How to Clone the Perfect Blonde: Using Science to Make Your Wildest Dreams Come True - Softcover

Nelson, Sue; Hollingham, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1594740089 ISBN 13: 9781594740084

Publisher: Quirk Books, 2004

Synopsis

Want to travel back in time to your high school prom?
Wish your brain had a “hard drive” that remembered all of your appointments?
Wouldn’t you love to have a permanent size 6 figure?
Why can’t robots make your bed every morning?
 
Believe it or not, these questions aren’t as far-fetched as they sound. In How to Clone the Perfect Blonde, award-winning journalist Sue Nelson and Richard Hollingham show how cutting-edge science has the power to make all of your wildest dreams come true.
 
Through ironic “instructions” on “How to Turn Back Time,” “How to Build a Robotic Servant,” and other fantasies, they offer an up-to-the-minute exploration of time travel, robotics, teleportation, cyborgs, cloning, gene therapy, and other scientific mysteries.
 
Every page brings fresh and new scientific insights. In the chapter explaining “How to Shorten Your Commute,” you’ll learn how Austrian scientists “teleported” a photon across a laboratory—and why human beings could be next. In the chapter describing “How to Clone the Perfect Blonde,” you’ll descover that people have been harvesting and eating clones for centuries (strawberries and potatoes are just two of the many plants that are identical to their parents). And in the chapter “How to Live Forever,” you’ll tour America’s thriving cryonics industry (where recently deceased volunteers are frozen to -320°F and stored indefinitely).
 
In the tradition of bestselling pop-science books like The Physics of Star Trek and How to Build a Time Machine, this entertaining read explores the science of science fiction─and proves that anything is possible!

About this title

About the Author

Sue Nelson is an award-winning science correspondent for BBC News. Richard Hollingham is a journalist and presenter for BBC Radio. On assignment, they have traveled everywhere from Antartica to Kazakhstan, but generally prefer to remain at their home in London.

Reviews

BBC journalists Nelson and Hollingham offer an irreverent and sometimes humorous guide to selected scientific advances in biology, computer science and physics. Each of the eight chapters takes what the authors see as a popular fantasy and explores the science needed to bring the fantasy to life. The titular chapter, for example, illuminates the world of cloning and modern reproductive techniques; "How to Build a Robotic Servant" brings computer technology and artificial intelligence to the fore; "How to Lose Your Love Handles" introduces readers to a discussion of genetically modified crops; and "How to Clean Up Your Neighborhood" is the vehicle for an examination of black holes and Einsteinian physics. Although the tone is light and the text peppered with corny humor ("These cells, taken mostly from skin, are then cultured—which sounds as if they were exposed to opera and classical music and taught deportment...."), the authors do present a basic introduction to some cutting-edge science. What becomes powerfully clear is that while science has made enormous strides in recent years, it's very far from being able to turn fantasies into reality.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Quirk Books
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1594740089
• ISBN 13: 9781594740084
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272