Extreme Science #3

With publishers offering books on everything from extreme sea kayaking to extreme chess, one wonders what subject can't be slapped with that overused adjective. Certainly science can and legitimately, too. From the editors of Scientific American comes the Extreme Science series, which gathers the magazine's most interesting and unusual material into accessible, themed collections complete with black-and-white diagrams and photos. In energized, highly accessible prose, The Highway of Light and Other Man-Made Wonders offers chapters on ""The Seven Wonders of Modern Astronomy"" and ""Flywheels in Hybrid Vehicles,"" while Transplanting Your Head and Other Feats of the Future ponders the mysteries of medicine and biotechnology with sections on cloning, gene therapy and disease. (Nov.)