Great Mambo Chicken And The Transhuman Condition: Science Slightly Over The Edge - Hardcover

Regis, Edward

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0201092581 ISBN 13: 9780201092585

Publisher: Basic Books, 1990

Synopsis

A survey of the scientific frontier from the serious to the bizarre--such as research on enclosing the solar system, dismantling the sun, and head freezing

About this title

Review:

Sometimes a book has such a wonderful title that you assume the text could not be any good: but The Great Mambo Chicken is in fact a wonderfully rollicking masterpiece of scientific reportage about some of the wilder ideas being seriously considered by scientists "slightly over the edge" Regis describes the life and ideas of rocket scientists who would like everyone to have their own way into space, cryogenecists who hope to freeze people for revival in the future, nanotechnologists who want to build molecular robots to fix everything, and space colonists who want to build new worlds from the spare parts of the solar system -- and beyond. The most remarkable thing about the stories: Regis reveals that these seemingly disparate communities are all interwoven in unexpected ways. Even Evel Knievel makes a surprise visit in the chapter on personal rocket ships. Very Highly Recommended, and likely to become an Amazon.com Books customer favorite.

From the Back Cover:

Enter the gray area between overheated imagination and overheated reality, and meet a network of scientists bent on creating artificial life forms, building time machines, hatching plans for dismantling the sun, enclosing the solar system in a cosmic eggshell, and faxing human minds to the far side of the galaxy. With Ed Regis as as your guide, walk the fine line between science fact and fiction this free-wheeling and riotously funny tour through some of the most serious science there is.

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0201092581
• ISBN 13: 9780201092585
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 308