 There's one of your talks where you describe a common theme of your books that they're all about something anatomical and vaguely gross. When you write these books, how long does it take you to get used to the aspects of your topics that are gross? Do you think it's like somewhere between 10 and 20 minutes? No, I like to, I don't, I don't want to adjust too quickly actually because something happens when you dive into a topic and you you start out with a sense of wonder and and hesitation and curiosity and it's all very electric and fresh and then after a couple of years like yeah Gastrocolic reflex boring, you know you you start to Become like the people that you're speaking, you know the researchers who for whom it's day-to-day And I don't want things to be day-to-day So I actually like to slow down that or I'd like if I could to slow down that process of Feeling comfortable. So in your book gulp, which is about the mechanics of eating you draw a distinction between Stimulated and unstimulated saliva So when you hear that does it strike you at all as odd or it's like oh, of course Here's my unstimulated saliva coming up Well right now. Yes, I've got I need more unstimulated saliva right now because otherwise You're gonna get those horrible mouth sounds that radio people hate But that was that was that's the kind of thing I get very excited about the fact that there are two different kinds Not only are there two different kinds of saliva, but there's two different ways of collecting it so that that's kind of That's kind of exciting for me. I we don't need to go in we don't have to go into that But I just there and the fact that there is this there's like a little you chew Stimulated saliva just chewing it doesn't matter what you chew your your your mouth is like well whatever it is that you've got in there I'm gonna help you get it down And so they be actually chewing on essentially it's like a tampon and you chew on that and you but your body your mouth confusedly Generates saliva to help you swallow that tampon unused Anyway, yeah, so I'm not sure exactly what You wanted me to say about stimuli versus Stimulate saliva, but I'm often running obviously Arguably it was Freud's view that disgust is there to act as a kind of barrier to satisfying unconscious desire. Do you agree? Wow, I never really brought Freud into that chapter. That's interesting. I always discussed the things that are disgusting are often Stinky smelly dangerous bacteria-laden things so it sort of it makes evolutionary sense that we would Want to push it away, so what would tell me again Freud what it Freud's? One way of reading Freud is that we have these unconscious desires to do things and we want them very badly But we're not quite aware that we want them and we repress ourselves by erecting Obstacles to doing those things and one of the ways we do that is by having evolved the sense of disgust So what disgusts us is in some way connected to what we deeply desire which we're somewhat unaware of right, right? So you're talking about taboos like incest and things like that, right? But not so much not so much stimulated and unstimulated saliva and other perhaps and Yeah, other right gross thing. Yeah, right facts about bodies facts about Right dead bodies. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well, that's that's a that's sure. That's an interesting That's an interesting theory disgusted, but bodily fluids are what I found interesting about the things that disgust us these whether it's saliva or or urine or whatever it is it's to me you interesting That we have that we draw this line what's in when it's inside of us We don't have a problem with it, but as soon as it leaves the body even if it's our own saliva it becomes Disgusting and you can you can kind of map the boundaries of the self like if there's saliva on your tongue And you stick your tongue outside the body. Is it gross still? I mean that's like you can map Yeah, the boundaries and and you can extend This is not my Paul Rosin writes a lot about disgust and I believe it was he talked about that But you extend those boundaries to include your loved ones. You're not disgusted by your child's Diapers you're not disgusted by your lover saliva. So you've extended that the boundary of the self to include These these people very close to you. So I found I found bodily fluids interesting in that way It is striking that two of your main topics food and sex are areas that are some of our deepest strongest desires And their areas where disgust is quite prevalent. Yes, and that's getting I think at Roy's point as a writer How would you think about writer and researcher? interviewer, how would you describe what is your special talent? my my special talent by Mary Roach I Think that I don't have any I Don't have any It isn't a talent. It may be a character flaw. I don't have a lot of hesitation or kind of self-censoring when it comes to to asking questions. I'm just balls out with my curiosity so And and it but it's never and it's never uncomfortable and if this is something that people sometimes say well Is you know the questions that you ask people is it an awkward interview when you say, you know When you talk to you went to Avonau State Prison for the rectum chapter of gulp and you talking to this convicted murderer about using his rectum to Smuggle cell phones and other things and was that not a very awkward conversation to have and a little bit But then you have to keep in mind. This is somebody for whom hooping as it's called. Does everybody does it? It's just something that you do and there's no It's it's it's every day to him like for a sex researcher talking about orgasm is Like talking about tire rotation for a car mechanic. It's not it's not like oh, you just made me uncomfortable asking me about orgasm It's so it isn't really a talent secretly. It's nothing but it's just I don't know if that's my special Well, I don't know I guess that that's what I'm gonna go with To do a whirlwind tour of some of your books you have a book on corpses If you could chat with the dead, what would you ask them? Oh? If I could chat with the dead are we assuming that the personality or the body well both the corpse the corpse you could chat Is this a is this a research corpse or just a research corpse? It's a research corpse. Okay, just defining our parameters here. You could talk with it with a research corpse Okay, I know I know what I would ask I would say because this is my you know As somebody who wrote this book stiff about medical Catering research it kind of behooves me to donate myself and yet I still trip over that image instead of having the image of my husband Tears coming down scattering ashes over the Pacific, which is quite lovely and romantic. I have First-year medical students eating a sandwich and like looking at girls. Look at her skin here. It's really you know that so what I'd say to the cadaver is Is this all is this embarrassing for you? Are you okay with this? I mean are they treating you respectfully? Do you wish you had some clothes on? One of my friends Robin Hansen is always trying to talk me into having my head froze and either before I die When I'm dying after I die depends on your view of death and he says the amount of money I would have to spend on this it might be a small chance of being revived in the distant future But I have no better way to spend the money. Does this argument convince you or does it discuss you? To be just ahead just ahead with a chance with a resurrection Yeah, yeah, good luck with that. No, it doesn't know because not only first of all, they've got to solve the whole You know freezing thawing and and that's gonna destroy the cells You know the you get them right now what they're gonna do like one layer of cells freeze and thaw, right? You know your basic sperm and egg you got that freeze thaw, but a whole head I just don't see that coming anytime soon and then to read tell the reattaching and then like the spark It's not like you pull the cord on the lawn mower Rev the thing up again. I'm not I'm not sure. I think it's uh, and you know what else, you know, it's interesting about cryogenics Is that what a cryonics? I never know if it's cryogenics or cryonics a Lot of interesting legal issues because if you you build those people who've done that Believe they're coming back that don't they feel like they're in suspension Then they're not dead and that one day they will be back and they're gonna need their cash to live So they're they're heirs there are states like this is my money, but the but legally they're They're saying they're not dead. So the power of compound interest, right? That's right who gets that money yeah Why do only 18% of people who are in the position to have a life after death experience actually have one What's your view on that? The trouble seems to be remembering the near-death experience So you think most people are all people have it but not all remember it I don't know whether most people do but I I know now I know for sure that most people forget everything that happens in the hour now because of the anus Versed is the is one of the drugs that's used and it's People are coming out of surgery. It's very very rare now that anybody said that darndest thing I was floating up above and they just don't remember anything because there was that there was a there was this my favorite study from spook my second book Was the University of Virginia Psychologists who studies near-death experience had this idea because near-death people have had a near-death experience often report Floating in the operating room looking down onto their body on the operating table So in this specifically an operating room where they put in defibrillators, which they then test by flatlining you and then Making sure the fibrillator Hope that works They put a laptop computer Open up on top of one of the lamp banks of lamps with a randomly generated simple image So that if the person Traveled up there left the body and looked down not only would they see their body, but they would notice huh? That's peculiar. There's a laptop computer here with a flower or whatever it is And then when they came out of surgery they routinely interview people Did you remember anything about your experience and they gave up because nobody remembered anything why are bedpans dangerous? Well funny you should ask Bedpans are dangerous. That's not Okay, this is gonna bring us to defecation. That's okay. Okay, all right Jonathan Swift. All right, so, okay If you're using a bedpan, you're lying flat and that's that's not a natural and Facilitative position for defecation squatting would be great Toilet pretty good lying down not good. So not good You're gonna have to push harder And if you're in the ICU if you're a heart patient you are at risk of Defecation induced sudden death How did Elvis die defecation induced death? That's what I thought pushing too hard. Don't push too hard people They say no that you can induce a an arrhythmia that can be fatal So yeah, very for this is why they put heart patients in the ICO on stool softeners This is why so you don't have to push so hard. This is a first for your show, isn't it? This is not defecation induced sudden death that doesn't come up with that tool go well Maybe a tool go on Dave Saxe mentioned it in his session The economist Adam Smith in the 18th century he actually had a view on some of these issues Following Lucretius he thought that we sympathetically or mentally or emotionally We associated ourselves too much with dead corpses and we felt sorry for them And this was a kind of defect of the sympathetic or empathetic imagination And that we would go through life feeling sorry for all kinds of situations that actually were fully neutral What do you see as some of the biases we have in terms of how we think about the dead and death? Well, we have a tendency because dead people look very much like live people There's a tendency to project the emotions that we had free of somebody that you know who's died It's a tendency to Treat them as though they're still people and to accord them the same sort of Courtesies and respect and this this can be probably problematic for people who do could have a research Because there's a tendency to say that that you know to cut this person open and to you know Take their pancreas and do one thing and send their arm over to the automotive safety lab and take their brain over here to put them in pieces like that and to do these sort of seemingly brutal things is Disrespectful, I mean it would be disrespectful if the person were alive. Well, it would be criminal would be actionable but what But they're dead. They're not they aren't a person anymore. They are and that as a cadaver they have this wonderful Superpower and that they don't feel anything and so they you can use them to get answers that you couldn't in any other way You don't want to do that to a live person. So we you know, we we trip over this fact that they look like people Which is why we frequently the the face is covered the hands are covered in in even in surgical practice labs that there's a Lingering tendency to kind of depersonalize and dehumanize the body I'm a fan of the Zoroastrian practice in Mumbai of having my dead corpse carried away by birds and pieces If I could have my wish at zero cost, I think that's what I would opt for But let me give you a general sense I get when reading a lot of your work and you tell me if there's anything to it. I Think of a lot of the books in a funny way is a kind of response to actually Catholic philosophy So this notion of the incorruptibility of the body. It's in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theology There's the notion that relics of saints. They don't corrupt or you can revisit and it will still be intact in some manner and That you're writing a kind of scientific polemic against that giving us some different Conception of the body coming out of a response to Catholicism. Is that at all in what you're doing? Not consciously, but I definitely not I my mother was of Very not strict, but Very Catholic my mother was was very Catholic and I was I went to mass I had to go all the way through high school. So I was definitely steeped in that and I I Yeah, it wasn't that I decided to take on the church in any way or incorruptibility or I mean I I have a personal fascination for those relics though and I wanted I my cousin Dominic grew up in England and he's always telling stories. I never know if they're true or not and he tried to he tried to He did tell me that there is That he'd met someone who is a forensic Relicologist whose job was to figure out. Okay, this saint. How many fingers and toes do we have and like keeping track of You're trying to figure out which ones were fraudulent and which ones were You know, what where do they when did they? You know carbon dating them or whatever and and Exposing the frauds and I thought I'm like I've got it. That's all build a book around that and of course There's no such thing as a forensic relic colleges. Although I did find the Oxford University does have a There's someone there does carbon dating and who has a specific specific interest in Religious relics and writing so much about bodies and corpses and death and the idea of disgust and also sex Do you feel it's helped you come to terms with your own death at all? And if so, how does it help you or maybe hinder you from processing that fact? I? Still really don't want to die Not even a little not even No, and I'm not even I haven't even this is embarrassing to admit But I haven't even signed I went so far as to get the forms for donating my body for research Either to my two choice would be UCSF and Stanford, which are the two Schools near where I live that that take cadavers and I have the forms And I never made the decision and I'm kind of like a high school senior Like who's got the better view from the anatomy lab? I don't I I didn't pull the trigger I don't I so obviously I haven't I haven't come I talked the talk, you know, I do I believe it's really important. I think And practically speaking I know that I you know, and I'm dead. I'm not gonna be I'm not gonna feel any pain I won't feel any embarrassment. I'm gone So, why don't I do it? Obviously, I haven't I haven't completely I Didn't glean anything at all from work that I did But I sometimes I sometimes get a nice note from a reader who who's lost someone recently who found that book stiff helpful in some way, I guess maybe demystifying things or Making death being dead kind of just the next phase of life I don't know it didn't help me in that way, but it seems to sometimes help other people. Does that does that count? Your brook on soldiers grunt. Also. I believe your latest book. Why are zippers a problem? zippers Well a zipper specifically would be a problem for a sniper who's Spending a lot of time lying down on his I'm gonna say his though. There may be His or her let's just say his or her belly. Okay, so buttons or a zipper would be uncomfortable And this is the kind of thing that native labs where they designed clothing and accessories for soldiers the kind of thing they think about that there while I was there the fashion studio which is manned by staffed by Fash people with fashion degrees. They had designed a quite sort of streamlined Sniper top with a side closure for that reason that that would and a zipper also If you you're if you have a zipper here and you're lying in the dirt The dirt gets into the teeth of the zipper and then it doesn't work very well And you're a sitting target for flies also, right? Is there anything you can do about that or do the flies just feed me have a zipper? Well, if you're a sniper if you're a sniper without a zipper a zipperless sniper. Oh, yeah, zipperless a naked sniper Even more so but fly flies Yes flies are There's a term that is used in agriculture Called fly worry and that is when flies are particularly dense in a desert climate or dry climate When there's not a lot of food and water flies are very aggressive any moisture at all including the eyes So they're going for a cow The they're around the eyes so much so that the the fly is so Obsessed with and focused on getting rid of flies that it just doesn't eat and they can die that way they can lose anyway fly worry is a It's a concern. It's a thing. Anyway, but flies we could I have a lot to say about I don't know how much you want to go into flies in the military I have more to say than the average person on Flies flies are both good and bad Young flies maggots are can be helpful, but but helpful with wounds right helpful with wounds a maggot does a Natural form of debridement or debridement. I've been corrected in both directions You know eating it could because for maggots as we know they like dead they like dead bodies They like dead tissue. They don't want their menu preference is dead tissue So a wound that is infected and this is something was was figured out in World War one That these soldiers would come in with these Kind of horrific wounds. They'd been lying in the field They'd come in they'd have maggots in the wound and this one surgeon William bear noticed that when you remove the maggots There was this healthy pink new tissue growing in and there wasn't infection and it led him he saw it over and over and Realized that Maggots were therapeutic and they are used to this day. There's a Medicare reimbursement code for maggots You talk to a lot of soldiers and doctors to do your book and other experts Let's say I'm innocent and naive and I haven't read your books, but I've watched plenty of TV and movies about soldiers What's the most likely what conception am I most likely to have that your book would disabuse me of? well one one specific Thing that you hear a lot about soldiers that particularly in the most recent conflicts in the Middle East with IEDs There's there's something I heard this a few times They say IED goes off a soldier the first thing that a soldier asks or says When you know when the bomb goes off and he So the medics come over and the first thing he's gonna say is is my junk okay? Because I did a chapter that had to do with injuries to the to the genitals Which of as the explosions have gotten bigger and the medical care has gotten better you're seeing more and more More men are surviving to have that kind of injury anyway. I interviewed I Interviewed somebody who just had surgery to repair his urethra anyway I said tell me the story of how that happened and I was waiting for the point where he said and I looked around and the medic came over and I said is my junk okay, but the first thing It was just so not the first thing he said he He was the head of the unit and so when he After the bomb had gone off and he you know saw that and he put on his tourniquet When they all carry their own to the two turnigets fortunately He the first thing he said was who's hit who's hit Who you know is everyone okay? Yeah, and he was actually trying to stand up. They had to hold him down. Anyway, his junk was Not the first thing on his mind. Anyway, that's yeah, and that's the misconception. That's the misconception that comes to mind Because it's the thing I reported on Your book gulp, which is about food and eating. Do you ever think what's the correct way to eat french fries? So you could eat them one at a time or you could push a bunch of them through your mouth At the same time, there's a lot of different strategies for eating french fries. Which do you use and do you think about it? The french fry to me is a vehicle for mayonnaise So I'm using it just essentially to spoon up small globs of mayonnaise. I'm a one I'm a one at a time one fry at a time gal Though a little bit depending on if they're those skinny ones There's some who's the skinny ones those you kind of you need to shove in at least four or five the little skinny ones Would we enjoy food more if we forced ourselves to eat a little more slowly? Yes, I think yes, you would enjoy food more Yeah, my mindful eating as they say I think a lot a lot of times you don't even you don't even notice it You just I mean I'm speaking personally if I'm I often Eat without really thinking about if you think about it and you chew it also. Here's it. Here's a tip. I This is something I I hadn't realized you have two sets of nostrils one in the back up in the back of your mouth and On the exhale you are smelling you know how you're you're smelling on the inhale You're also smelling on the exhale. You're wafting those vapors those volatiles up into the nose So while you're chewing if you exhale or with wine in your mouth, I mean you get this whole you're experiencing so much more of The flavor I mean most of what your experience of food is is flavor, which is olfactory So if you slow down and also Let it heat up that also releases vapors if you hold it in your mouth and you exhale a little bit You're you it's just a completely different experience don't exhale too much because then you have like what is it? Nasal regurgitation where it comes out the nose. I don't do that But holding it in the mouth heating it up and exhaling a bit. It's a very It's just so much more going on in there and that that is something from gulp that kind of changed how I Eat I do when I think to do it slow down Hold it there. I Don't like to think too but people do this with chocolate. Yes, they do it But they don't do it very much with french fries. So it seems we're capable of doing it But with french fries is almost a kind of market failure True but but but chocolate has I don't know the number of it's the number of different amazing volatile You know vapors gases coming up and being real. It's a very complicated You know coffee wine beer chocolate that the reason people do it with those and not french fries not to belittle the french fry But it's a not quite as complex perhaps You may know that very recently in Oregon. They legalized the harvesting of roadkill for food It's the third state in the Union and you're allowed to do this, but only if you have a government permit Now would you describe this as an instance of too much government regulation? Needing the permit or too little government regulation. That is they shouldn't allow it at all. Oh They should definitely allow it, but I think that you should I think there might it might be good to have I'm assuming that the permit you have to take a little test perhaps. I don't know I think there should be some basic things that you should you should be able to Have read your books. Yes. I've read my books Detect fresh roadkill from quite old. You know the kind that you would have to scrape up That's probably not good for dinner I don't know. I suppose cooked well enough. It would be safe, but there probably be some certain Guidelines that you might want to share with the new The novice roadkill eater. I was in southwest China lately and they served me be larvae And I had some and it seemed fine, but some people would be disgusted by this What exactly is it about be larvae that's disgusting? Is it the thought that they're larvae that it's a be were they live or were they dead they were dead? Okay, I've had live octopus and that was disgusting. I wouldn't do that again and guilt-inducing. Yes. Yeah So dead be larvae dead and cooked And cooked should it just be a normal thing and we're all weird because we don't eat be like I think I think Perhaps we need to blame the maggot because I blame the maggot because the maggot is associate We have terrible associations with me. We associate maggots with dead decomposition danger horrible rotting nightmare Horror movies, so we're so silly to confuse larvae and maggots They are this they well maggots are larvae, but bees. I mean be larvae and fly larvae I think the I think just only the connoisseur of larvae Could make that comfortably make that distinction And obviously you're one of them There's a segment in each one of these conversations in the middle It's called overrated versus underrated and I'll toss something out and you tell me if it's overrated or underrated Okay, and of course you're free to pass If you could taking a trip to Mars. Oh Gosh overrated and underrated tell us why okay Overrated because just a lot of drive time just a lot I get you know speed it up. Yes And then Underrated because I think people go my like my eight when I began to work on the book I send my agent this photograph like look this is Mars. He goes looks like the outskirts of Las Vegas Like like some people think hey, this is like looks like a cat litter box I don't know it doesn't but it's just it's another planet. I mean the moon or Mars either one just Just just the fact that you're on another planet. That should be just it can't be He rated highly enough, but the getting there You've been four times to Antarctica overrated or underrated Underrated why? Just it's it's a place of of light and sky and ice and snow and all of these things interplay in a way that Three or four times a day the same place looks magically different and just the light It again, it's kind of play somebody might go. Why would you want to go there? It's just a bunch of snow, but just the Amazing stunning beautiful Just ice there's a 17 different kinds. There's brash ice and I can't remember the other 16 but just More varied and spectacular than you would think the word baron gets used a lot that should be retired from descriptions of Antarctica The genre of horror movies. Oh Do they explore the notions of disgust and bodies and severability in interesting ways, you know I don't go to horror. I don't go to horror movies. I know are you underrating them? Probably under rating I'm probably under rating them horror movies. Yeah, I'm underrated. I'm probably under rating them What is it that you personally find especially scary? Other than maybe horror movies, what do I find? scary Getting old Which is a kind of horror movie unto itself Traveling to Mozambique overrated or underrated underrated why Well when I went I haven't been lately, but when I went Well, there was it was right after the peace treaty with renama. There was the No, no tourism. So it was it was a fascinating place because there wasn't the high Come by my wares people looked at you. There was an honesty and a realness to to people's interactions with you and I just said I had I was there doing Research I was so I have kind of a funny take on it I was there to interview the president about transcendental meditation and he taught me how to alternate nostril breathe On the rug in the anyway, it was it was I had a It was it was really interesting So now you were born in New Hampshire and last week the census bureau released new data And I was quite surprised to see that of the 50 states in the United States New Hampshire now Apparently has the highest measured per capita income. I don't mean this as a rude question, but how did you all possibly manage this? New Hampshire. I'm sure it used to be Connecticut. I Don't believe that I didn't either. Wow. No, what industry is there's no in New Hampshire Wow, well, I know for a long time. There was no income tax. There was no state income tax So perhaps people have been compound savings over the years and New Hampshire overrated or underrated It's just rated just about right just about right Your book on sex William Miller he wrote a book on disgust that's very interesting and he said the following and I quote Desire requires that we suppress entirely thoughts of beginnings and endings Agree or disagree? Desire requires suspending thoughts of beginnings and I think he meant birth and death by that. Yeah Yeah, I yes. Yes, I think that I Think we all do a really good job of putting the The icky things out of our heads because everything that comes in between is kind of miraculous. Yeah I think I think there's a lot to be. Yeah, you know you Getting pregnant and giving you know bringing life into the world is this you know, you emotionally exciting and amazing and uplifting thing and you try not to think about the You know the after birth and the labor and all that. Yeah, well, sure So Freud of course had the view that a lot of our repression and suppression is socially valuable Probably necessary. There's another set of views like Markuza Where it's simply restrictive and it makes us feel alienated or makes us unhappy Eric from Which of those two approaches are you closer to? I mean, how useful is repression in your in the Mary Roach worldview? I you know Taboos, you know, we're talking about Taboos the things that we sure the things that we tend to shy away from and I think as a Think there's a reason that cultures do that, but I think you can do it. I think it can take into an extreme I think it is unhealthy. I mean if you think of The way that we as a culture used to deal with the death and a family There was a process of you know laying the the body out in the parlor. I think it was and and dressing and cleaning the body and having people in and there was a level of comfort with the body that I think Made people a little more comfortable with death and at a certain point the the the mortuary Business kind of took that away and and put it behind a curtain and I think that We all became more uncomfortable in general with death in a way that wasn't Helpful or healthy. I think it's the pendulum has swung back. So I think some calm, you know some Medium you've reported having sex with your husband in an ultrasound for research purposes Did this push you closer to the Freudian view further away from it? It pushed me toward Not saying yes so readily to things because While it was wonderful for the book One of those things that as it's happening. It's tremendously Awkward, but but I knew that it would be really fun to write up as a writer. It was going to be really fun, but Yeah, I don't want I don't want society to reach a point where we're all casually Having sex in front of someone like dr. Dang is lovely as he was as a person to be there in the room I I think that I think we're all better off with some sense of quiet reluctance What's the main technological barrier hindering the further spread of sex robots? And what will the world be like when that barrier goes away, what's the barrier to the further spread of them I'm maybe they're not that good, right? I was gonna say I think that they're I think that maybe they're Not as fun as they think people think they're going to be But for what reason is it actually that it's simply not another I think that yes, I think that yes, I think or Moore's law will kick in and in five years It would be a fifth of the market No, I know I think I Think because it's not it's not another person and there isn't any Emotional connection there's not any exchange of Intensity energy all the things that make that pretty popular, right? I'm not sure what how much the emotional connection is with tinder But tinder is just the first, you know tinder is the same as it for my generation walking into the party and going He's cute. He's cute. All right. I'm gonna those are the three. I'm gonna go talk to that's all tinder Is a certain point you have to actually touch each other and make a connection and have a conversation and Right that so I tinder isn't Replacing anything but that initial, right and after you wrote your book on sex Did you conclude that people really know what they want or the contrary? I? Think that people May know what they want, but they are sometimes reluctant to go for it because there's a Tendency to do things that they think are expected of them particularly with Pornography and it being quite ubiquitous. I think there's a sense of performance Whereas before you you know if you lose yourself in the moment and you are Just gone in that wonderful Place that you go and sex is great. You're not thinking about What part of my body am I showing or what position or what you know or what's expected of me or what was done in that film? One of your famous early articles from the 90s. I don't even remember what the question was there No idea was about earthquake proof bamboo structures. Oh Yes, a high point in the Do poorer countries need more of these and if so, why aren't they doing it? Or yes bamboo bamboo is a it's the marvelous structure. It's kind of like a Very very lightweight reinforced concrete So it's for in an earthquake you want something kind of light that can ride the waves and The other thing with bamboo is that it's it grows quickly. It's sustainable. It's renewable so it's it's great for building houses in earthquake prone areas and I don't know how much progress has been made since I wrote that piece. I don't know how widespread how many people are Building out of bamboo. I suspect not as many as Optimally would be sure but as you say in the article bamboo can burn very easily So do you think people are properly rang weighing the risk of fire versus the risk of earthquake? Or there's some kind of institutional failure. I don't know. I don't know What is getting in the way of? the vast spread of bamboo Housing construction in earthquake prone areas. I wish that I had that answer Your book on astronauts. I forgot about the fire thing. You just you rat You're by the fourth person on this planet that read that story And I want to tell you that piece I Won the what is it the American Association of Engineering Societies has a journalism Prize and that piece Won and I went and I collected the award and I at dinner I said to the president So just how many people in the general interest magazine category? Did you have this year and he said just the one? your book on space travel how would you describe thinking like an astronaut oh Thinking like an astronaut. Here's my example of thinking like an astronaut or just being like an astronaut This is what you need to do. This is how you need to be and think and respond This was a commander Peggy Whitson I was watching NASA TV stood when I worked on this book I'd watched NASA TV, which I don't know what it is now but for a while it was just raw feed of you know of the earth going by or mission control or The ISS and anyway there was in the ISS and and and commander Whitson I you could hear the communications someone said yeah those photographs you took earlier Apparently she took some photographs of I don't know what it was But a whole series of photographs because they said you know we We didn't we can't find those and If I were commander Whitson, I would have gone like well look again lamb chop because I don't have time to take those pictures Over again, and you must I sent them and here's the email where I said she just went that's not a problem We'll redo them just That's how to think I don't think but that's to me the essence of An astronaut in today's astronaut core not necessarily back in the glory days of I'm the first person to the moon Then there was some other elements, but the modern astronaut long missions long days getting along with other people That kind of amazing Placid accepting patient Not me That person that that so you would say not thrill seekers What do you think there's some subtler level at which that's that how they seek their thrills thrill of placidity The thrill of the agony of defeat the thrill of passivity. I don't think that No, I don't know that thrill seeking has it is so much a component anymore I mean that the the original astronauts were test pilots and they were the ultimate thrill seekers These folks now they're top of their class in the engineering department or the you know, are they You know top of their class at West Point what they're there they're high achievers and they're motivated and determined and Driven not necessarily Wahoo, not like not that kind of person. Is it disgusting to eat in space? Oh That depends on what era we're talking about it was really disgusting to eat in space back well back in the Gemini Apollo Mercury you weren't up there long enough to really need to eat anything, but Gemini Apollo the food tended to be highly highly processed because The food was solving the problem of there's no toilet There's only a bag and no one wanted to use the bag the fecal bag. Nobody for reasons We don't you can imagine let your imaginations run wild zero gravity so The food what they're the food was low residue meaning low fiber just Not nothing left you just absorb it. It's highly processed Very dry and it tended to be little tiny little tiny cube like toast cubes and Little bit because crumbs were a problem You don't want crumbs floating around getting into the equipment So they were little pop pop it in your mouth bacon cubes Which were awful and they were they were designed some of the stuff was designed by the veterinary Core it's kind of like and and similar concerns because pet food You may or might not know that one of the concerns with designing pet food is again residue That you don't you the owner the pet owner wants something that's easy to pick up So that's that is part of the design of the food is what kind of poop will it create in the dog But now astronaut food is french fries and mayonnaise. No now Astronaut food has gotten a lot. It's a lot better It tends to be bland because anything sort of spicy and exciting you get tired of so they there There's lots of condiment bottles up on the ISS like hot sauce and Sriracha and pesto tubes that kind of thing But but it's it's it is better the one that was most popular was a shrimp cocktail That seemed to be shrimp cocktail in space was almost exactly the same as it was on earth There was one astronaut story must grave with I believe was his name and he went We you got a menu when you're going up into space and you check off what you want breakfast lunch and dinner He just went shrimp cocktail shrimp cocktail But coca-cola is different in space right yeah coca-cola anything carbonated Yeah, a lot of money went into trying to get carbonated beverages In space the problem is In the stomach because the bubbles don't rise to the top. I mean in a stomach On earth the bubbles rise to the top they're lighter They end they end up the top and that's where the exit valve is where you and you burp them out so if you swallow air it doesn't it comes out it comes back up and In zero gravity the bubbles just they didn't go then rise to the top So there wasn't you couldn't you couldn't belch so you was very uncomfortable They the carbonated beverages made the astronauts feel bloated and uncomfortable as it couldn't burp So it was just an expensive fiasco Chris Hadfield in his book on space. He says this I'll quote a lot of what happens to the human body in space is Really similar to what happens during the aging process Agree oh well well one of the one of the things that There's a there's a collection of things that happen in zero gravity that actually has been referred to as the zero gravity beauty treatment and that is because More fluid in the upper half of the body because you don't have gravity You know bringing it down to the lower half So your wrinkles sort of plump up and your hair is fuller your breasts are percure You know more buoyant And your organs migrate up a little bit so your waist is tinier so Yeah, I don't know the aging yeah, I'm not I don't know what what specifically he's referring to That would well, you're well, okay, you're I know your bones Yeah, your bones your organs less effective. Yeah, because they're designed to operate with normal levels of gravity Now early in your career you spent quite a few years writing for Reader's Digest What did you do for them three and how was that a formative experience for what you did later in your books? I wrote I wrote a I wrote a humor column called my planet I didn't name it, but that was the name of it and it was I was a short just fun column about just random Day-to-day things it wasn't reported so it was the the only The only writing that I've done for the most part that didn't involve Being a parasite on somebody else's world it was well, I was with my husband Ed I wrote a lot about Ed is very entertaining so And it was just purely fun. It was just fun and it was I Wrote that right around the time right up through the release of my first book which was the cadaver book So there was a period of time where the two overlapped Reader's Digest and cadavers and that was confusing for some people Now you have six main books out and they've all been very successful Forgetting about you know what might be your central talent intellectually, but just in terms of your work habits or a schedule Or how you organize what it is you do? You know, I would call it the Mary Roche production function How would you describe to us the Mary Roche production function? What is it you do that you think other people maybe could learn from I am essentially a Massive filtration system so when I begin a project. I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what will be in a book I know that my job is to just cherry-pick the most interesting surprising funny bizarre Material within this quite broad topic that I've selected and so there may be mornings like when I For bunk I recall going to the basement of UCSF medical school library where they had the Journal of Sex Research Which started sometime in the late fifties? I believe and just just going through every table of contests and going to contents and going boring boring boring. Oh Masturbation is a potential treatment for intractable hiccups and then we're running off to the Xerox machine Or these days taking a picture, but that so Just you know, 99% I suppose of what I come across I'm jettisoning. I'm not I'm isn't making the cut and and that whole process helps me just figure out What it is that this book is about I don't know for the first few months Really even six months. I don't really know What the what this book should contain what fits and what doesn't fit and then And that's it's not very good advice to give anybody just just to feel comfortable with With randomness and chaos because I think that is the healthy first stages of a book Well for me anyway, so if you had to name two or three other writers or other books that were influences and what you've ended up doing What would those be? the Bill Bill Bryson's writing not a specific book of his although In a sunburnt country is a wonderful Mix of just everything that you would want to know about Australia And I was this book came out as I was on my way to Australia for the first time I found it in the bookstore There's just that's just a perfect moment as a reader Here's my favorite writer and he's written a book about this place that I'm going but anyway the just the the the way that Bill Bryson is able to Mix information Sometimes complex not always but information and a tone That's that's engaging and funny Sometimes Writers including myself you can get lazy and when you're going into explanation mode you drop your charming funny witty self And you just because you just got to explain it in a way that's clear But the tone needs to flow it needs to be even needs to be that what's that? Osmosis thing with equilibrium finding the balance it should it shouldn't It shouldn't lurch no lurching no lurching people What did you learn working as PR director for the San Francisco zoo? I learned that I'm not well suited for a job in public relations And why is that I would I Would answer the phones when the press would call and sometimes the press would call with a question like like this This happened someone called and said I heard a rumor that the cheetah was sucked dry by fleas and the proper response for a public relations professional is to say No, that's to deny to deny if it's not true or to do damage control Somehow spin it in a way. I don't know how you spin the cheetah was sucked by fleas, but I didn't my response was Wow, how many fleas How much blood in a flea How many how much blood in a cheetah how many bites is this even possible? Wow, you know, and I got in this comfort I was having a great time talking to the reporter about like the you know, then my boss was of course horrified To learn that this is what I was doing and was that your first job My first job was a copy editor at a legal publishing company. Mm-hmm and our lawyers good writers It's not really writing. It's it's a a An excretion bringing finix creation and bringing forth of Multisalabic words that are in a very important order that I'm getting wrong all the time Yeah, and I that didn't last long and if there's someone out there and they want to be you know Some version of the next generation's Mary Roach, of course not not exactly what you do But following on it and they were to come to you and ask you for advice What would you tell them? Don't try to be me. Don't try to don't try to be anyone because the reason I'm successful is that I didn't I Didn't show this weird kind of funny book about dead people which sounds like a bad bad idea as a book Really, I'm gonna write a funny kind of funny book about things that are done with dead bodies I mean any any sensible person would have said that sounds ill-advised, but So not only did I not ask anyone going into it I didn't show it to anyone until I turned it into my editor and I'd I shown it to people I think they would have said yeah this whole humor dead person. This is I I don't know I'm uncomfortable with it. I think it's inappropriate. I would have gone your right and it would have stripped a lot of it out I would have backed off. I would have made it more Our center of the road. I think and I think that's I think it's a mistake You want a book that people are gonna talk about and I think the reason that that book succeeded I mean I my publisher did a lovely job with the release, but it wasn't a big, you know It was my first book. I think just it was kind of a surprising Book that people talked about I think word of mouth is is so important with with books with with book sales and and finding finding something that Is both interesting to you and that will be interesting and surprising to readers So last question before I turn it over to the audience To write that book and the others. What is it you did or what was done to you to get the sensibleness out of your system? I don't know how else to put it, but You have a very sensible Nonsensibility right which works right and that scares so how did you get that way? I lucked out with the I lucked out in that the editor that I was give I assumed when I wrote I said I'm just gonna I'm just gonna write this I'm gonna have as much I'm just gonna have fun and follow my curiosity and my sense of humor and I'm not gonna worry I'm not gonna second-guess because I have an editor and her job is to go in and strip out things that are over-the-top too disgusting immature Stupid not funny and she didn't do a lot of stripping out And that made us both very nervous, but we put that book out there having no idea what would happen. So I I was very lucky in that she was kind of courageous and Just said let's let's throw it out there to the wolves and see what happens Mary Roach. Thank you very much Thank you We have two mics for questions. I will call upon you in alternating fashion Please these are questions for Mary Roach. They are not statements from you if you go on and on and on I will interrupt you and say question question question our first question on this side, please Hello, thanks for the great talk So I recently read gulp and I could barely barely get through the saliva chapter Oh my god, but I really you know struggled through it, but made it. It was great Is there something that actually discuss you where you just can't like I could barely say the word Like is there anything that actually is disgusting you can't stomach I'm with you actually of all the things in that quite I mean from here to here. There's a lot of disgusting terrain But saliva was absolutely the toughest one and even as you remember from the book the woman that saliva researcher herself She we know we collected this stimulated saliva, which is just water really it's just it's clean and pure and she wouldn't I this woman who bows down to saliva. She wouldn't even drink her own saliva. So you're you're not alone so Yeah, unstimulated saliva is pretty tough for me But but what's even tougher weirdly is the thing in in the plant world that resembles unstimulated saliva And that is if you don't cook okra properly that mucilaginous strand That I call okra snot I'll I just put down my spoon. I'm done. I that's that's pretty tough. Also. I'm friends with the Alameda County medical examiner and I've I've been to a couple of Autopsies where I had to leave the room gagging so it can be done Mary Rose. You can make her gag Thank you next question. Hi there I'm a fifth-grade science teacher and what I really love about your books is that you make like the most detailed science topics Really interesting and inspiring and it makes you want to learn more and I share a lot of stories about things I've read in your books with my kids. Have you ever thought about going into like young adults or children's writing? I Have yeah, you know, but it was interesting. Thank you very much for saying that There's a magazine called Muse which the at the Smithsonian I don't know if I think news is still around. It's a science magazine for middle schoolers and That that magazine ran an excerpt from stiff and I remember saying to them. Do you need me to? Make the word smaller and the writing more simple and she said no we're good. I Don't know I think I may be already writing for at age at age group And internally am that age group, but I know I have thought about it My my publisher is WW Norton and they don't have a they don't have that segment of the market So I do have to go to a different publisher and That was not Welcomed But anyway, I do think about it and I think it would be fun I would enjoy I think I would enjoy it because as I said I'm I kind of relate to that a question from the iPad When interviewing people about sensitive or private topics, what are strategies you use to get them to open up? Well frequently, I'm interviewing someone for whom that's their their day-to-day and it's very and The problem is getting them to shut down Because they're so excited that someone wants to hear about their work and they're you know their spouse doesn't want to hear about it And nobody's disgusting because they're just tired of it. So yeah, or because it's disgusting but No, just to be direct. I mean, I think if you're if you convey a sense of awkwardness and shame and and Tension then that will be reflected back I think you just have to say like if you're in the operating room and then the surgeon is using the laser Incision thing and it smells like cooked meat and you just have to say do you kind of find does that smell? Do you like that smell? Like just say it. I don't know just say it. I think just yeah, say it Next question You sort of touched on this towards the end of the conversation But I was just wondering if there was anything that your editor had cut that you really wish had made it into one of your books in print That's a great question my editor When my editor cuts something I'm always I almost always grateful because it tends to be I don't even know if I should even it's rare that she will cut something and and initially my initial response will be it's my favorite part, but you know Fast-forward when the book comes out. I'm you know, I'm quite relieved that she took it out I don't think we have probably time for me to tell the story of Tell it When I was working on bonk There's a researcher in Egypt dr. Shafiq who One of the things he looks at is Reflexes during sexual intercourse and he said to me I can demonstrate some of these for you if you come to the lab And I thought I don't know what that's gonna look like that's signed me up I went to Cairo and I'm like oh, this is gonna be a really epic afternoon and I get there and he said well The volunteer has left Oh, okay, he said but I've arranged to show you some other reflexes So he had this nurse there this male nurse and and the reflex that he had arranged to show me was is called the anal wink Which is essentially if you scratch next to the anus it kind of winks it goes like that and So this poor guy had a like drop his scrubs And he's standing on the bed. So it's kind of eye level and And I describe all this in a scene and then I further went on to talk about how I've had this flashback to my As a child East in on Easter those little glass eggs that you look through the hole right the little Opening and there's a little scene of bunnies and chicks inside and I am my editor just Put a line that whole thing and wrote no And initially I thought hey, I really liked that scene, but anyway, I'm I'm very grateful to her But she crossed that out. There'll be a director's cut. So exactly the director's cut next question Yeah, several years ago I remember trying to spit shine a car window during a snowstorm in the sliver chains color and I was just wondering I don't I'm not trying to stump you I was just wondering why that might be when it froze a chain's color. That's what had you been eating I'm guessing maybe something that you were eat the salt. What color did it become black? The saliva turned black. Yes, I Don't know why the saliva would turn Hmm, you don't have any kind of mouth fungus or any Because there is something called it's like black tongue or something that you I don't think that you have that though. I Don't know. I've now I really need to that's you stump the chump I don't know Next question How do you choose your topics? You spoke about the chaos of gathering your information and not knowing where you're going But yeah, you have to gather it on the topic. Yes, that is always a difficult phase for me sometimes I Sometimes it's I read a sentence somewhere that sparked an idea bonk came from reading a sentence that described the it said the Culposcopic films of masters and Johnson and I went culposcopic films. Does that mean cervix? That sounds like someone was filming a woman from the inside during sex. Is that what was happening? And yes, indeed, there was a penis cameras Contraption that they had built this with the 50s. Wow. That was this moment. I thought sex research That's just incredibly brave and awkward and interesting and that'll be my next book So that's that was I wish it were always that Much of a sudden flash Sometimes it's packing for Mars was I've got I've been to Johnson Space Center for a Discover story and that was really interesting and I know someone who works at the bedrest facility in Galveston where they simulate Zero gravity and that's interesting and in the back of my mind is this Years and years and years ago. I interviewed an astronaut about bone loss But we went off on a topic that had to do with the toilet training that is given to astronauts and this video camera that you have to Talk with basically and it's a closed circuit TV and you're watching your butt And it was and I remember thinking I can't fit this into the Vogue story on osteoporosis But one day I will write about the video toilet and I so the combination of the video toilet the trip to Johnson Space Center for discover and the Bedrest facility. I thought you know, I'll build a book around that like there's there's got to be another 10 chat chapters that are interesting that have to do with the the astronaut existence, you know Because it seemed to me that The things that happened to astronauts in training were sometimes more interesting than what happened in orbit Which could be quite mundane so anyway It's a it's a hodgepodge and I wish it came more frequently and promptly this sense of what I'm What makes a good topic? iPad question if you had the opportunity opportunity to eat penguin, would you to eat a penguin penguin? I don't think you have to eat the whole penguin. Oh, oh Is it endangered no, I don't want to get an endangered but just I would I'm very Thusian penguin. Okay. Yes. No, I like to try new food. I Would especially an egg a penguin egg would be interesting another iPad question Is there a visceral difference between viewing the body of someone who died? Traumatically versus the body of someone who died of natural causes. Oh sure someone who died Traumatically, I think it's it's very upsetting to see first of all the knowledge of You what happened and you're imagining what much must have happened and the violence of it and the suddenness of it and The and often these people are you know, they're they're people in car or motorcycle crashes. They're quite young So it's a combination of the those three things adds up to it being much more upsetting than To see someone who's lived a long life died of natural causes. Yeah, for sure What is your favorite food that you were slightly ashamed to admit to? Pringles More than slightly ashamed also from the iPad, what is the topic you've rejected for a book that you wish you could make work? I had wanted to write a book that had to do with natural disasters and like the human elements of You know preparing for them and also how do you rescue? How do you take someone from rubble? There's all kinds of very specific medical things that happen when someone is crushed and how do you or avalanche? How do you find someone an avalanche and then? There's things that happen after the before and after and I spent some time on on this thinking that I might do that The being on the scene is very difficult because you don't know where the next where it's going to happen And that determines which organization will be sending in teams and you kind of have to set that up ahead of time Otherwise, you're just in a press pool. So I Anyway that that was a challenge that I failed to master I've heard the Department of Defense has a 26 page specification for preparing brownies. Do you know any more about this? Well heck there's a 22 page specification for buttons. So I'm surprised the brownies is more like 120 pages Yes, there are very very specific specific specifications very They're wordy, you know, it sounds like more than it is because they're very Specific but yes question over here Following up on the natural disaster kind of that's an idea that you didn't end up pursuing Do you have kind of a folder of like oh man? I really want to write about that someday But not yet. Do you have kind of a folder of things and what are some of those things that you may want to write? I would kill to have that folder. I would kill to have that folder, especially right now I'm trying things on and rejecting them. They're not quite working. No, yeah, because most of science doesn't work for me science most of science now is is is Protein receptors and genomes and you know, it's gone. It's gone very very tiny and invisible It's not I'm a bodies on the slab kind of gal and that's that that's an anachronism There's not a lot of science that Has people kind of doing things that you can describe and and talk to them about as it's as it's happening Which is what I like to do so And I was especially you know as relates to the human body I've I've I've done all the done all the bodily fluids I've done all I've done the you know, and there's certain parts of the body that are that belong to other people the brain that will You know Oliver sacks David Eagleman you know there's people who are Well educated in these parts of the body and they have patients in cases like these are the people that should write those books Not me, you know, I'm like I'm the rectum gal, you know, I'm There's so Yeah, I'd love to have that folder. I really would I pet question Why are bodily functions so stigmatized like flatulence when everyone does them and this they were afraid to ask in person? Yeah It's it's funny that Why are they stigmatized? Yeah, I mean it's it's it's it's it's it's funny we have Shame and I mean the idea of you know anybody seeing you Having sex is of course unless you know you're in in Dr. Dang's office You know you're like unless you're into that that's kind of a like I used to be really awkward and weird But having written having had the Dr. Dang experience and having written gulp the chewing Chapter of gulp chewing and saliva and bolus formation where you break down this thing in your mouth And then you do intraoral bolus rolling and you form the bolus and you use saliva to stick it together And you I started watching people in restaurants eating and I thought God people should have sex in restaurants and and chew behind closed doors It's disgusting So I don't I didn't answer didn't answer the question that's an iPad question. I didn't or somebody here next question here Well, it's not really a question. It's just a thought could you please explain current politics? Oh Gosh Yeah No, I just know I can't home things or in the restaurant. Yeah, right behind. Yeah. I I don't I can't I'm More flummoxed and confused by this situation and I can I've ever been about anything. I don't get it How does this happen? How come it's what is what? Yeah Question this might be an easier question to answer You're obviously a very outgoing person and I could say your work is quite rebellious. Were you always that way? Like what's the most rebellious thing you did in high school? In high school, I was very as a kid and all the way through high school. I was pretty Shy and boring. I high school just did my homework got good grades watched a ton of TV Then I got to Wesleyan realized I'm not gonna go to graduate school I don't care what my grades are and I just gonna have fun and then I wanted and then I began traveling and then I So I kind of like I had a very Real kind of it kind of went like this kind of a free and then well, you know, just but as a kid knowing a kid I I don't I don't remember myself. Although there's certain things and I remember I had a Friend named Mary Hewitt who gave me a Barbie doll and I didn't collect I didn't like dolls particularly and what I would do is I would pull the head off and I'd say you have five seconds to put the head back on or she dies and that's kind of Accurate If you could put the head back on that quickly that would you the brain would probably be okay And you'd be in she probably would live so I don't know I have to read a lot into these mold This is these very specific moments or when I used to play with my dinosaurs in the cat litter box So there were some elements the origins are becoming more clear Yeah, yeah And my dad was a real eccentric character He was 65 when I was born and he was the kind of guy You like my favorite animal was an elephant so he painted a life-size elephant on the basement floor I mean he was definitely a bit of a rebel and I guess maybe it comes from him iPad question was there ever an experience where you felt very uncomfortable or afraid during your interviews? I Was a little apprehensive. Oh, you know what okay? I scratch that I was here's where I was nervous I was very nervous Grunt I had a chapter that had to do with diarrhea specifically in special operations teams And these are the because these are these are the guys they're eating in little villages in Yemen or Somalia They're out eating off the economy as they say and their food isn't Necessarily refrigerated the water might not be treated They get really bad food poisoning all the time and if you get food poisoning and you've got say a mission to go Like into Osama bin Laden's compound and you've got to go you just go in your pain I mean so so I wanted to talk to I was in I went to Djibouti, which is way over in North Africa and Specifically to talk to these to someone in the special operations I didn't know they had had their own compound, which was off limits to me. They only came out at dinner So and just as the PR guy said and to steal our women So there's these and they're very imposing they're like the guys with the beards and they're there they don't mix a lot and they keep to themselves and Basically, my only chance was to accost one of them in the dining facility this big huge dining facility And so I and the public affairs guy is like Mary There's your guy over there very imposing guy, you know like shaved head beard eating by himself And I remember crossing the dining facility feeling like you know like a fifth grader at the dance just going This is I don't want to do this. I mean is it turned out I mean it was a very awkward overture to make you know to to go up to a stranger and somehow explain why you want to ask Him about diarrhea And also like he doesn't know why I've chosen him and And as it turned out as it turned out he later. He thought he thought I was NC IS Naval criminal investigation service, so he was very you know, I came up when I approached him Yeah, he said I'm done I'm leaving he started to get up to leave and I had to go into this sort of you know Song and dance like well, I'm writing a book actually and I this sounds like a really trivial topic But I just want to talk to you about diarrhea. He actually cut me off and he said it's not silly You're welcome to sit down and it was a really interesting conversation, but That was I was really nervous. It was kind of dumb, but I was nervous Question online. Have you considered writing and exploring the effects and habits of technology and artificial technology? I thought about robots as a topic But I feel that my complete and Utter ignorance in the world of coding and artificial intelligence I don't think I could get up to speed to the point where I could do that topic justice Does your humor come naturally or do you have a method behind it? I have the only method I have is to to self-police I think Especially with written humor if you're reading it over 20 time going 20 times going I think it's funny, right? I think that's funny. Yeah, it's funny. If I read it again, it'll be funny to get rid of it Just it's probably not funny. My editor helps with that, too That's the only and being funny in person. What's your method? Don't know What's the most mind-blowing fact you learned in all of your research? That's a terrible question because whatever I say It's not blowing up. We were gonna go whoa if that's the most mind-blowing thing That means everything else is less mind-blowing. I'm gonna cross her off my to-do read list last question You've traveled quite a bit from the iPad How is it you think that other people are doing travel wrong or could improve how they travel? Well, I when I travel I'm often I'm often traveling in the context of research, which is my favorite way to travel because it's a way in so anytime you can Find a way into a country or a culture or a home just you know beyond the sightseeing I think it always makes the trip so much more interesting and there are various ways to do that you can You can volunteer or you can go to places where you know someone I Just anywhere where you have a personal connection that takes you beyond The surface let's have a big round of applause for Mary Roach