"The New York Times" bestseller that s changing America s diet is now perfect for younger readers What s for dinner? seemed like a simple question until journalist and supermarket detective Michael Pollan delved behind the scenes. From fast food and big organic to small farms and old-fashioned hunting and gathering, this young readers adaptation of Pollan s famous food-chain exploration encourages kids to consider the personal and global health implications of their food choices. In a smart, compelling format with updated facts, plenty of photos, graphs, and visuals, as well as a new afterword and backmatter, "The Omnivore s Dilemma" serves up a bold message to the generation that needs it most: It s time to take charge of our national eating habits and it starts with you."

What’s in a word? Did you know that a lens is named for the lentil seed it resembles? That a straight line actually comes from the words stretched linen? or that a hippopotamus is literally a “river horse”? That oxygen means “giving birth to sharpness” because Lavoisier, who named it, mistakenly thought it was in all acids? (And acid, by the way, comes from the Latin word for vinegar). That alcohol is the word for an ancient Arabic cosmetic? That petroleum in Latin is “olive oil from a rock”? That a nucleus is a "little nut” or that deoxyribonucleic acid simply means . . . ? Well, read the book and see. The vocabulary of Science has always been a forbidding one, bristling with many-syllabled words and odd, unfamiliar terms. Now Professor Asimov has opened up this language to the ordinary reader by conducting an informal exploration into the roots and histories of hundreds of scientific terms. The result is a really fascinating book that combines a vast quantity of scientific information with an equal amount of language history. Even the longest tongue-twisters have simple origins if you go back far enough; and Professor Asimov makes each discovery of the origins of a word a sort of detective story that can’t fail to stimulate the reader’s interest. This is a perfect book to dip into again and again. Not only is it entertaining in its own right, but it is also a wonderful introduction to what should become the popular indoor sport of word-chasing. A complete index to the more than 1500 terms covered makes it a unique reference book as well.

As if history and nature had not provided wonders enough, through the ages humans themselves have contrived more marvels to deceive one another. Sometimes they have concocted evidence when none was available to prove pet theories; sometimes their intention has been to impress or defraud; sometimes they have acted merely for sport. ø Robert Silverberg tells the stories of a baker's dozen of these scientific hoaxers in a lively, good-humored book that ranges through time and across continents. Here are perpetual-motion machines and space rockets, men on the moon and serpents in the sea. The rogues? gallery is a varied one: Dr. Mesmer, who cast his hypnotic spell on eighteenth-century Paris; Charles Dawson, whose Piltdown Man challenged evolution; Dr. Cook, with his tale of ?discovering? the North Pole; and many others. ø These are fascinating stories and more than just entertainment. The author explains the scientific background against which the hoaxes appeared and the detective work that led to their exposure. The schemers teach us to be alert, to challenge the evidence, and to appreciate the healthy skepticism that characterizes the scientific method.