Astronomy 336: Week 6

We continually face new risks in our world. This essential family reference will help you understand worrisome risks so you can decide how to stay safe and how to keeps risks in perspective. Expert authors David Ropeik and George Gray include information on: 50 top hazards - your likelihood of exposure - the consequences - ways to reduce your risk. They cover topics such as: - cancer - biological weapons - indoor air pollution - pesticides - radiation.

Master satirists Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf have assembled an authoritative, disturbingly comprehensive, and utterly debilitating inventory of things poised to harm, maim, or kill you--all of them based on actual research about the perils of everyday life. Painstakingly alphabetized, cross-referenced, and thoroughly sourced for easy reference, this book just might save your life. (Apologies in advance if it doesn't.) Beard and Cerf cite convincing evidence that everyday things we consider healthy--eating leafy greens, flossing, washing our hands--are actually harmful, and items we thought were innocuous-- drinking straws, flip-flops, neckties, skinny jeans-- pose life-threatening dangers. Hilarious, insightful, and, at times, downright terrifying, Encyclopedia Paranoiaca brings to light a whole host of hidden threats and looming dooms that make asteroid impacts, planetary pandemics, and global warming look like a walk in the park (which is also emphatically not recommended).