Mary Roach

Las macabras entidades que integran el dramatis personae de la última obra de Mary Roach figurarían, sin lugar a dudas, entre las más infelices que pueda concebir la fantasía si no fuera por la penosa circunstancia de que no son hijas de la imaginacion. Pese al escalofrio o el desaliento que invade al delicado lector tras un primer acercamiento a tan lugubre materia, la lectura de estas paginas acaba provocando involuntarias sonrisas y recias carcajadas. Porque Fiambres es una exploracion contagiosamente alegre de las crueles diligencias practicadas con algunos de nuestros cuerpos cuando, una vez exhalado el ultimo suspiro, los abandonamos a su suerte en los escatologicos umbrales de la tumba: cadaveres abiertos en canal y en el altar de la ciencia, difuntos que contribuyen al progreso de la medicina con los genitales perforados o los ojos extraidos, fiambres arrojados desde aviones o cosidos a balazos para verificar la eficiencia de nuevas armas, despojos crucificados como Nuestro Señor o devorados por gusanos, materia inerte que alcanza por fin la transubstanciacion en forma de abono... Por muy gris que haya sido su existencia en este valle de lagrimas, cualquiera puede redimirse post mortem e incluso, con un poco de suerte, incorporarse a la grandiosa epopeya del conocimiento humano: Un tipo de lo mas normal que decide donar sus organos puede convertirse, de repente, en un heroe. La intrepida Mary Roach ha escrito con morbosa erudicion e irreverente ingenio una obra que se adentra en el mas alla para mostrarnos el lado mas visible y deplorable de la otra vida.

Does the light just go out and that''s that - the million-year nap? Or will some part of my personality, my me-ness, persist? What will that feel like? What will I do all day? Is there a place to plug in my laptop?"Mary Roach trains her considerable humour and curiosity on the human soul, seeking answers from a varied and fascinating crew of contemporary and historical soul-searchers: scientists, schemers, engineers, mediums, all trying to prove (or disprove) that life goes on after we die.Along the way she encounters electromagnetic hauntings, out-of-body experiences, ghosts and lawsuits: Mary Roach sifts and weighs the evidence in her hilarious, inimitable style.

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 delicously dark investigations for readers of popular science as well as fans of the macabre

In her fantastically disgusting international bestseller, Mary Roach dives into the strange wet miracles of science that operate inside us after every mealSHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY WINTON PRIZE 2014Almost every page made me laugh out loud. The Sunday Times, Best Science Books of 2013Eating is the most pleasurable, gross, necessary, unspeakable biological process we undertake. But very few of us realise what strange wet miracles of science operate inside us after every meal let alone have pondered the results (of the research). How have physicists made crisps crispier? What do laundry detergent and saliva have in common? Was self-styled nutritional economist Horace Fletcher right to persuade millions of people that chewing a bite of shallot seven hundred times would yield double the vitamins? In her trademark, laugh-out-loud style, Mary Roach breaks bread with spit connoisseurs, beer and pet-food tasters, stomach slugs, potato crisp engineers, enema exorcists, rectum-examining prison guards, competitive hot dog eaters, Elvis doctor, and many more as she investigates the beginning, and the end, of our food.A wonderful nonfiction read The journalism is gripping and the writing is intensely funny. If biology had been like this at school, my life would have taken a different path. Observer, Hidden Gems of 2016

What happens when you vomit during a space walk? The bestselling author of Stiff explores the irresistibly strange universe of space travel and life without gravitySpace is devoid of the stuff humans need to live: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh veg, privacy, beer. How much can a person give up? What happens when you cant walk for a year? Is sex any fun in zero gravity? Whats it like being cooped up in a metal box with a few people for months at a time? As Mary Roach discovers, its possible to explore space without ever leaving Earth. From the space shuttle training toilet to a 17,000 mile-per-hour crash test of NASAs space capsule (cadaver stepping in), she takes us on a surreally entertaining trip into the science of living in space.

Whats to be done about a drunken elephant? A monkey caught mugging passers-by? A trespassing squirrel? Mary Roach delves into the unpredictable world where wildlife and humans meet.Delightful Ed Yong, author of An Immense WorldFollow Mary Roach as she investigates laser scarecrows, robo-hawks, human-elephant conflict specialists and monkey impersonators. Travel to the bear-busy back alleys of Aspen, the gull-vandalized floral displays at the Vatican and leopard-terrorized hamlets in the Himalayas. In this fresh, funny and thoroughly researched book, dive into the weird and wonderful moments when humanity and wildlife bump up against one another.***AN AMAZON BEST BOOK OF 2021A provocative and engaging exploration of our evolving relationship with the rest of nature. GuardianCombining diligently researched scientific reporting with the sniggering wit of a stand-up comic Animal Vegetable Criminal loves an eyebrow-raising anecdote. The TimesAn idiosyncratic tour with Roach as the wisecracking, ever-probing guide My favorite moments, ultimately, werent the funny ones, but those that reveal a bit of scientific poetry. New York Times

The body is the most complex machine in the world, but what happens when the parts start to fail?Meet the scientists facing the challengeAN AMAZON AND TIME BOOK OF THE YEAR Our bodies regenerate at a remarkable rate our skin replaces itself every month, our blood every four. You can remove ninety per cent of a liver and itll still grow back to its original size (please do not try this at home).Others the brain, the heart, the eyes are more complicated. These stay with us for life. So what do we do when they break down? For centuries, medicine has searched for answers sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs and hearts from pigs and crafting eye parts from jet canopies. And as technology has grown ever more ingenious, so have our solutions.In Replaceable You, Mary Roach sets sail on the uncharted waters of regenerative medicine, exploring the remarkable advances and difficult questions prompted by the human bodys failings:When and how does a person decide theyd be better off with a prosthetic than their existing limb?Is there a sensitive way to harvest tissue and bones from the deceased?Which animals might be the best organ donors?Through experiments and interviews with patients, physicians, pathologists, engineers and scientists, Roach immerses readers in the wondrous, improbable and surreal quest to build a new you.***Full of engaging accounts of scientific advances in the field of the human body.The TimesAddictively readable... Dont miss it. Deborah Blum, author of The Poisoners HandbookThis is a book that makes you feel clever while also making you laugh.Daily Mirror

Avec une curiosité et un humour inégalés, Mary Roach répond à toutes les questions que personne n’avait osé se poser sur la science des humains en guerre... Elle nous embarque ainsi dans une folle to

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND THE PERFECT READ FOR FANS OF UNNATURAL CAUSESWhat 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 Roachs 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.Spry, common, sharp-witted survey brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "Life after death"Sunday TimesOne of the funniest and most unusual books of the yearEntertainment WeeklyEvery chapter packed with more arresting details elegantly humourously expressed than one can hope forSunday Telegraph

«¿Qué ocurre cuando morimos? ¿Se apaga la luz y eso es todo: una siesta interminable? ¿O tal vez sigue insistiendo una parte de nuestro ser, un cachito de nuestra mismidad? ¿Y como será eso? ¿Qué har

¿Qué hay que hacer con un alce que cruza la calle imprudentemente? ¿Un oso sorprendido allanando una morada? ¿Un árbol asesino? Hace trescientos años, a los animales que infringían la ley se les asignaba un abogado y se les juzgaba. Hoy en dia, como descubre Mary Roach, las respuestas no se encuentran en la jurisprudencia, sino en la ciencia: la curiosa ciencia de los conflictos entre el hombre y la vida salvaje, una disciplina en la encrucijada del comportamiento humano y la biologia de la vida salvaje

¿Qué hay que hacer con un alce que cruza la calle imprudentemente? ¿Un oso sorprendido allanando una morada? ¿Un árbol asesino? Hace trescientos años, a los animales que infringían la ley se les asignaba un abogado y se les juzgaba. Hoy en dia, como descubre Mary Roach, las respuestas no se encuentran en la jurisprudencia, sino en la ciencia: la curiosa ciencia de los conflictos entre el hombre y la vida salvaje, una disciplina en la encrucijada del comportamiento humano y la biologia de la vida salvaje