Forget Boyle8217s law, polymer chains, cellular respiration and fields of force 8211 here8217s all the really interesting stuff you never learnt during science lessons at school But this isn8217t fantasy, this is hard fact:Fact: The stethoscope owes its invention in 1816 to a young doctor who was too embarrassed to put his ear to a young woman8217s chestFact: In 1954 a Soviet surgeon grafted a puppy8217s head onto the shoulder of a German shepherd dogFact: Since falling off a ship in 1992, fleets of yellow rubber ducks have provided invaluable data on the currents of the world8217s oceansTotally Useless History of Science covers all the important (and some of the totally unimportant) branches of science:Physics: from experiments involving the slow removal of one8217s stockings to the Dutchman who tested the Doppler effect by placing an entire orchestra on a railway wagon Zoology: from the spontaneous generation of mice from rotting wheat to the 8216discovery8217 that swallows spend their winters at the bottom of lakesBotany: from the rhododendron honey that makes men mad to the use of ginger as an equine suppositoryMeteorology: from showers of frogs and fish to the man struck by lightning seven timesAstronomy: from the Greek philosopher who believed the sun was a great disk of blazing metal to the American astronomer who saw irrigation canals on Mars