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.  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?  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.  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 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?  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?  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.   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, 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 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 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.  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.  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?  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?  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.  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.  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?  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


There's no ceiling is there? Well, there's a really reason for that I broke a blade while I was trying to Sawzall all this stuff So we did go back to the hardware store to Lowe's to grab some more blades We're gonna have to trim it up before the ceiling goes up, but we also have some great news here we have Justin putting together some of the first cabinets and That's a very exciting moment here. This is one of the YouTube cabinets This is where some of the power Some of the USB ports are gonna be in a little shelf for you know, my friends and visitors to You know put their laptop in their camera, and you know charging on up Driving the first screw all right The nice and square that's it Nice nice and clean excellent I'll let the professional Take to take the helm here take the wheel. Oh easy So that's how cabinets are made You got there, buddy. I got a kid. Yeah Oh YouTube cabinet look at that's a big cabinet to put YouTube stuff You can put like a big old YouTube emoji in there or something, you know Yes, oh Oh, it's a YouTube We're putting a youtuber in the cabinet. Yeah, not bad, huh? That's one Why don't you walk us through show us what you're doing here? I Just put these stop blocks on And exactly four inches up And so we put the shelf in Then it's the bottom shelf Yeah, the bottom shelf. It's exactly where it has to be excellent This is exciting stuff. I've never built cabinets before but surprisingly it I don't say it's easy, but it's surprisingly simple all right, you just essentially have a square and On the inside of them you make these things called pocket screws And the actual construction is easy It's all of the thinking that goes in to get Tube cabinet YouTube cabinet 12 inch or 12 inch or and I forget what's going in the middle But we also have this odd shaped one This is gonna be a fun one to put together. It's a little not tricky, but a little bit different passenger side cabinets obviously we have one that's transitional and This one, you know a little bit short. So this bumps up This is a arm rest level just like Mike's where there's a arm rest right there transition to a higher part It's gonna be cool And then the other side it goes right same thing arm rest level over bumps up Sink and then to the side of this is where the pull-out 12 volt Top-loading fridge will go Which I think that's right there.  I'm gonna cut that shortly Steve and I are gonna work on the ceiling across my fingers finally Or to come down to where those bars there and those bars We got to do some stuff on the roof with two lights Well, total four two on each side two speakers on this side Speaker wire arrives today drill some holes have some fun life is beautiful Super happy to be here at Colorado custom coach works. All right. This was the last piece. This is the back of the bus Basically just took this Little piece of wood with the green edge Just went sideways level it off cut it with the sawzall We're looking pretty good Let's check in with Steve first. He's gonna be very excited Steve I'm done Okay, well no, yeah, we'll finish up painting so This means it's time for a time-lapse of Being well, we're not gonna go non-stop for the whole ceiling because we got to drill some holes But we'll do a time-lapse of the ceiling now what you guys weren't looking I added some paint First one up, that's our guide from that guide We're gonna go left when you're looking at it this way We're gonna make the center parts and we're gonna recess these nice little 12 volt lights Total four down of the bus and those are pretty darn centered So I might as well just put in these nifty little 12-volt lights right now and Get the wires hanging out. Oh, would you look at that? I got my light holes there. I tested the holes. We have Some of the 12-volt wiring strung out and labeled These are for the center lights. We'll get we'll get more of that later The wise man would spray Would spray over the wires and put the wires up before you spray, but This is a work in progress me my life my bus is a work in progress and learn as I go Through experiences more than research. So although a little bit of research and You know things to note for the other time But if you guys do spray you want to add something or you're doing it this way It can be done It can be a little bit more helpful If you don't know Exactly what you're doing yet. We're figuring figuring things out along the way We didn't have every single detail planned out But if yeah, the only way to know in advance is to plan out every single detail, but you know This system definitely works there. You can just hide this wire right next to the phone


always concerned about how do we build products, right? We're always like, okay, what kind of stack do we use to build these things, what do people need, and all of that. We're in a hurry to constantly build products, but we're really not as concerned about what happens once you put these products out there in the real world, because technological products have real world social consequences. And when you talk about consequences, if you probably asked Mark Zuckerberg like 15 years ago, would Facebook be ever used for what? We'd probably be like, no, how could I even tell? And that's often a problem, because the future is really unknown. We don't know what's gonna happen, like we literally have no idea. So what does speculative design mean? How are you designing these futures when you have no idea of what's gonna happen? And this is potentially where speculative design kind of fits in. So to start off with, before we get into speculative design, I wanna give you a brief of what we normally do as traditional designers, design always is affirmative, which is we get client requirements, they want a product, and then we start building things for the client. Design is always about problem solving. It helps provide answers to complex questions, the nuances. Design basically kind of reinforces what the status quo today is. We see the world a certain way, and we are like, okay, we can make this to continue propagating the same idea. Last but not the least, the biggest thing, it helps us buy. Like how do you decide which product is better as opposed to another product? Design helps you make those choices. They're like, oh, this is a better design product. I'm gonna start using this. I'm gonna buy that. But when you look at speculative design, it's not really making products, but it's about being critical of what's out there today. It's about problem finding. The minute you kind of get deeper into topics and start understanding how products are playing out in terms of a social, political spectrum, you start uncovering more and more nuances about how these things play out in the real world. You start asking more and more questions. Once you get into the rabbit hole, you can't get out. You constantly see a lot more problems than what you started off with. And because speculative design is, you are essentially trying to create a future. You aren't held back by the bounds of what is possible today. It's basically if I were to give you an opportunity to make Star Trek, you would probably do it in whatever way you want it to. If I ask each and everyone in this room what a future could look like. Everyone's future of their own cities or whatever is extremely different. And it helps us think. It helps us, because you're critically looking at all of these nuances, it makes us question certain obvious things. We all take capitalism for granted. But if you actually look at it, this is a system that existed for about 150 years. That's barely nothing when you look at humans have existed for probably 40,000 years. So this is a really new system. So it kind of makes a question a lot of things that we take for granted today. So when you're talking about speculative design, the common criticism that is going on about speculative design that's both in the West is the fact that speculative design is still done by designers. If we were to imagine, say if all of us were to imagine what Hyderabad would look like in 2050 or a product for a company, the way we designers sitting in this room would think about it versus people of Hyderabad who have lived the history of Hyderabad, who are currently living in Hyderabad, how they would imagine something for Hyderabad would be entirely different, right? So that brings us to the question that are we really the experts here? Who are the experts? And if designers are not experts, sure, in some contexts, we do work in with our design knowledge and make really fascinating products that we're surrounded with. But in context that we don't know enough about, what do we do as designers? And there's also this notion of, because you're always doing it in a problem solution approach, you need those experts, right? Because how do people come up with solutions and how you have all these techniques to come up with ideas and everything? So you end up needing an expert, but what if we are not the experts because we don't understand context? These are very different. For me, living in Bangalore, going to some place in Bihar is extremely unusual. I have no idea what's going on there. So then what is it as designers that we can actually do? How do you, what does design even mean then? So for us, we look at design as being facilitators, right? We have certain tools. We look at certain problems in a specific way. We follow a process. And, but the same process could be applied by anybody. For example, if, let's say, Thanos were to wipe out all the designers on the planet today, right? It does not mean people stop solving problems. People still have problems. People are still gonna solve and find really creative solutions to their own issues, which probably works way better than what we try to do for them, right? And so we try to look at how, how do you enable people to do design? So for the next few slides, I'm going to talk about a project that we did in Rural Bihar. I don't know if you can see, but this is Bhoutijari Heart. It's a small village in the eastern end of Bihar. The demographics of this place is really interesting because it shares its border with Bangladesh, Nepal, and West Bengal. So you have people speaking a number of languages over there. The project that we did was in collaboration with Project Potential, and we went into the context to understand more about people's perception about early childhood education and care. Early childhood is anything between zero to six. We went in to understand the practices that exist and people's perception around it. So it was a research project that we did. And since we were, and since we were working with early childhood education and care, we obviously picked mothers as stakeholders. So basically, because we picked mothers as stakeholders, I had no role in the research and you'll probably know why soon enough. Yeah, that was because I think automatically the men of our team weren't able to be a part of the research for two reasons. One is that women weren't comfortable, the rural women weren't comfortable talking to strange men. And secondly, when have men really ever understood problems from a women's perspective really well? So, but all jokes aside, they played a very important role of distracting everybody else in the community from interrupting the research that we had with the women there. Now, what Arjun said about designers as enablers, facilitating design or facilitating participation is most easily implemented in places where three factors exist. One is where the participants that you're working with have skills such as critical thinking, problem solving and creativity. So our education system puts enough value on it. The second is where equal power relations exist irrespective of class, class and occupation. This could exist between the participants or between designers and non-designers. And the third being that there's an effective communication between the two parties, whether it be a common language or a common cultural understanding. Now, let me quickly give you a snippet of our participant group. This is Rita Devi. She is married, she lives in Bihar. She has two children, elder girl, three-year-old, younger girl, eight months. She quit her education in sixth grade to help out in family matters. She was married by the time she was 13 and the reality of her life today is such that her mother-in-law wouldn't let her leave the house premises without her husband even if she were to access healthcare. And within the joint family structure, Rita has really low agency, she doesn't have a say in matters such as, bigger matters such as when do her children get married but even smaller day-to-day things like what goes into the nutrition of her child. So, she is told what to cook and she cooks it. Now, with such a group that we were trying to research with, the three factors that I mentioned before, they all strike out, right? Skills are just critical thinking, she gave up education, she has the least agency, et cetera. So, enabling speculation in such a context where we go in as enablers, enabling speculation in such a context is not as easy as going into the community and engaging conversation about possible futures, but it's more about as designers, how do you design the research and how do you design the artifacts such that you let them imagine futures. Their immediate needs are probably food, water, sanitation, but how do you build that capacity to expire and make them think beyond just their immediate needs? What do they want for themselves and what do they need for their children and what is best for the community? And that's where our role came in. So, coming to our process, we had a five-day workshop with the mothers and we hoped that at the end of it, we were able to get the women to critically reflect on the current existing problems that they have and question some norms and sort of devise better ways to move forward. Before the workshop, let's forget this, but before the workshop, we spent a couple of days settling into the context, trying to understand what is like a basic understanding. And it's during this time that we quickly realized that traditional research methods such as focus group discussions sort of didn't work so well because the community was very used to giving socially correct answers. They have had enough instances where NGOs and government officials have gone there for surveys and they just know what to tell you when you facilitate these discussions with them. So we needed to come up with a creative way of engaging the women in an activity so that we could understand, we could get a deeper understanding of their context and they could also think back about their situation. It was during this time that we had noticed that Ludo and Snake and Ladders were very popular with the children in the group, in the village. Another thing that we had noticed was that Nukar Nataka street play was very common over there and it was a way for villagers to tell other villagers about social evils. So we wondered, hey, why not use these methods in our research and because it's something that they're comfortable with and they know about it, so how can we use them in our research? And that was a five day workshop that we did with them. So over a period of five days we used games and theaters as research tools. So day one was just about settling into a context.  What are you gonna get out of this? And when do we re-benefits from this and what do we have in engaging in participation with you? So we did a couple of activities that sort of where the villagers could teach us their ways of living. So we cooked on the Chula with them, we learned some Bihari songs. So first day was just about trust building. Second day was about redesigning the game. So we took Snake and Ladders and we redesigned it. I hope all of you know the rules of Snake and Ladders. It's pretty easy, right? Like you just roll the dice, whatever number comes, you move the pawn according to the number.  What we did though was we modified the game in such a way that both Snake and Ladder fall in the same box and the box has a situation that we noticed in the environment. What the participant was expected to do was if they came on those box, if they upon reached on the box that were modeled as children, the player had to decide whether the situation was a Snake for the child or the Ladder. So we used them as metaphors. So was it a Deterrent for the child or was it a Promoter? If the mothers decided that it was a Deterrent for the child, it was a Snake, they had a chance to turn it into a Promoter, a chance to turn into a Ladder, but they had to devise a way of moving forward and the rest of the team had to agree with it. So this way, we were trying to get them to critically reflect on their realities.  But that's not really a sustainable future because you know what happens to those people when they come to cities like Bangalore and all of that. So how do you get them to break beyond these traditional notions of what they want from the future into really understanding what it is in the future that they're looking at? So we played the game in three settings. One was a private home of a couple. The other one was an Angan with about 10 women, which was also a private setting. And the third one was in front of a temple, I believe. Yeah, a temple. Yeah, with about 30 players. Of course, the setting and the kind of privacy that it gave also affected the responses that women gave us. What we realized was in a private setting, women were more comfortable giving honest answers. The game that we had played, the reason why it was a successful attempt was because the game that we had played created a sort of a magic circle, like a play area where women could live an alternate world, live a world that was detached from the existing realities that they live in. So the counter-strike that we play or the PUBG, it's an alternate world, right? It's not real, but in that moment, within that boundary, it's pretty real. So that helped them think about possible futures that were not so tied down to their social problems that they're webbed in. The idea of justifying whether the mentioned situation was a snake or a ladder was critical in getting them to reflect on their situation and actually understand the practices that were not working for them. Gamifying the research also, so where women could change the snake into a ladder really helped because now in the game, they gave us solutions or they brought ideas from there and about what would be a better way to move forward and the fact that everybody had to agree brought about a lot of debate and discussion amongst the women. And if a woman said that I would educate my girl child till 25, then there were people who were arguing against it saying, hey, that's not possible. And so it gave us a deeper understanding but also told them about what goes on. Yes, I'll, yes, next. Furthermore, the rules of the game helped in facilitating the power imbalances that existed within the group. So there was a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law and usually when the mother-in-law speaks, the daughter-in-law keeps quiet because our structures are like that. So, but here, because people can't speak out of a chance, it really helped us in facilitating that power that existed in the group. And finally, for the other villagers in the group, for the other villagers in the surrounding, there seemed like a very harmless activity.   But the men are constantly like, what's happening in that room, right? Like, and they're like, oh, I want to know. I want to go in there. The mother-in-law is constantly interrupting. So, but then when this game happened, it was like, oh, all the women are playing. So the setting was basically all the women are playing. You saw the photos, right? And so on the outer periphery, all the men are standing. Like, all the men are standing and wondering what the hell is going on. And I'm there kind of like trying to talk to all these people and saying, okay, like, you know, don't enter.  And it was like an evening in the village, nobody has anything to do, they're chilling. So it was a good phase. We'll get into a few examples and throw light on the conversations that happened over there. I don't think you can really see what's written over there, but I'll read it out. So one of the situations that were mentioned over there were kam umrameh, shadi aur bache, which means early marriage and early pregnancy, which was a rampant practice in the community. And when one of the participants reached that box with her girl, Paan, over there, she said that, she identified the custom as a deterrent for the child. And she said that, you know, I will take up enough loan to, I had to turn it into a ladder. She said, I will be the change and I will take up enough loan to educate my girl child and be the change for the community. And, but then what was interesting for us and what was really a win for us was when the participants started debating with her, saying that, you know, your child would probably lose her glow at the age of 18 or you'll have to pay dowry for her to get married because she's now, she probably won't find a suitable guy for her. Somebody said that if you were to educate her till 22 or 21, then what does she do? She comes back and she works in a plantation farm. That's a plantation farm.  So then we really saw how there were other reasons why, you know, these practices still exist in the community. And that sort of a debate really helped us in facilitating more provocative arguments with them about something like this. Another example, if I were to give, there was somewhere down there, there's parivaar mein 3 se adhik bachhe family planning, more than three children in a family. And the other example was bachon ka utshikshah prap karna, children getting educated properly. One of the participants reached parivaar mein 3 se adhik bachhe and she said that was a ladder for her family because, because why the more hands in the family and that's how their perception is that more hands, more income and that way things move forward. And then when she reached bachon ka utshikshah prap karna, the rest of them said, hey, if your girl child has other siblings, say five siblings beneath her, she's gonna quit education like all of us and she's gonna take care of them. She's gonna get married early. She's gonna go through the entire cycle that we went through. And that's why family planning is important. So even for the participants, it was the first time that they made those random connections, which we have quotes from them saying that it was not something that they realized earlier because that sort of conversation doesn't happen in their environment. On day four, we co-scripted a play with the community where based on the conversations that happened on day three, we wrote a play and the idea was to give back the research that we did to the other people of the society. We didn't want it to stay within those worlds. We wanted other people to also know what we had spoken about. So we used play as a method of giving voice to the women. Ideally, we would have liked women to be a part of our play, but there was fear in them. They were scared of the consequences of what would happen to them after the play was over because they had radical thoughts. And so one of the things that actually happened during our session was, so we finished the session, we write the play together and all the women have gathered in a single house. And as we finished the session, I'm walking out with one of the ladies and I'm like, I just look back, I don't know what's in front of me and I'm like, hey, so how did you like the session? And then she's like, what, what are you talking about? And then I'm like, I don't get this because for the last three hours she's been with us. The last three days she's been with us. And then suddenly I look back and then she's kind of making these weird facial expressions and I look back and it's her husband. And so she had to completely deny the fact that she had to play any part in this. And even while writing the play, it's a normal Indian village, right? Like, and so there is houses. There's one house that had like two or three floors and there's somebody on the terrace of that house and her reaction, and there was two guys there on the terrace, right? Really far. No chance that they could hear what's going on. Probably seeing and wondering what's happening. That's about it. And her reaction immediately changed. She's like, no, I'm not doing anything. I'm like, I'm going into the room, right? Like, and so that fear exists and it can't really speak out. And this is the kind of community that we're talking about. So what we sort of worked out in the end was that the women coached us on how to go about the play, the little nuances of their language and we went to the community and then our group, we played it out of the community in front of 400 onlookers and we sort of staged what the women felt about the community and the problems. We have a small snippet from the rehearsal that was happening there. The reactions that could actually take place because they've never had these conversations. They've never had the opportunity to come and say, no, we don't like what's going on in our houses because all that happens is the men, and in Bihar, by the way, alcohol is illegal and most of the men are alcoholics, right? Because they get illegal liquor. They're drunk by 12 and the women have to go through a lot and then they're oppressed. Even further, they can't speak out. It's, yeah, it's terrible. And that was pretty much our experience that happened in Bihar. But so this was our understanding of what speculative design could be when you're looking at it from the ground up because there are other people in the world doing speculative design. I think Dan and Rebi are some of the pioneers of this field and one of the complaints that often happen with their work is that this is too museum-y or it's too artifacts that are made by designers, kept in a place and then other people go who have the access to go to these museums and say, okay, oh, this is, whatever, right? And so there are some examples. So one of the things is this one's called, by this company called Super Flux in London. So they reimagined what London would look like in 2050 where basically the earth has been hit by a massive climate change and the city of London has drastically changed. So they did some, one of the interesting things that they did was they did something called fogponics to grow plants that you could eat because obviously all the crops have died out and so how do you deal with that? So there are places inside each household that helps you grow these weird things and it was actually a prototype that they built, right? The other thing is this one's a solar kitchen restaurant which is basically like this installation of sorts, but this restaurant is only open on days when there is available sunlight, but so the other, so if you, let's say you make a business plan to go to a restaurant like this, you have to check the weather like 15 minutes before you get there to know if the restaurant is even going to be open. So that kind of opens up very interesting conversations. These are not products like you would never start a restaurant at a solar kitchen restaurant, but it opens up very interesting conversations about our daily obvious behaviors, right? The most well-known probably design fiction or speculative design is probably black mirror like we all know, right? This is, so this is idea of like, you know, tech is gonna create a great beautiful world out there and then when black mirror came out is when we actually started kind of looking back and saying, okay, this feels too real. So this is idea of creating this make-believe, right? So it's not too far out where it's like, this is no way, this is not gonna happen. And so how do you make these artifacts that are very believable and like to a point, but also like, you start to question certain assumptions. So you kind of find that balance between on how you do these things. Then there's, so again, so I'd like to conclude the talk by saying speculative design is not something that's brand new. Like companies have been doing this. People like Microsoft Corning Glass has anyone here seen the Microsoft Future's video? Like is this all white thing with white men working on like touching fridges and whatever and like all these fancy stuff, right? Or the Corning Glass video where they basically re-imagined the entire world to be of glass.  So all these walls become touchscreen. But the thing is like, these are not realistic futures. These are very utopian and we need to start questioning who do these futures really benefit and who is suffering for these futures to happen. Like the future is not according to what Microsoft believes it to be. Our lives are way more complex. We are we are webbed in this really complex like social structures, like political structures. And you can't just take out and say, oh, tech is gonna solve everything. And so that's what I'd like to leave you with. Thank you. Thank you.


Hey what's up you guys, welcome back to my channel. If you're new here, hi, hello, I'm Lydia. Welcome, hello. Hi. Today we're going to be talking about how my mum reacted to my self-harm. So I started self-harming around the age of 6 or 7. I'd find metal and I'd just scratch it there until it bled, which obviously my mum knew about.  But as far as I can remember, nothing dramatic really happened. We didn't move on to high school. Now this is where it gets bad. I was cutting every day. And then one day, my mum said, show me your arms. So I did and then it was covered in cuts. And she reacted by moving everything sharp that she could find out of my reach, so to speak. But it wasn't then there. One year I was at home alone and my mum was away. Then I self-harmed to the point that an ambulance got caught. And when my mum found out, she just thought I asked, am I the reason you're doing this? And I said no. She asked me if I'd stop. And I said I'd rather try. My mum didn't really understand why I was self-harming. My mum reacted very slowly to it. She didn't really react at first. And then I went to have an allergy test done on my arms and she said, is there anything now? I said no. I had braces like I do now, but my mum and she knew. I don't think my mum knew how to react. I think she was a bit afraid of it. But her reactions for me were not what I expected. I expected her to be raving mad at me because that's how how mine and her relationship was. I expected to get shouted out for her. That didn't happen. So yeah, how my mum reacted to my self-harm. It wasn't anything dramatic. She didn't hate me to see a doctor or anything, which she probably should have, but she didn't. There are a lot of things she probably should have done that she didn't. That doesn't make her a bad mum. It makes her a mum dealing with something for the first time and not really understanding it. So yeah, that's all I've got for this video. I hope you've learned something.  Parents don't always react how you think they're going to react. That's my message for this video. Thank you for watching. I'll see you in my next one. Quick shout-out to my Patreons. People who follow you on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram. Love you all. I'll see you guys in my next video. Peace.