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New Scientist: Last Word #3

Does Anything Eat Wasps? And 101 Other Unsettling, Witty Answers to Questions You Never Thought You

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How fat do you have to be to become bulletproof?

Why do people have eyebrows?

Why do pineapples have spines?

How much does a head weigh?

What affects the color of earwax?

How quickly could I turn into a fossil?

Have you ever thought up a question so completely off-the-wall, so seemingly ridiculous, that you couldn't even find the courage to ask it? Maybe at the sports bar you were transported by the beauty of your beer to wonder, "How long could I live on beer alone?" Or, cycling through the park, you mused, "Did nature invent any wheels?" Or looking up at the night sky, you had a moment of angst, "What would happen if the moon suddenly disappeared -- if it were vaporized or stolen by aliens?"

Full of fun factlets, Does Anything Eat Wasps? is a runaway bestseller around the world. It celebrates the weird and wacky questions -- some trivial, some baffling, all unique -- and their multiple answers culled from "The Last Word," a long-running column in the internationally popular science magazine, New Scientist. Tackling the imponderables of everyday life, sparkling with humor, and bursting with delightful erudition, Does Anything Eat Wasps? is irresistibly entertaining and utterly engrossing.

So, go on. Put away your lab coat and your pencil -- science is fun again.

211 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,2000
Series
New Scientist: Last Word

This edition

Format
211 pages, Paperback
Published
April 5, 2006 by Atria Books
ISBN
9780743297264
ASIN
0743297261
Language
English

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Rating(4 / 5.0, 100 votes)
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100 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Inukia
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I've read many books, some of them comedies, but I can't remember laughing so much as I did with this. Not only does it provide scientific information about many subjects, but it's also written in a humorous way. What else can you ask from this book? Only that it were longer!
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mattnhd
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Na verdade eu li a tradução em português que saiu pela Editora Record: "Quanto preciso pesar para ser à prova de uma bala perdida?" (tradução de carolina duarte). Muio divertido.
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AzukeN-kun
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This is a compendium of a much beloved rubric of questions and answers published in The New Scientist. A delightfully lighthearted and silly (while being smart) romp. An easy and diverting read
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64912
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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A collection of questions and answers from New Scientist's "Last Word" column, in which readers would write in with questions, and others would answer. Unfortunately, not what I was expecting at all.

Some questions were more interesting than others ("what would bagpipes sound like with helium?", for example...), and the answers were as varied as the questions. Some questions have multiple answers published, and there are instances in which these answers contradict one another. Rarely are these answers succinct; contributors of this column love to ramble and exhibit the depths of their knowledge. Some of the questions and answers are very informative, others not so much; it really is a mixed bag.

Perhaps reading this book out of the context of this column, and some 20+ years after publication, I might not be experiencing the content as intended. Or maybe I'm just missing the point of the "Last Word" entirely.
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Mitetyyyy
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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As a kid if you were the one who always asked annoying questions about the world...and still haven't stopped as an adult...then this book is for you. Good fun to read with some utterly bizarre questions (yes, what would happen if aliens 'stole' the moon?).
In a few places the answers went on and on...and then scientists wonder why people assume them to be nerds ;-)
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