Ariel Waldman

This not an in depth or scholarly work but almost like a mini coffee table book with almanac size entries accompanied by fun illustrations. What a quirky little read! The most interesting tidbits to me were about the danger of burping in space; the discovery that some troubling mysterious headaches turned out to be caffeine withdrawal; a phenomenon called Moon Face; the difficulty of distinguishing the Earth from other stars when the Moon isn't visible; the odor of space; that several flying insects do not adapt well to weightlessness but moths do; and that when you sleep in space, your limbs end up floating around rather than staying tight to your body. Here's an ominous one: "when your spacesuit goes completely silent, that's a really really bad day." And for food geeks, apparently they keep stockpiles of Tabasco, wasabi, horseradish, Sriracha on the space station because the taste buds get muted.… (more)