What does it mean to be young today? In the summer of 2010, Robin Marantz Henig wrote a provocative article “What Is It About 20-Somethings?” (The New York Times Magazine). The piece generated enormous reader response and started a conversation that included both millennials and baby boomers. Now, working with her millennial daughter, Samantha, she expands the project to give us a full portrait of what it means to be in your twenties today.

To listen to most pundits and political writers, evolution, stem cells, and climate change are the only scientific issues worth mentioning — and the only people who are anti-science are conservatives. Yet those on the left have numerous fallacies of their own. Aversion to clean energy programs, basic biological research, and even life-saving vaccines come naturally to many progressives.

A behind-the-scenes look at Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. The year 1982 was a desperate time for the U.S. defense community. Then Adm. James Watkins, a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asked, “Wouldn’t it be better if we could develop a system that would protect, rather than avenge, our people?” With that, the President’s commitment to the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) became certain.

Barnes-Svarney’s book combines health, science, and humor. She says it started from a bunch of questions her female and some male friends asked her just out of curiosity. The research for those questions (plus of few of her own) quickly turned into a book.