"A clarifying, fascinating, urgently needed book on radiation--what it is, what should and shouldn't concern us about it, and what place radiation and radiation-related technologies have in our world. The universe and our galaxy and planet Earth were born in a nuclear explosion. We live on a radioactive planet, and without radiation there would be no life here. While radiation can be dangerous, it is also deeply misunderstood and often mistakenly...

"A riveting narrative of the Atomic Age--from x-rays and Marie Curie to the Nevada Test Site and the 2011 meltdown in Japan--written by the prizewinning and bestselling author of Rocket Men. Radiation is a complex and paradoxical concept: staggering amounts of energy flow from seemingly inert rock and that energy is both useful and dangerous. While nuclear energy affects our everyday lives--from nuclear medicine and food irradiation to microwave technology--its...

Sent to a mysterious unnamed city in Soviet Russia, former nuclear specialist Valery Kolkhanov must serve out his prison sentence studying the effect of radiation on local animals and struggles to find answers about what is being hidden from the thousands who live in the town.

"While doing spring cleaning in her room, Jesse comes across a crayon on her window sill that is curiously bent over. She recalls that the crayon was there all winter and not bent at all. Jesse begins to wonder what caused the crayon to bend. Using science skills, Jesse discovers how the Sun is closest to Earth in summer and that's why the crayon melted"--