After I started to become a better reader's advisor and more familliar with what is popular, I realized that she is a well-known science writer and that Stiff is actually quite popular. So I finally read it a couple years ago and absolutely loved it! She is hilarious and finds the most fasinciaing things about the topic - specifically what do people do with corpses when you donate them to science? I've also read her book Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex and have the rest of her books on my TBR - list.
Needless to say, her newest book that just came out this last month was something that I was itching to get and so a couple of months ago I requested an ARC (advanced reader copy) of the title, and I got one! Well, an e-galley anyway :) I finally got around to reading it and absolutely loved it! The title of her newest is Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War, and I really had no clue what to expect from this one. What does science have to do with the military? Well, it turns out that there is a lot to be said about it and I was hooked the whole time.
Here are a few notable sections - or just great examples frankly, of the kinds of things you can find in a Mary Roach book:
- In her chapter "Fighting by Ear: The conundrum of military noise", this footnote that is quite terrifying: "According to the Department of Defense Hearing Center of Excellence, 12 to 16 percent of American children ages six to nineteen have noise-induced hearing loss. And not from vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers. Full volume on an MP3 player is 112 decibels, enough to cause hearing loss after one minute. Have you seen Die Antwoord live? (120-130 decibels.) I'm sorry for your loss."
- In her chapter titled "That Sinking Feeling: When things go wrong under the sea" I learned that when on an ascent from deep underwater (for example, divers), DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH. If they take in a big breath and hold it, that initial lungful of air will expand and eventually possibly burst your lung - air embolism. Yikes. That's one way your body's automatic response (to inhale and hold your breath) is dead wrong.
- In her chapter "Up and Under: A submarine tries to sleep", she explains how some birds and mammals can sleep unihemispherically with one half of their brain awake and the other sleeping: "Dolphins and seals are able to sleep unihemispherically - with one half of their brain. This is because the other half needs to attend to breathing, which in their case requires swimming to the surface for air. When geese and ducks sleep in groups on the ground, the birds on the outer edge will keep one eye open and the corresponding brain hemisphere awake, scanning for predators."
- Here's a great example of her humor, when talking about maggots (which surprisingly can help soldiers out a lot): "On top of its other charms, the maggot breathes through its ass."
And lastly, I need to share this drawing at the front of the chapter about penis transplants. Why is there a chapter on this you ask? Well, because sadly there are a number of soldiers who when their legs get blown up by an IED, it also means that their other organs can get very damaged as well. Even though this is a sensitive topic to some, Roach is able to imbue comic relief throughout the chapter and on the book as a whole. Highly recommend her newest "curious' exploration into the scientific world.