This account of "science slightly over the edge", the work of scientists working at the cutting edge of science on projects too ridiculous for science fiction: the "deathbusters" a life extension that will freeze your head, Evel Knievel and the private astronaut programme, bio-informatic bumble-bees, nanotechnology and the grey goo problem and, of course, the mambo chickens who spend their whole lives in intensified gravity and are built like Arnold Schwarzenegger. The book is an enormously funny look at the science of the future.