Reporter Sam Kean reveals the periodic table as it’s never been seen before. Not only is it one of man's crowning scientific achievements, it's also a treasure trove of stories of passion, adventure, betrayal, and obsession. The infectious tales and astounding details in The Disappearing Spoon follow carbon, neon, silicon, and gold as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, war, the arts, poison, and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them.

When you're cooking, you're a chemist! Every time you follow or modify a recipe you are experimenting with acids and bases, emulsions and suspensions, gels and foams. In your kitchen you denature proteins, crystallize compounds, react enzymes with substrates, and nurture desired microbial life while suppressing harmful microbes. And unlike in a laboratory, you can eat your experiments to verify your hypotheses.

How does soap know what's dirt? How do magnets work? Why do ice cubes crackle in your glass? And how can you keep them quiet? These are questions that torment us all. Now Robert L. Wolke, professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, provides definitive - and amazingly simple - explanations for the mysteries of everyday life.

Napoleon's Buttons is the fascinating account of 17 groups of molecules that have greatly influenced the course of history. These molecules provided the impetus for early exploration, and made possible the voyages of discovery that ensued. The molecules resulted in grand feats of engineering and spurred advances in medicine and law; they determined what we now eat, drink, and wear. A change as small as the position of an atom can lead to enormous alterations in the properties of a substance.

Everyone knows how hard it can be to maintain a healthy diet. But what if some of the decisions we make about what to eat are beyond our control? Is it possible that food is addictive, like drugs or alcohol? And to what extent does the food industry know, or care, about these vulnerabilities? In Hooked, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Michael Moss sets out to answer these questions - and to find the true peril in our food.

The New York Times best-selling author of Fat Chance explains the eight pathologies that underlie all chronic disease, documents how processed food has impacted them to ruin our health, economy, and environment over the past 50 years, and proposes an urgent manifesto and strategy to cure both us and the planet.

In Missing Microbes, Dr. Martin J. Blaser invites us into the wilds of the human microbiome, where for hundreds of thousands of years bacterial and human cells have existed in a peaceful symbiosis that is responsible for the health and equilibrium of our body. Now this invisible eden is being irrevocably damaged by some of our most revered medical advances-antibiotics-threatening the extinction of our irreplaceable microbes with terrible health consequences.

We're eating our way to discomfort, unhappiness, disease, and premature death. Revered nutrition and health expert, PBS personality, and best-selling author of Eat to Live, Super Immunity, and The End of Diabetes, Dr. Joel Fuhrman delivers a hard-hitting, culture-shifting examination of the role fast and processed food plays in our nation's health crisis and offers a program to help us discover a lasting solution, including a two-week meal plan and 80 recipes.

Physician and biochemist Cate Shanahan, MD, examined diets around the world known to help people live longer, healthier lives - diets like the Mediterranean, Okinawa, and Blue Zone - and identified the four common nutritional habits, developed over millennia, that unfailingly produce strong, healthy, intelligent children and active, vital elders generation after generation. These four nutritional strategies - fresh food, fermented and sprouted foods, meat cooked on the bone, and organ meats - form the basis of the Human Diet.

Among Americans, diabetes is more prevalent today than ever. Obesity is at epidemic proportions; nearly 10% of children are thought to have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. And sugar is at the root of these, and other, critical, society-wide, health-related problems. With his signature command of both science and straight talk, Gary Taubes delves into Americans' history with sugar: its uses as a preservative, as an additive in cigarettes, the contemporary overuse of high-fructose corn syrup.

Food. There's plenty of it around, and we all love to eat it. So why should anyone need to defend it? Because in the so-called Western diet, food has been replaced by nutrients, and common sense by confusion—most of what we’re consuming today is longer the product of nature but of food science. The result is what Michael Pollan calls the American Paradox: The more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we see to become.

If you want to lose weight, boost your energy, or sharpen your mind, there are shelves of books offering myriad styles of advice. If you want to build up your strength and cardio fitness, there are plenty of gyms and trainers ready to offer you their guidance. What all of these resources have in common is they offer you a bad deal: a lot of effort for a little payoff. Dave Asprey has found a better way.

Did you know that oatmeal actually isn't a healthy way to start the day? That milk doesn't build bones, and eggs aren't the devil? In Food: What the Heck Should I Eat?, Dr. Hyman looks at every food group and explains what we've gotten wrong, revealing which foods nurture our health and which pose threats. He also explains food's crucial role in functional medicine and how food systems and policies affect our environmental and personal health.

Long before Oliver Sacks became a distinguished neurologist and best-selling writer, he was a small English boy fascinated by metals - also by chemical reactions (the louder and smellier the better), photography, squids and cuttlefish, H.G. Wells, and the periodic table. In this endlessly charming and eloquent memoir, the he chronicles his love affair with science and the magnificently odd and sometimes harrowing childhood in which that love affair unfolded.

Radioactive is the mesmerizing, landmark biography of Marie Curie, by acclaimed author and artist Lauren Redniss. Through brilliant storytelling, Redniss walks us through Curie’s life, which was marked by extraordinary scientific discovery and dramatic personal trauma - from her complex working and romantic relationship with Pierre Curie, to their discovery of two new scientific elements, to Pierre’s tragic death, to Marie’s two Nobel Prizes.

There's so much confusion about what to eat. Are you jumping from diet to diet and nothing seems to work? Are you sick of seeing contradictory health advice from experts? Just like the tobacco industry lied to us about the dangers of cigarettes, the same untruths, cover-ups, and deceptive practices are occurring in the food industry. Vani Hari, a.k.a. The Food Babe, blows the lid off the lies we've been fed about the food we eat - lies about its nutrient value, effects on our health, label information, and even the very science we base our food choices on.

Robyn O'Brien is not the most likely candidate for an anti-establishment crusade. A Houston native from a conservative family, this MBA and married mother of four was not someone who gave much thought to misguided government agencies and chemicals in our food - until the day her youngest daughter had a violent allergic reaction to eggs, and everything changed.

Most of us have heard of gluten - a protein found in wheat that causes widespread inflammation in the body. Americans spend billions of dollars on gluten-free diets in an effort to protect their health. But what if we’ve been missing the root of the problem? In The Plant Paradox, renowned cardiologist Dr. Steven Gundry reveals that gluten is just one variety of a common, and highly toxic, plant-based protein called lectin.

Food writer Jonathan Kauffman journeys back more than half a century - to the 1960s and 1970s - to tell the story of how a coterie of unusual men and women embraced an alternative lifestyle that would ultimately change how modern Americans eat. Impeccably researched, Hippie Food chronicles how the longhairs, revolutionaries, and back-to-the-landers rejected the square establishment of President Richard Nixon's America and turned to a more idealistic and wholesome communal way of life and food.

More than a million people across the world have read The China Study and have been convinced by empirical evidence to adopt a whole-food, plant-based diet. The Campbell Plan goes beyond the why and shows listeners how to make the transition - and enjoy the journey - with practical guidance and a simple plan to make a whole-food, plant-based lifestyle easy and sustainable.

Whether you are seeing a doctor, a nutritionist, or a trainer, all of them advise eating more protein. Foods, drinks, and supplements are loaded with extra protein. Many people use protein for weight control while others believe it gives them more energy. Now, weight loss expert Dr. Garth Davis asks, "Is all this protein making us healthier?" The answer, he emphatically argues, is no.

With scientific research, her own chemistry background, and the traditional diets of our not-so-distant ancestors as her guides, Dee McCaffrey casts new light on an age-old wisdom: Eating foods in their closest-to-natural forms is the true path to sustained weight loss and, in fact, the remedy for almost any health problem.

Becoming trim and healthy doesn't have to be difficult or painstaking anymore. After trying almost every fad diet out there, Serene Allison and Pearl Barrett, creators of the Trim Healthy Mama movement, took matters into their own hands. Through trial and error and much research, they created the Trim Healthy Mama Plan, the breakthrough lifestyle program to help people of all ages and stages get healthy, slim down, and keep off the weight once and for all.

Science is beginning to understand that our thinking has a deep and complicated relationship with our eating. Our thoughts before, during, and after eating profoundly impact our food choices, our digestive health, our brain health, and more. Yet most of us give very little thought to our food beyond taste and basic nutritional content.

It's projected that in 50 years, one American in three will be diabetic. Many today are well on their way to becoming a sad statistic in the war on obesity, high blood sugar, and the related diseases - including diabetes - that can result from a diet that's seriously out of whack. In his previous best-selling book, Overcoming Runaway Blood Sugar, Dennis Pollock shared his personal experience with this deadly epidemic - including his success at lowering his runaway blood sugar to acceptable levels. Now Dennis offers listeners the next step in the battle.

In this eye-opening, witty work of reportage, David Sax uncovers the world of food trends: Where they come from, how they grow, and where they end up. Traveling from the South Carolina rice plot of America’s premier grain guru to Chicago’s gluttonous Baconfest, Sax reveals a world of influence, money, and activism that helps decide what goes on your plate.

Interesting anecdotes and engaging tales make science fun, meaningful, and accessible. Separating sense from nonsense and fact from myth, these essays cover everything from the ups of helium to the downs of drain cleaners and provide answers to numerous mysteries, such as why bug juice is used to color ice cream and how spies used secret inks. Mercury in teeth, arsenic in water, lead in the environment, and aspartame in food are discussed.

At 19 years old, Jordan Rubin was a healthy 6'1" and 180 pounds. Shockingly, his weight fell to just 104 lbs. in a matter of months. His immune system was at an all-time low, as he suffered from Crohn's disease, food allergies, anemia, fibromyalgia, intestinal parasites, and a host of other conditions. After seeing over 70 health professionals, using both conventional and alternative medicines, Rubin was sent home in a wheelchair to die.

In January of 2012, Megan Kimble was a 26-year-old living in a small apartment without even a garden plot to her name. But she cared about where food came from, how it was made, and what it did to her body: so she decided to go an entire year without eating processed foods. Unprocessed is the narrative of Megan's extraordinary year, in which she milled wheat, extracted salt from the sea, milked a goat, slaughtered a sheep, and more - all while earning an income that fell well below the federal poverty line.

There's an ever-growing body of evidence supporting the relatively simple principles that are behind healthy eating - yet the public seems to be more confused than ever. Never-ending promotions of fad diets get in the way of people making healthy choices. In this revised and updated edition of Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy, Dr. Willett uses eye-opening research to explain the relative importance of various food groups and supplements as well as how to choose foods with the best types of carbohydrates, fats, and protein.

When you're cooking, you're a chemist! Every time you follow or modify a recipe you are experimenting with acids and bases, emulsions and suspensions, gels and foams. In your kitchen you denature proteins, crystallize compounds, react enzymes with substrates, and nurture desired microbial life while suppressing harmful microbes. And unlike in a laboratory, you can eat your experiments to verify your hypotheses.

In Missing Microbes, Dr. Martin J. Blaser invites us into the wilds of the human microbiome, where for hundreds of thousands of years bacterial and human cells have existed in a peaceful symbiosis that is responsible for the health and equilibrium of our body. Now this invisible eden is being irrevocably damaged by some of our most revered medical advances-antibiotics-threatening the extinction of our irreplaceable microbes with terrible health consequences.

How does soap know what's dirt? How do magnets work? Why do ice cubes crackle in your glass? And how can you keep them quiet? These are questions that torment us all. Now Robert L. Wolke, professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, provides definitive - and amazingly simple - explanations for the mysteries of everyday life.

Reporter Sam Kean reveals the periodic table as it’s never been seen before. Not only is it one of man's crowning scientific achievements, it's also a treasure trove of stories of passion, adventure, betrayal, and obsession. The infectious tales and astounding details in The Disappearing Spoon follow carbon, neon, silicon, and gold as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, war, the arts, poison, and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them.

Napoleon's Buttons is the fascinating account of 17 groups of molecules that have greatly influenced the course of history. These molecules provided the impetus for early exploration, and made possible the voyages of discovery that ensued. The molecules resulted in grand feats of engineering and spurred advances in medicine and law; they determined what we now eat, drink, and wear. A change as small as the position of an atom can lead to enormous alterations in the properties of a substance.

Everyone knows how hard it can be to maintain a healthy diet. But what if some of the decisions we make about what to eat are beyond our control? Is it possible that food is addictive, like drugs or alcohol? And to what extent does the food industry know, or care, about these vulnerabilities? In Hooked, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Michael Moss sets out to answer these questions - and to find the true peril in our food.

In Stuff Matters, Miodownik entertainingly examines the materials he encounters in a typical morning, from the steel in his razor and the graphite in his pencil to the foam in his sneakers and the concrete in a nearby skyscraper. He offers a compendium of the most astounding histories and marvelous scientific breakthroughs in the material world.

Of all the dietary and nutritional claims pitched to us, what can we believe? How does cinnamon affect your health? How splendid is Splenda? Should you buy farmed, wild, or canned food? What's fishy about fish-oil supplements? Will a diet of Twinkies and M&M's lead to weight loss? Water from a tap or from a plastic bottle - which should you choose, and which is better for the environment? Should you carry your groceries home in plastic or brown paper? We all have questions, and Dr. Joe Schwarcz has the answers, some of which will astonish you.

In First Bite, the beloved food writer Bee Wilson draws on the latest research from food psychologists, neuroscientists, and nutritionists to reveal that our food habits are shaped by a whole host of factors, including family, culture, memory, gender, hunger, and love.

Author Ben Goldacre exposes the epidemic of pseudoscience and gives listeners the tools they need to distinguish good science from nonsense.