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The universe inside you: the extreme science of the human body from quantum theory to the mysteries of the brain
Author
Publisher
Icon Books
Publication Date
2012
Language
English
Description
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Table of Contents
From the Book
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. In the mirror
On reflection
2. A single hair
The colours of nature
Dyeing to be attractive
Worrying about hair loss
To make allies, lose your hair
Lost in space
A lousy measurement
Getting under your skin
What is stuff made of?
Battered by molecules
Empty atoms and electromagnetic bottoms
Exploring an atom's innards
No miniature solar system
Taking a quantum leap
The charm of quarks
The messy standard model
Is it solid, liquid or gas?
The fourth state of matter
Enter the condensate
Every kind of stuff
You are what you eat
Components that pre-date the Earth
A sprinkling of stardust
3. Locked up in a cell
Cursing the pain away
A living liquid
The signs of life
Are your cells alive?
A voyage through your bloodstream
The special molecule
A company of tiny boxes
The superstar molecule
Your own special code
The invaders in your cells
Wearing your alien genes
Your trillions of tiny stowaways
A useful appendix
Bacteria don't know the five-second rule
Worming their way into your affection
The noble leech
Aliens in the eyelashes
Seeing small
The rays that don't stop giving
Cats and nuclear resonance
Hunting the elusive neutrino
The neutrinos light couldn't catch
4. Through fresh eyes
In Orion's belt
Seeing into the past
Waves or particles?
Bursting from the heart of a star
The 1,340-year star trek
The distorting lens
The Baywatch principle
Looking through a lentil
Through a glass, darkly
The messy colours of sight
Picking up the photons
From light to mind
Your artificial view of the world
Quantum reality
Through Young's slits
Uncertainty reigns
Getting entangled
A normal whole from quantum parts
A galactic feat
Glow-in-the-dark urine
Remnants of the Big Bang?
The expanding universe
The probable Big Bang
Playing with models
The out-of-control universe
A quasar too far
Black hole myths
Building a black hole
The non-eternal sunshine
The power source of life
Is there anybody out there?
The intelligence test
We are isolated, if not alone
5. Marching on the stomach
Your inner chemistry
Reach for a chunk of rock
The evil compound of life
Adding a little fizz
Sitting at Dmitri's table
Meet element 114
Heavy metal or noble gas?
Turning food into energy
Hot food is good food
The cup that cheers
Food of the gods
The winners' drug
From chemical energy to moving muscle
Making work happen
The great bumble bee mystery
The elastic kangaroo
Heat on the move
No perpetual motion machines
The energy Crookes
Infinite clean energy
Entropy increases
The physics of monsters
Staying on two legs
Fidgets and knuckle-crackers
6. Feeling dizzy
Counting the senses
From compression wave to brain wave
Audible illusions
The sound of emotion
All in good taste
Flavours and taste buds
The mineral in the kitchen cupboard
Sniffing your way around
Scenting a mate
À la recherche de odeur perdu
The sense that's everywhere
Seeing with your skin
A sense of pain
Finding your own nose
Sensing the accelerator
Weight and mass
Push me pull you
The occult force
Warping space and time
Falling and missing
No more action at a distance
Slowing your clocks
The force of creation
The force of electricity and magnetism
Going with the current
Into the nucleus
The close-up force
Travelling through time
Light gets relative
Tunnelling through time
Build your own time machine
The paradoxes of time
Breathing easier at the theme park
7. Two by two
What do you mean, attractive?
Birds do it, bees do it…
You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs
Doing it the prehistoric way
The Stone Age technology in the park
Dog as prosthetic
Genetic engineering the natural way
The mighty 23
Beyond the gene
Similarities and differences
Attack of the clones
Hello Dolly
Growing old gracefully
8. Crowning glory
What goes on inside your head
Brains weren't made for maths
Open the door
The two-boy problem
A test of your understanding
But what does it mean?
You must remember this
Solid state versus squishy state
Remembering how it's done
Remembering stuff
I know the face
Take down my phone number
I remember that tail from somewhere
The brain scribble
Writing with pictures
Did you hear about my mummy?
Abjads to alphabets
It sounds capital
Are you human?
Would you kill to save lives?
Trusting and ultimatums
Weighing up the options
Allowing for all the factors
It could be you
Economics gets it wrong
Did you do that consciously?
Mood swings and comfort breaks
The brain's own painkillers
Homeopathic misdirection
The ethics of placebos
9. Mirror, mirror
Building your ancestor tower
How many colours in the rainbow?
No sudden changes
A failure to link up
The babel of towers
Proud to be 'just a theory'
Newton gets it wrong
Evolving makes a lot of sense
What use is half an eye?
Science can always be proved wrong
The sense of wonder
Appendix: Finding out more
Index
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Author Notes
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ISBN
9781848313538
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