Mary Roach | |
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Born | Etna, New Hampshire | March 20, 1959
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Mary Roach (born March 20, 1959) is an American author specializing in popular science and humor. [1] She has published seven New York Times bestsellers: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (2003), Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife (2005), Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (2008), Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void (2010), Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal (2013), Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War (2016), and Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law (2021).
Mary Roach was born in Hanover, New Hampshire [2] Her family moved to Etna, a village within the town of Hanover, and Roach attended Hanover High School and received a bachelor's degree in psychology from Wesleyan University in 1981.
After college, Roach moved to San Francisco, California, and spent a few years working as a freelance copy editor. Her writing career began in the public affairs office of the San Francisco Zoological Society, producing press releases on topics such as wart surgery on elephants. On her days off from the SFZS, she wrote freelance articles for San Francisco Chronicle's Sunday magazine, Image. [3]
She has written essays and feature articles for such publications as Vogue , GQ , The New York Times Magazine , Discover Magazine , National Geographic , Outside Magazine , and Wired [4] [5] as well as columns for Salon.com, In Health ("Stitches"), Reader's Digest ("My Planet"), and Sports Illustrated for Women ("The Slightly Wider World of Sports"), [4] and Inc.com.
From 1996 to 2005, Roach was part of "the Grotto", a San Francisco-based project and community of working writers and filmmakers. It was in this community that Roach got the push she needed to break into book writing. [6] While being interviewed by Alex C. Telander of BookBanter, Roach answered the question of how she got started on her first book:
A few of us every year [from the Grotto] would make predictions for other people, where they'll be in a year. So someone made the prediction that, 'Mary will have a book contract.' I forgot about it and when October came around I thought, I have three months to pull together a book proposal and have a book contract. This is what literally lit the fire under my butt. [7]
Although Roach writes primarily about science, she never intended to make it her career. Roach stated in an interview with TheVerge.com, when asked what exactly got her hooked on writing about science, "To be honest, it turned out that science stories were always, consistently, the most interesting stories I was assigned to cover. I didn't plan it like this, and I don't have a formal background in science, or any education in science journalism." [8]
Roach has appeared on numerous television and radio programs including The Daily Show , [9] The Colbert Report , [10] Coast to Coast AM , [11] NPR's "Fresh Air" , [12] and C-SPAN2 BookTV "In Depth." [13] Her 2009 TED talk [14] "Ten Things You Didn't Know About Orgasm", [15] made the organization's list of its most popular talks of all time. [16]
Roach reviews books for The New York Times and was the guest editor of the Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011 edition. She also serves as a member of the Mars Institute's Advisory Board, as an ambassador for Mars One [17] and an advisor for Orion magazine. [18] She has been an Osher Fellow [19] at the San Francisco Exploratorium and has served on the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary . [20]
Roach currently resides in Oakland, California, where she continues to write. [21]
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers was a New York Times Bestseller, a 2003 Barnes & Noble "Discover Great New Writers" pick, and one of Entertainment Weekly 's "Best Books of 2003." The book has been translated into at least 17 languages, including Hungarian (Hullamerev) and Lithuanian (Negyvėliai). Stiff was also selected for the Washington State University Common Reading Program in 2008–2009. [22]
Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, a New York Times Bestseller, was listed as a New York Times Notable Books pick in 2005. Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex , was chosen as the New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice, was among The Boston Globe 's Top 5 Science Books, and was listed as a bestseller in several other publications. [23] In 2011, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, was chosen as the book of the year for the seventh annual "One City One Book: San Francisco Reads" literary event program. [24] Packing for Mars was also sixth on the New York Times Bestseller list. [25] Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal was also a New York Times Bestseller and on the shortlist for the 2014 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books. [26]
Roach was the recipient of the Harvard Secular Society's Rushdie Award [27] in 2012 for her outstanding lifetime achievement in cultural humanism. The same year, she received a Special Citation in scientific inquiry from Maximum Fun. Her article on earthquake-proof bamboo houses, "The Bamboo Solution", [28] took the American Engineering Societies Engineering Journalism Award in the general interest magazine category in 1996. In 1995, Roach's article "How to Win at Germ Warfare" [29] was a National Magazine Award finalist. [30]
San Francisco is a 1936 American musical-drama disaster film directed by W. S. Van Dyke, based on the April 18, 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The film stars Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald and Spencer Tracy. MacDonald's singing helped make this film a major hit, coming on the heels of her other 1936 blockbuster, Rose Marie.
"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character is an edited collection of reminiscences by the Nobel Prize–winning physicist Richard Feynman. The book, released in 1985, covers a variety of instances in Feynman's life. The anecdotes in the book are based on recorded audio conversations that Feynman had with his close friend and drumming partner Ralph Leighton.
Bonk may refer to:
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers is a 2003 nonfiction book by Mary Roach. Published by W. W. Norton & Company, it details the unique scientific contributions of the deceased.
Michael Monroe Lewis is an American author and financial journalist. He has also been a contributing editor to Vanity Fair since 2009, writing mostly on business, finance, and economics. He is known for his nonfiction work, particularly his coverage of financial crises and behavioral finance.
Susan Wise Bauer is an American author, English instructor of writing and American literature at The College of William and Mary, and founder of Well-Trained Mind Press.
Thomas Lynn Bradford of Detroit, Michigan was a spiritualist who died by suicide in an attempt to ascertain the existence of an afterlife and communicate that information to a living accomplice, Ruth Doran. On February 5, 1921, Bradford sealed his apartment in Detroit, blew out the pilot on his heater, and turned on the gas, which killed him.
A Maximum Absorbency Garment (MAG) is an adult-sized diaper with extra absorption material that NASA astronauts wear during liftoff, landing, and extra-vehicular activity (EVA) to absorb urine and feces. It is worn by both male and female astronauts. Astronauts can urinate into the MAG, and usually wait to defecate when they return to the spacecraft. However, the MAG is rarely used for this purpose, since the astronauts use the facilities of the station before EVA and also time the consumption of the in-suit water. Nonetheless, the garment provides peace of mind for the astronauts.
The works of William Gibson encompass literature, journalism, acting, recitation, and performance art. Primarily renowned as a novelist and short fiction writer in the cyberpunk milieu, Gibson invented the metaphor of cyberspace in "Burning Chrome" (1982) and emerged from obscurity in 1984 with the publication of his debut novel Neuromancer. Gibson's early short fiction is recognized as cyberpunk's finest work, effectively renovating the science fiction genre which had been hitherto considered widely insignificant.
Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife (2005), published by W. W. Norton & Company, a nonfiction work by Mary Roach, is a humorous scientific exploration as to whether there is a soul that survives death. In Britain, the title of the book is Six Feet Over: Adventures in the Afterlife.
Out of position (OOP), in crash testing and car accident medical literature, indicates a passenger position which is not the normal upright and forward-facing position. For example, a common case observed in crashes is the position of an occupant when reaching for the car radio, or panic braking in unbelted passengers. The concept is of interest because small changes in a passenger's position can have profound effects on the actual kinematic response, especially in rear impacts, as shown both in practical testing and theoretical models.
Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex is a 2008 book by American popular science writer Mary Roach. It follows the winding history of science and its exploration of human sexuality, going back as far as Aristotle and finally ending with recent discoveries about the origination and anatomy of the female orgasm. Throughout, Mary Roach provides a humorous and often very personal view—both as a participant and observer—of humans, scientists, animals, and sex machines. Of the book's numerous accounts, Roach discusses artificial insemination of sows in Denmark, the history of sex machines, and provides commentary on Alfred Kinsey's notorious attic sex experiments. Her footnotes provide additional humor: as in a sentence that includes several DSM diagnoses listed as acronyms, she adds, "And from HAFD ". In the book, Roach describes a session in which she and Ed, her husband, volunteer to have sex while being recorded by a groundbreaking 4D ultrasound, in the interests of science. A doctor looks on during the experiment, making suggestions, and finally telling Ed that he "may ejaculate now".
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void is a nonfiction work by science author Mary Roach.
Hugh Aldersey-Williams is a British author and journalist. Aldersey-Williams was educated at Highgate School and studied the natural sciences at the University of Cambridge. His several books discuss issues surrounding natural and man-made designs. He has curated exhibitions at the Victoria and Albert Museum as well as the Wellcome Collection.
Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal is a nonfiction work by science author Mary Roach, published in April 2013 by W.W. Norton & Company.
Cathryn Jakobson Ramin is an American journalist, investigative reporter, and author. She has written for publications such as The New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine, O, the Oprah Magazine, Discover, Craftsmanship Quarterly, Aeon, NewYorker.com and More (magazine). To date, she has published two books, Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery, and Carved in Sand: When Attention Fails and Memory Fades in Midlife, which became a ''New York Times'' bestseller.
Caitlin Marie Doughty is an American mortician, author, blogger, YouTuber, and advocate for death acceptance and the reform of Western funeral industry practices. She is the owner of Clarity Funerals and Cremation of Los Angeles, creator of the Web series Ask a Mortician, founder of The Order of the Good Death, and author of three bestselling books, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory (2014), From Here to Eternity; Traveling the World to Find the Good Death (2017), and Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?: Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death (2019).
Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War is a nonfiction work by Mary Roach, published in June 2016 by W. W. Norton & Company. The book covers the subject of scientific research for the military and some of the less well-known aspects of the lives of soldiers. Instead of focusing on the science that can kill, Roach looks at the science of saving lives and improving the quality of a soldier's experience. In this book, Roach attempts to answer many questions about the military that the reader may not have thought of before and discusses the challenges that soldiers have to face on the battlefield that do not necessarily directly involve fighting. It has been described as "both entertaining and informative in the best tradition of science writing".
Geng Long Hsu is a Taiwanese urologic surgeon and former clinical professor at China Medical University. He earned his MD from National Taiwan University in 1985 and completed his research fellowship from the University of California San Francisco in 1991. He held the position of Chair of Urology at Taiwan Adventist Hospital, vice-superintendent at Po-Jen General hospital, and director of microsurgery potency reconstruction at Taipei Medical University. After 2003, he established his private practice at Hsu's Andrology in Taipei, Taiwan. Hsu documents and shares his clinical experience on penile reconstruction, particularly of penile venous stripping, penile curvature correction, and penile enhancement via various academic channels. That includes his contributions to the Encyclopedia of Reproduction.
Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law is a 2021 nonfiction book by Mary Roach. Published by W. W. Norton & Company, it details the "curious science of human-wildlife conflict."