Brain Food

by Karl Kruszelnicki

National Living Treasure Dr Karl places everyday science under the microscope; gives an insight into your insides; considers the elements of life; talks popcorn and pop stars, missing microbes and teaspoons; and ponders the paradoxical panda all in the name of edifying entertainment.

Featuring 16 squared pages crammed full of glorious words and pictures, Brain Food will make you laugh, make you think AND best of all, make youse smarterer!

Genres: Nonfiction, Science

256 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2011

About the author

Known popularly as Dr Karl.

Karl has degrees in Physics and Maths, Biomedical Engineering, Medicine and Surgery and has worked as a physicist, tutor, film-maker, car mechanic, labourer, and as a medical doctor at the Kids' Hospital in Sydney.

In 1995 he took up the position of the Julius Sumner Miller Fellow at Sydney University, spreading the good word about science and its benefits.

His enthusiasm for science is totally infectious and no one is better able to convey the excitement and wonder of it all than Dr Karl Kruszelnicki is.

Dr Karl's Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) site:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/

http://www.abc.net.au/profiles/conten...

Reviews

[Wayne Mansfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dr Karl explains difficult stuff so dumb asses can understand

[Tori · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really enjoyable and funny quick science read to start the year. Filled with fun facts to whip out at a moments notice as well as Dr. Karl's wit and good humour.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite interesting. Text layout and graphic design could be better but it doesn't detract from the reading. All the pages are photoplate or glossy paper which is great for fingerprints, especially on black pages. I would prefer a plain standard matte paper like most of his pre-2004 books. Dr Karl K has written heaps of books and they're all quick and easy ways of learning new pop-sci facts.

This book focused on biology. Bacteria, viruses/virii, food, drinks, eating, blood, diet, human body etc.

BMR or Basal Metabolic Rate was written as Body's Metabolic Rate. A photo of a walnut in a nutcracker was oddly misused with the walnut shell in the stopper rather than the crushing plate of the level cracker. Small mistakes but this is a big publisher and Dr Karl is or should be concerned about accuracy, science wouldn't be so good if it wasn't accurate would it? It just makes you wonder what else isn't accurate that you don't know about.

More a three-and-a-half stars than four but GR somehow hasn't figured out how to do that despite parent company Amazon allowing it on their site and getting thousands of user's feedback calling for this basic feature.

[Jacinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say - it's the usual pop-science in Dr Karl fashion that always ends with me going "huh! I didn't know that!" And then having to read it out for my husband after piquing his curiousity.

[MsEleanorMae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Totally absorbing. Great bedtime reading.

[Kristian Hale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating

[Kelv · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book presented detailed and complicated information in an easy to read and understandable format. The topics were broad and covered many relevant health related aspects that did not detract from the flow of the book.

[Rebekah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting, scientific look at food. Fascinating. Given it to my 13yr old- If the science can be understood, or skimmed, it will be a helpful read.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative book. This is a book you could read a little bit of, put it down, then come back to it and pick-up where you left off. Each section is only 5-10 pages long.

[Fergus Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was good as far as science books go as it was kept short and to the point while also being fun and informative

[Magpie]

Kerry 2014