The Edumacation Book: Amazing Cocktail-Party Science to Impress Your Friends

by Andy McElfresh, Kevin Smith (Foreword by), Kelsey Dake (Illustrator)

Overview

Boost your trivia knowledge with the Edumacation podcast’s co-host and this expedition to the bizarre and extraordinary outskirts of scientific discovery

Class is now in session with Professor Andy McElfresh (not a real professor), science aficionado and co-host of the Edumacation podcast with Kevin Smith. This is the book that gives you a crash course in Cocktail-Party Science, the strange and astonishing scientific facts that you’ll want to share at all your social gatherings.

Chapters explore the Four Chambers of Knowledge—The Sci, The Fi, The Why, and The Bye—and examine such tantalizing topics as:

• Elevator Decapitations and a Deadly Wedgie

• Bigfoot, Mermaids, and the Mongolian Death Worm

• Dolphins Getting High Off Puffer Fish Toxin

• Staggering Feats of Shaolin Monks

• The Pentagon’s Weaponized Heat Ray

• Flying Cars, Real Telepathy, and Other Breakthroughs of Tomorrow and many more!

Open this book and open your mind: You’re about to get Edumacated!

“Edumacation is like peeking into Andy’s fact-filled brain–each topic is silo-ed into rough categories packed to the brim with historical and scientific information…He litters the book with his funny banter and crunches large topics into more manageable, bite-sized pieces. Overall, this book reads less like a scientific tome and more like a conversation with your best friend. It’s light, funny and you come out of it feeling good about yourself. You also pick up some neat trivia to share at parties!”—Nerdophiles

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681884202
Publisher:	Weldon Owen
Publication date:	09/11/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	232
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Andy McElfresh is an entertainment producer and the co-host of the Edumacation podcast. He was formerly a writer and segment director for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, wrote the screenplay for White Chicks, created Nickelodeon’s Rocket Power, wrote for MTV, Comedy Central, and the Keenan Ivory Wayans Show, and was the first employee at the Zagat Survey. He lives in Los Angeles.
Kelsey Dake is an award-winning illustrator whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, New York Times, GQ, and Wired, and was named an ADC Young Gun and one of Print magazine’s Top 20 Under 30. She lives in Phoenix.

Read an Excerpt

Real Superpowers
DARKMAN
In Sam Raimi’s Darkman, Liam Neeson’s character drew strength from his inability to feel pain—and his ability to art-direct the set when he got mad. The condition is called analgesia, like what that creepy guy in The Girl Who Played with Fire has. That film showed some of the drawbacks: Lisbeth Salander’s older brother, that Rutger Hauer–looking dude, cannot feel pain, and the movie illustrates how if you had analgesia, you’d have to check your arms and legs for cuts so you didn’t bleed all over the Ikea flokati when you got home from being a thug.
 
A lot of people are afraid of pain, but this idea frightens me even more: Imagine that you’re swimming at the beach and cut your foot on a razor-sharp shell. Most of us would howl in pain and do what we could to stanch the blood. But someone with analgesia could go for an hour before realizing they just gave a creepy lunch of a couple of pints of blood to a hundred sand crabs and will need
(another) tetanus shot.
 
Analgesia is a real thing, and Kevin and I have met someone with it. Tim Kridland plies his trade as the Human Pincushion in various sideshows and TV appearances. When we met him at the Seaside Heights Boardwalk sideshow, he explained that he could literally take out his own appendix without drugs if he had the medical know-how. Unfortunately, his skills were limited to piercing his skin with huge needles. When he jammed a knitting needle all the way through his upper arm, Kevin and I had the proper reaction, which was to go outside and vomit over the rail.
 

Editorial Reviews

“Edumacation is like peeking into Andy’s fact-filled brain – each topic is silo-ed into rough categories packed to the brim with historical and scientific information...Overall, this book reads less like a scientific tome and more like a conversation with your best friend. It’s light, funny and you come out of it feeling good about yourself. You also pick up some neat trivia to share at parties!

Nerdophiles