Wendy Leonard - The Utterly, Completely, and Totally Useless Science Fact-o-pedia: A Startling Collection of Scientific Trivia Youll Never Need to Know

An award-winning and internationally recognized expert medical writer and author of several books, Wendy Leonard, PhD, MPH, has been using her gift for translating medical jargon into lay-friendly language for over 25 years. A member of the American Public Health Association, Wendy is also the Medical News Anchor for Montgomery Undercover on MocoVox.com, and resides in the Agricultural Reserve, north of Washington, DC.

Illustrator Matt Ryan and gag writer Steve Kanaras began their comic and cartoon collaborations while attending high school in Granby, Connecticut. Their popular Junk Food comic strip regularly appears in newspapers, websites, and other publications. Ryan has been illustrating cartoons and teaching the craft for nearly two decades. He lives in Granby with his wife and two daughters. Steve writes jokes and performs comedy, but has not yet convinced anyone to marry him. He lives in Enfield, Connecticut with the Goddess, Artemisa five-year-old black Labrador retriever.

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FIRST EDITION

Copyright HarperCollinsPublishers 2012

Interior illustrations Steve Kanaras and Matt Ryan

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Source ISBN: 9780007927791
Ebook Edition JANUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780007519460
Version 1.0

Ive never been given an acknowledgments page by a publisher before, so this is beyond thrilling for me! Why? You know when youre watching an awards show, and the winner goes on and on about how none of this would have been possible without so-and-so and so-and-so, etc.? I get that now.

Labor of love that it is notwithstanding, writing a book is an enormous and insanely time-consuming undertaking that requires not only unconditional understanding from all those people that one simply cannot focus on to the level they deserve, it also requires loving emotional support (from same said people!) whenever ones energy, focus, and basic brain processing skills begin to fall into a dark abyss (read: whenever it totally tanks). And thats just part of it!

To that end, to follow are the amazing folks for whom I must give a shout out and my deepest, most heartfelt thanks for a multitude of reasons, includingbut not limited togiving me some incredible topic ideas; candidly assessing the cool factor of various topic points; providing me with unwavering love and encouragement whenever I was feeling crispy; and frankly (whether knowingly or not), for helping keep me sane well, sane-ish!

Thank you: Linda Ramsdell, John, Christa and Jeremy Mobley, Elise Stigliano, Steve Kanaras, Kait Rowe, Raimi Kellner, Noam Laden, Kimberly Mazzocchi, Lill Becker, Dave OBrien, Mark Schaffer, Tim Welch, Tim Elliott, Michelle Bowen, Gabe Sullivan, Nina Chazen, Nika, Mariel and Ariana Leonard, Donna Lewis, Craig MacEachern, Leo Eaton, Michael Grant, Wade Grubic, Stewart Waller, Denise Frank-Conneen, Muriel Leonard, Elaine Silver, my sibs Julie, Steve, and Deb (and their cool kids), my mom (Renee), who taught me about the Writing Faeries, my dad (Jerry), whose mantra (well, one of his many mantras) is: Interesting, but upon what is that based?; the Cousin John Band, whose Jellyfish CD kept the Writing Faeries dancing on my keyboard, and Jeannine Dillon, the Publishing Director of HarperCollinsPublishers, who not only really gets me and my nerdy sensibilities, but also made sure my personal interjections (usually in parentheses) were kept in my book: Jeannine, you rock!

Id also like to give specific thanks to Dr. Chris Portier for providing me with late-breaking CDC news on lead levels; Chris Dionigi and Diane Leonard for their invasive species expertise; Tim Howe, for his expertise on Brasswinds; Christa Mobley, for all things equestrian; and most of all, to my incredible husband, Dr. Chris Leonard, who created and updated my life-saving Excel spreadsheet, made sure I ate, and was my number-one resource for clarifying all things scientific (like, Honey, you ever heard of a voltaic pile?). As one of my fabulous nieces is famous for saying, whenever she wants to convey someone is super intelligent, Oh, hes Uncle Chris smart! Thank you so much, honey. Mwah!

Yes, I see the hook coming: And to all those who I forget to thank, please know that you are deeply appreciated, too! XOXO to the Moon and back!

Of course we dont know what were doing, thats why we call it research!

Albert Einstein

Wendy, please try to mitigate your general tendency towards getting easily distracted by shiny objects. This was publicly posted by the amazing and brilliant Dr. Regina A. Galer-Unti, PhD, CHES, the chairperson of my PhD dissertation thesis. I smile from ear to ear every time I think about that!

Now, shes not the first person to share this sentiment with me, and hopefully, she wont be the last! As its my insatiable, albeit wandering, curiosity that compels me to think: Really? Is there any scientific literature to back up that claim? Thus, I drill deeper and deeper, and invariably along the way more points of contention (and general coolness) pop up, which is how this book came to be!

Heres the thing: My preferred path is not the one of least resistance, its the one with the most potential for interesting detours!

Of note, and to the dismay of pretty much every teacher and professor Ive ever had, I dont do outlines. My goal isnt to fill in the blanks of preconceived notions and ideas. My goal is to discover (and then share with others) uber-awesome, interesting scientific and medical information and their associated totally cool factoids in such a way that people are veritably compelled to repeat the aforementioned factoids at small social gatherings! Besides, outlines get in the way of hearing the Writing Faeries.

Now, to supplant any possible lingering musings as to why it is that this book discusses everything from amino acids to geomagnetism to zombie ants, and then, in the middle of debunking a spurious theory about plant-animal mutualism and the extinct dodo bird (Raphus cucullatus) section, I interject:

The dodo was a character in Lewis Carrolls Alice in Wonderland. In the 1865 book, the dodo is believed to be a self-caricature of Carroll, whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Purportedly, because of a stutter, he was known to introduce himself as Do-do-dodgson.

Thats how my brain works!

And just for the record, after having a series of neurological tests a few years back, a world-renowned doctor offered me this conclusion: Wendy, you have abnormal brain waves, to which I respectfully responded, Compared to what? Ive never been tested before; its not like you have a baseline. Then, without so much as blinking, the rather avuncular doctor replied, Compared to the rest of the human species.