Diane France loves bones. Why? Because they talk to her. Every skeleton she meets whispers secrets about the lifea "and deatha "of its owner. Diane France can hear those secrets because shea (TM)s a forensic anthropologist, a bone detective. She has the science skills and know-how to examine bones for clues to a mystery: Who was this person and how did he or she die? Bones tell Diane about the life and times of famous people in history, from a Russian royal family to American outlaws and war heroes. They speak to her about murders, mass disasters, and fatal accidents. One day shea (TM)s...

Amy Vedder leads a wild life. How many people can say they were once a member of a mountain gorilla family? Amy Vedder is a wildlife biologist, a scientist who studies animals and their behavior. She uses her knowledge to save animals whose lives and habitats are threatened. She once lived in a remote part of central Africa, where she helped rescue Rwanda's mountain gorillas from extinction. Amy did groundbreaking science in a beautiful rain forest environment, but it wasn't always easy. She had to face tough conditions in a country affected by conflict and war. In the process, she met...

Adriana Ocampo grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, dreaming about exploring planets. She never doubted that all her dreams would come true someday. How did Adriana land a job with NASA, the U.S. space agency, while still in her teens? How did a robot parked on Mars make her fall in love with rocks and instantly decide to become a planetary geologist? Adriana's imagination and can-do attitude have led her to a life of science adventures. Adriana helped find the missing Crater of Doom, a hole blasted out of Earth by a killer space rock 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs died out. Now...

Cynthia Breazeal is a creature creator. Armed with electronic gadgets, software programs, and her endless imagination, she creates lifelike machines that can respond to the world around them. Cynthia Breazeal is a roboticist, a scientist who designs, builds, and experiments with robots. As a child, she relied on movies to see robots in action. Now robots are part of her daily life at the MIT Media Lab. There, she and her students use their computer science and engineering skills to work on marvels like Leonardo, a robot that interacts with people in ways that seem almost human. Cynthiaa...

Nancy Wexler is a hunter. Her quarry is the gene responsible for a fatal, inherited sickness called Huntington's disease. Nancy's work is a breathtaking race against time not only for others but maybe for herself, as well. Nancy Wexler is the daughter of a Huntington's patient and is at risk for this disease. Finding this gene is a vital step toward preventing or curing Huntington's and thus saving lives. Nancy's work takes her all over the world, specifically to small villages in Venezuela where the mysterious gene affects more people than anywhere else on the globe. Blood samples...

Mimi Koehl tinkers with machines. Some are so tiny they cana (TM)t be seen by the naked eye, and some disappeared millions of years ago. But Mimi isna (TM)t a mechanic. Shea (TM)s a biomechanist. Mimi Koehl uses engineering and physics to study the designs of living things that fly, swim, drift, and crawl. She loves solving riddles about how creaturesa "from feathered dinosaurs to flying frogsa "live and move. Mimia (TM)s curiosity has led her into all kinds of natural neighborhoods. She has braved turbulent waters to explore how giant green sea anemones survive crashing waves. In Chile,...