Ever wondered . . . how long you could live on beer alone?

Ever been curious . . . if a compass would work in space?

Ever asked . . . Does Anything Eat Wasps?

Full of fun fact-lets and trivia that make for compulsive reading, Does Anything Eat Wasps? is a compilation of the best-ever questions and answers compiled in the "Last Word" column of New Scientist magazine, the world’s bestselling science weekly, where readers turn for answers to life’s biggest (and smallest) mysteries. An international bestseller, Does Anything Eat Wasps? celebrates all questions—the seemingly trivial, the baffling, and the downright strange—and their often weird and wacky answers.

For anyone who’s ever wondered how long one could live on beer alone, consider this very forthright reader’s response: "I once put myself on a beer and cabbage diet. I can vouch that I lost weight, friends, and control of my lower bowel, often simultaneously."

You’ll also hear from eight-year-old Dimitri, who writes in to ask when his deceased pet guinea pig will "become bones." Then there’s the professor from the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of New South Wales, Australia, who offers a very well calculated equation to measure the maximum length of vertical straw with which one could drink soda.

Apart from discovering what (if anything) eats wasps, you’ll also learn:

• How to "surf" down a volcano of molten lava

• How accents develop and change

• If athlete’s foot favors one part of the foot over another

• How long it would take to become a human fossil

• How to calculate the weight of a human head

With questions and answers on everything from the structure of our universe to the idiosyncrasies of the human body to weird there and the curious composition of plants and animals, Does Anything Eat Wasps? is a fun, fascinating, quick read chock-full of information and trivia that enlightens as it entertains. Sparkling with a sense of humor, a dash of scholarly inquiry, and a dose of scientific curiosity, Does Anything Eat Wasps? celebrates the search for knowledge we didn’t know we needed—but sure are glad to have.***

• How fat do you have to be to become bulletproof?

• Why do people have eyebrows?

• Why do pineapples have spines?

• How much does a head weigh?

• What affects the color of earwax?

• How quickly could I turn into a fossil?

Have you ever thought up a question so completely off-the-wall, so seemingly ridiculous, that you couldn’t even find the courage to ask it? Maybe at the sports bar you were transported by the beauty of your beer to wonder, "How long could I live on beer alone?" Or cycling through the park, you mused, "Did nature invent any wheels?" Or looking up at the night sky, you had a moment of angst: "What would happen if the moon suddenly disappeared—if it were vaporized or stolen by aliens?"

Full of fun fact-lets, Does Anything Eat Wasps? is a runaway bestseller around the world. It celebrates the weird and wacky questions—some trivial, some baffling, all unique—and their multiple answers culled from "The Last Word," a long-running column in the internationally popular science magazine New Scientist. Tackling the imponderables of everyday life, sparkling with humor, and bursting with delightful erudition, Does Anything Eat Wasps? is irresistibly entertaining and utterly engrossing.

So, go on. Put away your lab coat and your pencil—science is fun again.  less