Mary Roach writes "popular science." By that I mean, she writes books that the general public reads. While they are based on science, they are written for the general public, not the professional scientist. She's been called "American's funniest science writer!" She writes about the taboo, icky, and underappreciated!
"Gulp" is a look at the digestive system, from mouth to rear. Why doesn’t the stomach digest itself? How much can you eat before your stomach bursts? Can constipation kill you? Did it kill Elvis? Ms. Roach takes you on location to a pet-food taste-test lab, a fecal transplant, and into a live stomach to observe the fate of a meal. It's gross, enthralling, and just plain weird!
"Gulp" is a look at the digestive system, from mouth to rear. Why doesn’t the stomach digest itself? How much can you eat before your stomach bursts? Can constipation kill you? Did it kill Elvis? Ms. Roach takes you on location to a pet-food taste-test lab, a fecal transplant, and into a live stomach to observe the fate of a meal. It's gross, enthralling, and just plain weird!
"Stiff" is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. What happens to your body when you die? Cadavers have been involved in science's knowledge of the human body and some of science's weirdest undertakings. Surgery has been practiced on the dead, bodies have been snatched for dissection, laid outside on body farms to study decomposition, and used as crash dummies. What is the future of your body?
"Weird Stuff I Know Thanks to Mary Roach" is the mental list I draw from to end an awkward silence at the dinner table--or make one more awkward, as the situation dictates. This was my first venture into Roach's canon of curiosities, and I tumbled helplessly in love with her cheerful take on rotting bodies and severed heads. Science is neat! And gross.--Annie Bostrom (Booklist, Jan 1 & 15, 2014, p128.
"Weird Stuff I Know Thanks to Mary Roach" is the mental list I draw from to end an awkward silence at the dinner table--or make one more awkward, as the situation dictates. This was my first venture into Roach's canon of curiosities, and I tumbled helplessly in love with her cheerful take on rotting bodies and severed heads. Science is neat! And gross.--Annie Bostrom (Booklist, Jan 1 & 15, 2014, p128.