杏吧原创

Joe Schwarcz is the doyen of North American newspaper science columnists. And his latest collection (The Genie in the Bottle, Palgrave, 拢13.99) is another sparkling effervescence of everyday chemistry. Starting with a hilarious description of his kitchen encounter with a water-filter salesman out to unmask the poisons in his tap water, Schwarcz tours the origins of Epsom salts in a Surrey cow field, the microbiology of kissing, burning alligators, thalidomide, and the continuing battles between spoon-bender Uri Geller and his nemesis, the Amazing Randi. Always serious; always entertaining.