Clegg Brian. Inflight science: a guide to the world from your airplane window

Icon Books, 2011 — 212 p. — ISBN 9781848312807,1848312415From the failings of the five-second rule to the truth about phone masts and nuclear power, kept up-to-date with an online resource, Science for Life is your guide to surviving and thriving in the modern world.
Science plays a fundamental role in everyday lives—improving health, increasing life expectancy, and enhancing life experience. Yet it can be difficult to get a handle on what's best for you and your family.
Acclaimed science writer Brian Clegg presents the latest scientific advice, cutting through the vested interests and confusing contradictory statements that litter the media and the internet to give a clear picture of what science is telling us right now about changing our lives for the better.
Discover why the much-advertised antioxidants aren't good for you, the truth about fat and sugar, and why one of the healthiest foods contains carcinogens and 21 E-numbers. Find out what works and what doesn't in enhancing brainpower—from the failure of playing Mozart to babies to the surprising abilities of caffeine and nicotine. Understand the tools that advertisers use to persuade us and how we can turn the psychological pressure back onto them.
Brian Clegg is a science writer who studied physics at Cambridge University and specializes in making the strangest aspects of the universe, from infinity to time travel and quantum theory, accessible to the general reader. He is editor of popularscience.co.uk and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (UK).At the Airport
Terminal boredom
An airport divided
Bag check
Testing the air
A lesson in detection
Body scan
Who do you think you are?
The science of superstition
Taking to the Sky
Aircraft basics
Fuelling flight
The greenhouse effect’s good side
Flying the green way
Getting moving
Big radar is watching you
Something on the air tonight
Sat nav on the flight deck
The universal language
The latest model on the runway
How Newton’s laws get you going
Joining the jet set
Rotation and climbing
Under pressure
Wing work
Control surfaces in action
Exploring the Landscape
The mystery of the fields
On the Nazca plains
Chalk marks the spot
The traces of the past
Following the water course
Fascinating fractals
The making of meanders
How does your town grow?
The infinite coast
Gravity always wins
From river to sea
Water, water everywhere
Time and tide wait for no one
On the crest of a wave
What colour is the sea?
Above the Clouds
Into the clouds
An adventure in cloud-spotting
All the way to cloud 9
No pot of gold for an endless rainbow
Over icy seas
Up into the sunlight
Voyage to the heart of the Sun
Why is the sky blue?
Why does the Sun keep shining?
Taking a trip through a quantum tunnel
Crossing flight paths
Leaving a trail in the sky
Is there life out there?
Going walkabout
Travelling through bumpy air
The flash of lightning
A static charge
Making lightning
Electricity on the move
There’s safety in metal boxes
Grounded by the ash
Volcanic eruption
In the radiation zone
Fooled by a natural high
A cosmic collision
Cabin Life
Pressure on the blood supply
Catching up with jet lag
Crossing the time zones
What jet lag is (and isn’t)
Taming jet lag
Resorting to medication
Is there a jet lag north/south divide?
A moving experience
Relatively interesting
Galileo’s big idea
In the jet stream
The special one
Anti-ageing flights
A nice cup of tea
Hearing food
Technology in Flight
Following your course on the map
Projecting the world
At the bleeding edge of technology
Keeping the screen flat
Bartholin’s crystal wonder
Giving light the liquid crystal twist
Taking your hi-tech with you
The view from the flight deck
Following the guidance of inertia
Tracking your way through the air
Einstein’s accelerating revelation
The feeble force
Gyroscopic gyrations
Distant Views and Back to Earth
Viewing the distant mountain peaks
As old as the hills
It’s cold on them thar hills
The icing on the mountain
Around the bend with a siphon
The vacuum solution
Meeting the night sky
A view of Venus
The amazing Moon
The changing face of the man in the Moon
Welcome to the galaxy
The street light fantasia
The amazing eye
Making up a picture of the world
Eyes wide
First touch on the runway
Final steps
Picture credits