a plastic bottle - which should you choose, and which is better for the environment? Should you carry your groceries home in plastic or brown paper? We all have questions, and Dr. Joe Schwarcz has the answers, some of which will astonish you.

From the duo behind the massively successful and award-winning podcast Stuff You Should Know comes an unexpected look at things you thought you knew. Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant started the podcast Stuff You Should Know back in 2008 because they were curious - curious about the world around them, curious about what they might have missed in their formal educations, and curious to dig deeper on stuff they thought they understood.

What would you do if a time machine hurled you thousands of years into the past...and then broke? How would you survive? With this book as your guide, you'll survive - and thrive - in any period in Earth's history. Best-selling author and time-travel enthusiast Ryan North tells you how to invent all the modern conveniences we take for granted - from first principles. This manual contains all the science, engineering, art, philosophy, facts, and figures required for even the most clueless time traveler to build a civilization from the ground up.

Are you the trivia buff in your friend group? Maybe you're just always hoping to learn more random facts to keep up your sleeve. Whether you're a regular trivia fanatic or someone looking for a fun audiobook to listen to, this audiobook goes beyond the scope of general knowledge into some of the most interesting facts and intriguing trivia tidbits out there.

For any task you might want to do, there's a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally complex, excessive, and inadvisable that no one would ever try it. How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. It's full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole.

Who wore the first pants? Who painted the first masterpiece? Who first rode the horse? Who invented soap? This madcap adventure across ancient history uses everything from modern genetics to archaeology to uncover the geniuses behind these and other world-changing innovations. With a sharp sense of humor and boundless enthusiasm for the wonders of our ancient ancestors, Who Ate the First Oyster? profiles the perpetrators of the greatest firsts and catastrophes of prehistory.

The New York Times best-selling author of Fat Chance explains the eight pathologies that underlie all chronic disease, documents how processed food has impacted them to ruin our health, economy, and environment over the past 50 years, and proposes an urgent manifesto and strategy to cure both us and the planet.

Science is a force for good in the world—at least usually. But sometimes, when obsession gets the better of scientists, they twist a noble pursuit into something sinister. Under this spell, knowledge isn’t everything, it’s the only thing—no matter the cost. Bestselling author Sam Kean tells the true story of what happens when unfettered ambition pushes otherwise rational men and women to cross the line in the name of science, trampling ethical boundaries and often committing crimes in the process.

Filled to the brim with far-out facts, this wickedly informative narrative from the author of National Geographic's popular Gory Details blog takes us on a fascinating journey through an astonishing new reality. Blending humor and journalism in the tradition of Mary Roach, acclaimed science reporter Erika Engelhaupt investigates the gross, strange, and morbid absurdities of our bodies and our universe.

Two days before Christmas and at 26 years old, Chris Wark was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer. He had surgery to remove a golf ball-sized tumor and a third of his colon. But after surgery, instead of the traditional chemotherapy, Wark decided to radically change his diet and lifestyle in order to promote health and healing in his body. In Chris Beat Cancer, Wark describes his healing journey, exposes the corruption and ineffectiveness of the medical and cancer industries, and shares the strategies that he and many others have used to heal cancer.

Misconceptions, misunderstandings, and flawed facts finally get the heave-ho in this humorous, downright humiliating book of reeducation based on the phenomenal British best seller. Challenging what most of us assume to be verifiable truths in areas like history, literature, science, nature, and more, The Book of General Ignorance is a witty “gotcha” compendium of how little we actually know about anything. It’ll have you scratching your head wondering why we even bother to go to school.

Which lottery numbers should I pick? Is it true that we are made entirely of stardust? Can dogs tell the time? Why do songs get stuck in my head? If Rome wasn't built in a day, how long did it take? Do plants make noises? Where is last Wednesday? This audiobook is a collection of their cracking, unexpected and frequently hilarious answers. Chock full with extra facts from the Elves, 222 QI Answers to Your Quite Ingenious Questions will spark wonder and joy.