The Barmaid's Brain and Other Strange Tales from Science

London England: Aurum Press. Hardback. This collection of essays on the weird and wonderful world of scientific study explores some of the little known quirks of human behaviour, including why we laugh, how we see mirages and what happens when sane people are put in the world of the insane. The author reports on science's various attempts to re-examine history, including startling theories about the Salem witches, a psychiatric profile of Joan of Arc and the raging debate over the first-ever map of the New World. He brings to our attention remarkable battles - from the parasitic nastiness of cowbirds and the micropscopic nastiness of antlions and the microscopeic viciousness of bacteriophage. He also introduces us to the sometimes odd concers of the scientist: Will we be able to build a ladder attaching earth to an orbiting satelite? Can flatworms really learn from eating other flatworms? Is it possible that early humans spent their lives in water instead of on land? And just how does slinging drinks affect the memory and the perception of the barmaid's brain. These investigations from the very edge of science many not be the stuff of newspaper headlines or candidates for the Nobel price, but they evoke the imppresive breadth of the scientific mind and tell us much about the ways in which all scientific investigation works. Weird, witty and always edifying, this book serves up a splendid cocktail of fact, theory and anecdote in twenty-one of the author's favourite tales from the world of science. 271 pp. (We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. academic and scholarly books and Modern First Editions ,and all types of Academic Literature.) . Very Good. Cloth. 1st Uk Edition. 1999.