I'm nominating a most enjoyable book I read very recently entitied
And Then You're Dead: What Really Happens If You Get Swallowed by a Whale, Are Shot from a Cannon, or Go Barreling over Niagara by Cody Cassidy and Paul Doherty. It's a wonderful, informative, and quite humorous book about some of the more unusual possibilities for meeting our demise. Have you ever wondered what would happen if you accidentally stuck your hand in the particle stream at CERN? Your hand would not suffer as much damage as you might think, assuming you held it perfectly still. There would be pencil sized hole through it, but given time it would heal. The bad news is that you'd be long dead from radiation poisoning before that happened, but at least you'd get to see the world turn blue first as the radiation shot through your optic nerves, which would be really cool if you're particularly partial to blue. From taking a wrong turn and finding yourself accidentally on the surface of Venus to being sacrificed in a volcano, this captivating book gives us a glimpse into some of the fascinating possibilities in which our grand finale could play out; all augmented with case histories where applicable.
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From the Trade Paperback Edition:
A gleefully gruesome look at the actual science behind the most outlandish, cartoonish, and impossible deaths you can imagine
What would happen if you took a swim outside a deep-sea submarine wearing only a swimsuit? How long could you last if you stood on the surface of the sun? How far could you actually get in digging a hole to China? Paul Doherty, senior staff scientist at San Francisco’s famed Exploratorium Museum, and writer Cody Cassidy explore the real science behind these and other fantastical scenarios, offering insights into physics, astronomy, anatomy, and more along the way.
Is slipping on a banana peel really as hazardous to your health as the cartoons imply? Answer: Yes. Banana peels ooze a gel that turns out to be extremely slippery. Your foot and body weight provide the pressure. The gel provides the humor (and resulting head trauma).
Can you die by shaking someone’s hand? Answer: Yes. That’s because, due to atomic repulsion, you’ve never actually touched another person’s hand. If you could, the results would be as disastrous as a medium-sized hydrogen bomb.
If you were Cookie Monster, just how many cookies could you actually eat in one sitting? Answer: Most stomachs can hold up to sixty cookies, or around four liters. If you eat or drink more than that, you’re approaching the point at which the cookies would break through the lesser curvature of your stomach, and then you’d better call an ambulance to Sesame Street.
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