Sam Kean spent years collecting mercury from broken thermometers as a kid, and now he's a writer in Washington, DC. His work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Mental Floss, Slate, and Science, and has been featured on NPR's "Radiolab" and "All Things Considered." The Disappearing Spoon, his first book, was a New York Times national bestseller. He taught for a few years at an experimental charter school in St. Paul, where the kids showed up at night. He has a master's degree in library science he will probably never use.