Mary Roach Bücher

Neues von der Meisterin der komischen NaturwissenschaftenWir riechen und schlürfen, schmecken, kauen, schlucken. Und dann? Was passiert mit Müsli, Steak, Salat und Cola, wenn sie im Schlund verschwunden sind? Mary Roach, die Spezialistin für das ungewöhnliche in den Naturwissenschaften, nimmt uns mit auf eine höchst unterhaltsame Reise durch den Verdauungsapparat – vom Mund bis zum After –, die keine Frage auslässt: Warum mögen wir so gern Knuspriges? Warum verdaut der Magen sich nicht selbst? Wie viel kann man essen, bevor der Magen platzt? Kann uns eine Verstopfung umbringen? (Und ist Elvis Presley vielleicht daran gestorben?) Mary Roach trifft Wissenschaftler, die sich furchtlos mit eher anrüchigen Themen befassen, besucht ein Tierfuttertestlabor, schaut dem Magen bei der Arbeit zu und untersucht den Darm als potentielles Versteck. Urkomisch und informativ.

Auf die ihnen eigene diskrete Weise leisten Leichen seit Jahrhunderten einen wichtigen Beitrag zu Forschung und Wissenschaft. Sie helfen dabei. Autos sicherer zu machen und stellen sich als Anschauungsobjekte für angehende Ärzte zur Verfügung. Sie geben Gerichtsmedizinern und Kriminalbeamten wichtige Hinweise. Ohne sie wären zahllose Morde und Verbrechen nie aufgeklärt worden. Die Wissenschaftsjournalisten Mary Roach recherchierte in der wunderbaren Welt der Leichen: hier berichtet sie aus Anatomiesälen, Laboratorien und Krematorien über das abwechslungsreiche Leben nach dem Tod.

Mary Roach beleuchtet in „Houston, wir haben einen Pilz!“ das Leben von Astronauten in der Schwerelosigkeit. Sie behandelt Themen wie Enge, Ernährung, Hygiene und Privatsphäre im All und wirft einen humorvollen Blick auf die menschlichen Erfahrungen in der Raumfahrt. Ein faszinierendes und menschliches Porträt.

An oddly compelling, often hilarious forensic exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem.

What happens to your body after you have died? Fertilizer? Crash Test Dummy? Human Dumpling? Ballistics Practise?Life after death is not as simple as it looks. Mary Roach's Stiff lifts the lid off what happens to our bodies once we have died. Bold, original and with a delightful eye for detail, Roach tells us everything we wanted to know about this new frontier in medical science. Interweaving present-day explorations with a history of past attempts to study what it means to be human Stiff is a deliciously dark investigations for readers of popular science as well as fans of the macabre

Exploring the challenges of human existence in the harsh environment of space, the narrative delves into the sacrifices and adaptations required for survival. It raises intriguing questions about the limits of the human body and mind, such as coping with prolonged weightlessness and the absence of basic comforts. Through unique space simulations and quirky experiments, Mary Roach provides an entertaining and insightful look at how space agencies prepare for the realities of space travel, all while highlighting the peculiarities of life both in space and on Earth.

“America’s funniest science writer” (Washington Post) takes us down the hatch on an unforgettable tour. The alimentary canal is classic Mary Roach terrain: the questions explored in Gulp are as taboo, in their way, as the cadavers in Stiff and every bit as surreal as the universe of zero gravity explored in Packing for Mars. Why is crunchy food so appealing? Why is it so hard to find words for flavors and smells? Why doesn’t the stomach digest itself? How much can you eat before your stomach bursts? Can constipation kill you? Did it kill Elvis? In Gulp we meet scientists who tackle the questions no one else thinks of—or has the courage to ask. We go on location to a pet-food taste-test lab, a fecal transplant, and into a live stomach to observe the fate of a meal. With Roach at our side, we travel the world, meeting murderers and mad scientists, Eskimos and exorcists (who have occasionally administered holy water rectally), rabbis and terrorists—who, it turns out, for practical reasons do not conceal bombs in their digestive tracts. Like all of Roach’s books, Gulp is as much about human beings as it is about human bodies.

A New York Times / National Bestseller "America's funniest science writer" (Washington Post) Mary Roach explores the science of keeping human beings intact, awake, sane, uninfected, and uninfested in the bizarre and extreme circumstances of war. Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries—panic, exhaustion, heat, noise—and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them. Mary Roach dodges hostile fire with the U.S. Marine Corps Paintball Team as part of a study on hearing loss and survivability in combat. She visits the fashion design studio of U.S. Army Natick Labs and learns why a zipper is a problem for a sniper. She visits a repurposed movie studio where amputee actors help prepare Marine Corps medics for the shock and gore of combat wounds. At Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, in east Africa, we learn how diarrhea can be a threat to national security. Roach samples caffeinated meat, sniffs an archival sample of a World War II stink bomb, and stays up all night with the crew tending the missiles on the nuclear submarine USS Tennessee. She answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks? How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit? Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks? Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you’ll never see our nation’s defenders in the same way again.

Mention it and most of us think of history, of conflicts on foreign soil, of heroism and compromise, of strategy and weapons. But there's a whole other side to the gruesome business of the battlefield. In Grunt, the inimitable Mary Roach explores the science of keeping human beings intact, awake, sane, uninfected and uninfested in the bizarre and extreme circumstances of war.Setting about her task with infectious enthusiasm, she sniffs World War II stink bombs, tests earplugs in a simulated war zone and burns the midnight oil with the crew of a nuclear submarine. Speaking to the scientists and the soldiers, she learns about everything from life-changing medical procedures to innovations as esoteric as firing dead chickens at fighter jets. Engrossing, insightful and laugh-out-loud funny, this is an irresistible ride to the wilder shores of modern military life.

What’s to be done about a jaywalking moose? A bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? Three hundred years ago, animals that broke the law would be assigned legal representation and put on trial. These days, as New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach discovers, the answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science: the curious science of human-wildlife conflict, a discipline at the crossroads of human behavior and wildlife biology. Roach tags along with animal-attack forensics investigators, human-elephant conflict specialists, bear managers, and "danger tree" faller blasters. Intrepid as ever, she travels from leopard-terrorized hamlets in the Indian Himalaya to St. Peter’s Square in the early hours before the pope arrives for Easter Mass, when vandal gulls swoop in to destroy the elaborate floral display. She taste-tests rat bait, learns how to install a vulture effigy, and gets mugged by a macaque. Combining little-known forensic science and conservation genetics with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, langur impersonators, and trespassing squirrels, Roach reveals as much about humanity as about nature’s lawbreakers. When it comes to "problem" wildlife, she finds, humans are more often the problem—and the solution. Fascinating, witty, and humane, Fuzz offers hope for compassionate coexistence in our ever-expanding human habitat.