tulip

Being as this is a science-based forum, I think you might like WHEN SCIENCE GOES WRONG: TWELVE TALES FROM THE DARK SIDE OF DISCOVERY. I've just finished it and it is a great, interesting read. It gives true examples of where science has got it wrong - big time! The first story is really creepy. It's about a former Olympic athlete who has experimental brain surgery to cure Parkinson's disease. Unfortunately he dies soon afterwards and the woman doing the post mortem finds a foetus growing in his brain. There's loads of other fascinating stuff like how a man was wrongly convicted and jailed for 25 years for rape on DNA evidence, how weather forecasters failed to predict the Great Storm of 1987 which killed 18 people and another fab one about baboons on ecstasy. There are also stories about escaped anthrax, nuclear explosions, and a NASA space project costing millions ruined because of tiny data errors. Although it's written by a neuroscientist, it's really easy to read. I hope you like it.

Hypnosis worked for a friend of mine. She put the money she saved from smoking in a jar and treated herself at the end of each month. Good luck and think of all the money you'll save!

How about penicillin? (Discovered by Alexander Fleming) The first person to be treated with penicillin was a policeman who was in hospital dying from an infection caused by being pricked by a rose thorn. Also antiseptic surgery developed by Joseph Lister was a huge medical advance. Previously people would have a successful operation and then die from an infection. Incidentally both of those discoveries are British.