What it’s like to be hit by lightning or to lose your sense of smell? Have you heard about the woman saved by bee stings — or the window cleaner who fell 400ft and lived?
Written for Wellcome charity's Mosaic Science site, these 16 stories explore the mysteries of the human body. Learn about everything from diets to allergies to baldness.
Contents
What’s it like to be struck by lightning?Why do we colour hair?The man with the golden bloodWhy dieters can’t rely on calories3D printers can now make body partsHow to fall from a skyscraper and live to tell the taleThe quest to explain miscarriagesSeeking a ‘cure’ for male baldnessHow bee stings saved a woman’s lifeThe global trend for ‘kangaroo’ babiesWhat it means to lose your sense of smellThe doctor aiming to end eye painCould allergies be a defence against noxious chemicals?Why business is going slow on the male pillHow virtual reality headsets aid remote surgeryShhh! What exactly is the menopause?Review
It's a good sign when you pick up a book intending to read one chapter and end up reading three. It's very moreish. This is because it's made up of short, self-contained articles, originally published on a website. Often an edited collection of articles by different authors suggests a boring read, but here the articles are good pieces of journalism with plenty to interest the reader.
The topics are all vaguely human body related, but thankfully not all medical (not my favourite subject) - so, for example, as well as stories of a person cured of Lyme disease by bee stings or a piece on miscarriages we get topics like the effects on the body of being struck by lightning or falling from a high place. Even some more explicitly health-related matters, such as the impact of losing your sense of smell, were engaging enough to get me past my medical squeamishness.
— Brian Clegg, science writer
