This book is a collection of informative--and sometimes quirky-- stories about Lone Star innovators, inventors, and inventions. Each story emphasizes a Texas connection and shows how Texas ingenuity, determination, or sheer dumb luck made the person or product famous and successful.

Elliott presents a collection of informative and sometimes quirky stories about Lone Star innovators, inventors, and inventions. Each story emphasizes a Texas connection and shows how Texas ingenuity, determination, or sheer dumb luck made the person or product famous and successful.

A fascinating and fun look at the Lone Star State’s history, culture, and people Texas is the country's second-largest state by size and population. It has a unique and varied history, having been ruled by a succession of nations—from which the term “six flags over Texas” sprang—before becoming an independent republic. From its traditional oil, cattle, and cotton industries to the modern energy, electronics, computer, aerospace, and biomedical industries, Texas has become an economic powerhouse. It’s known for its low taxes, diverse population, thriving universities, and art scenes. Exploring the state’s fascinating history, people, myths, culture, and trivia, The Handy Texas Answer Book takes an in-depth look at this fascinating and diverse state with the bigger-than-life personality. Learn about the original Indigenous peoples, the Spanish, French, and Mexican colonizations, the independence from Mexico, the ties to the Confederacy and United States, devastating hurricanes, football culture, fast-growing cities and urban sprawl, food, attitude, and much, much more. Tour landmarks from the Alamo and cattle ranches to the Rio Grande and the state capital. Learn about famous sons and daughters, including Lyndon Johnson, Sam Houston, Howard Hughes, Janis Joplin, and Renée Zellweger. Sports (both college and professional) are illuminated. The government, parks, and cultural institutions are all packed into this comprehensive guide to the state of Texas. Find answers to more than 850 questions, including: • What is the origin of “Howdy?” • Where in Texas can you find all three kinds of dinosaur tracks in one place? • Where can gold be found in Texas? • How did we come to have “Dr. Pepper”? • Is it true that Texas’s annexation to the United States was never really legal? • How did Texas women get to vote a year before women in the rest of the United States? • What Texan became the most-decorated soldier in World War II? • Is it true that the only Texas governor to die in office expired in the arms of his mistress? • How did Texas transform from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican? • How did the discovery of Texas oil change the face of American business? • How did rodeos originate? • What was the University of Texas mascot before there was Bevo the Longhorn? • What was the slightly dishonest secret of UT’s early success in baseball? • What is so special about the television show Austin City Limits? • What are the “Marfa Lights”? • How many Texas convicts have been freed after proving their innocence with DNA? • What is the Cuero Turkey Trot? Illustrating the unique character of the state through a combination of facts, stats, and history, as well as the unusual and quirky, The Handy Texas Answer Book answers intriguing questions about people, places, events, government, and places of interest. This informative book also includes a helpful bibliography and an extensive index, adding to its usefulness.

Teen Innovators tells the stories of discovery and the inventions of nine young students. For example, twelve-year-old Gitanjali Rao, appalled by the tragedy in Flint, Michigan, found a cheaper, more effective way to test for lead in drinking water. Four undocumented teenagers from an underfunded high school in Phoenix built an underwater robot from spare and found parts. Substituting hard work and creative thinking for money and expensive equipment, they won a national robotics competition, beating a well-funded team from MIT. At fifteen, William Kamkwamba used materials from junkyards near his home in Malawai to build a windmill to generate electricity and pump water for his village. While each profile tells a different story, the reader soon sees the common threads of determination and ingenuity. Stories include: Jack Andraka: improved pancreatic cancer test Gitanjali Rao: device to detect lead in drinking water William Kamkwamba: improvised electrical generator using windmill in Malawi Austen Veseliza: digital display glove to aid people with speech impairment Deepika Kurup: easier, cheaper method to remove toxins from drinking water Cristian Arcega, Lorenzo Santillan, Oscar Vasquez, Luis Aranda: underwater robot Science educator and professor Fred Estes explores the motivation, challenges, and lives of these teen scientists and explains the science behind each invention simply and clearly. Readers will see how the science they study today in school relates to these important discoveries.

"Melissa Schilling, one of the world's leading experts on innovation, invites us into the lives of eight people--Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Elon Musk, Dean Kamen, Nikola Tesla, Marie Curie, Thomas Edison, and Steve Jobs--to identify the traits and experiences that drove them to make spectacular breakthroughs, over and over again."--Jacket flap.