Science tells us grand things about the universe: how fast light travels, and why stones fall to earth. But scientific endeavour goes far beyond these obvious foundations. There are some fields we don't often hear about because they are so specialised, or turn out to be dead ends. Yet researchers have given hallucinogenic drugs to blind people (seriously), tried to weigh the soul as it departs the body and planned to blast a new Panama Canal with atomic weapons. Real scientific breakthroughs sometimes come out of the most surprising and unpromising work. How to Make a Tornado is about the margins of science - not the research down tried-and-tested routes, but some of its zanier and more brilliant by-ways. Investigating everything from what it's like to die, to exploding trousers and recycled urine, this book is a reminder that science is intensely creative and often very amusing - and when let off the leash, scientists can fire the imagination like nobody else.

Author Biography

Over fifty years old, New Scientist is the bestselling and fastest growing science magazine in the world, with over 400,000 readers a week in the UK alone. Off the Leash is again compiled and edited by Mick O'Hare, production editor at New Scientist and widely interviewed editor of Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze? (9781861978769), How to Fossilize Your Hamster (9781846680441), Does Anything Eat Wasps? (9781861979735) and Do Polar Bears Get Lonely? (9781846681318).