WEBVTT - America’s Funniest Science Author on Orgasms, Cadavers & Space Travel 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:07.400 Really now, really, really. 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:11.440 Now really Hello and welcome to Really No Really with 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:14.800 Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden. It would be a wonderful 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:17.520 gift to us if you became one of our subscribers. 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:21.520 So if you enjoy our show, please subscribe. Take science 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:24.079 and humor and combine them together and you got a 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:27.080 Mary Roach book. The author of seven New York Times 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:31.240 best selling books. She's written about cadavers and the afterlife, 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:34.280 living life in outer space, and what to do when 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:38.159 animals break the law. But today we start by finding 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:42.760 out why and how she convinced her husband to monitor 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:43.960 and record. 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:45.600 Their active coitus. 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:49.879 To completion while in an MRI ultrasound sonogram like device. 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:54.520 Her science Really no, really Okay now. 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:55.360 This I know. 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:57.320 I always say I'm excited. I'm excited to be with you, 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:00.320 I'm excited to do our show. I'm excited about our guests. Always, always, 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:04.760 always this. I am so excited. This is one of 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:07.600 my favorite authors in the world. I don't know why 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:10.679 she must have nothing going on in her life right 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:13.600 now to be doing our little show. Because Mary Roach, 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:15.720 many of you will know who she is. She has 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:20.360 She has written seven New York Times bestsellers. They're always 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:24.199 almost always one name books like we have. 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:28.680 Stiff, we have Spook, we have bonk. Hacking with Mars 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:29.760 she went all out on that. 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:32.760 Then we have Gulp, we have Grunt, and we have 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:37.120 Fuzz and they are a cross between science and comedy 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:40.640 and they are hysterical books. She has written for The 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:44.160 National Geographic, Wired, New York Times, magazine, Vogue, GQ. She 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:48.400 writes a lot and the thing that I think most 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:50.200 people would know her for if you go online. She 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:53.280 did a TED talk in two thousand and nine called 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:56.400 Ten Things You Didn't Know About Orgasm, which is probably 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:58.360 one of the most popular TED talks of all time, 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:01.080 and it was focused on a book that is the 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:05.040 sort of centerpiece of our really for the day. In 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.840 doing the book, Bank, which was about sex research and 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:13.639 the arousal, sex research and arousal and his roach had 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:17.400 relations with her husband in some sort of clinical almost 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:20.120 like an Mrie kind of thing with an ultrasound and 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:24.280 a thing. And you know that's called getting your hands dirty. 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:28.079 That's the dictionary definition. Well, an author dirty. 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:29.440 You like an author who's going to jump in on 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:30.640 the thing, whatever the thing is. 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:32.960 I want to know how she did it, Why she 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:36.720 did it, how she got a husband to do it, how. 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:38.359 She if she came to me and said, I want 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:39.760 to have sex and they have to do it in 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:40.760 front of a researcher. 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:45.560 Yes, who's gonna's gonna have instruments? The minute I hear 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:47.240 sex and measuring, I'm out. 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:52.200 So there's so much, so much to this. 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:56.399 And so let's just jump in with the author, extraordinary 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:57.040 Mary Roach. 0:02:57.080 --> 0:02:57.920 Welcome to really no. 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:02.240 Really, oh, thank you so much, so excited to be here. 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:04.360 So how how did you when you did this? The 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:07.120 book bunk okay, yeah, and gives a little bit of 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:09.840 history and sex research, because that in itself is a 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:12.839 fascinating feel because a lot of sex researchers are looking 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:15.480 down upon because it's like the sort of the dark 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:19.680 you're the g of science. It's like it's it's dirty somehow. 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:24.679 And then what got you to the point of, Hey, hobby. 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:26.400 I'm gonna, yeah, I'm gonna spend some time in this 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:28.000 and I'm gonna go we're doing with me? 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:29.880 Yeah? 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:33.440 Okay, this is what happened. I was looking at and 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:36.280 this is very un characteristic of me. I was looking 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:39.920 through an issue of Film Quarterly, which makes me seem 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:44.280 really erudite and and scholarly and anyway, I don't know 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:46.040 why it wasn't my own copy, but there was a 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:51.200 reference to the coolpiscopic films of Masters and Johnson, and 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:53.320 I was like, wait a minute, colposcopy. 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:56.040 That's when they're taking like a biopsy of the cervix. 0:03:56.040 --> 0:04:00.520 They're in there doing stuff, so on like this means Masters, Johnson, 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:03.800 the sex researchers that we've all heard of, we're literally 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:08.560 filming a woman while she responds sexually. It sounded like that. 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:13.800 So based on that sentence, pretty much, just that sentence 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:17.479 in Film Quarterly, I I went to my editor, like, 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:22.880 sex Research next book, right, because okay, this is this 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:28.080 is science the physiology of intercourse and arousal. And he okay, 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:30.839 fertility too as part of it. But I'm like, that 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:35.040 is bringing people into a laboratory setting and having them 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:37.240 do sexual things while you're like the researcher and the 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:40.479 white coat with a clipboard. That's just so awkward and surreal. 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:43.040 And I'm like that there has to be a whole 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:47.839 world of really incredible material for me to play around with. 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:52.160 And she's like, go, go, go do it. And in 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:53.120 fact there was. 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:56.640 But the thing with my books, I always like to 0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:01.320 put myself into the story a little bit, and in 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:03.279 this case, I thought, well, that's a little weird. So 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:07.520 I'll try to find researchers who are doing work in 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:10.200 a lab with subjects, and I'll just be there, you know, 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:13.320 with a notepad. And so I would contact these researchers 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:16.360 and then be like, I'm sorry, you want to be 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:19.000 in the room with a notebook while somebody else is 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.640 let's say, I don't know, masturbating while hooked up to 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:26.000 some electro huha device And they're like, no, no, that's 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:28.280 not going to work. But every now and then they'd go, 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:31.719 but you can be the subject. How would you like 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:36.120 to do that? And in particular, well, the answer, the 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:38.160 short answer is like I would not want to do that. 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:41.279 Because it's incredibly awkward. 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:44.320 But I realized I was probably gonna have to do 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:47.560 that because I wasn't getting access any other way. So 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:51.920 I found this guy, doctor Dang, who was an imaging 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:56.000 expert in London, and I came across a paper he 0:05:56.080 --> 0:06:00.640 had done about erections and pay own and he had 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:04.440 done a three D movie of an erecting penis his 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:07.360 own by the way, and he said, and this is 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:11.000 all an email. He's like, yeah, for the next my 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:16.600 next experiment, I would like to film with ultrasound three 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:24.920 dimensional sexual congress. And I'm like, great, you know, I'd 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:27.200 like to be there for that. And he's like, well, 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:30.560 here's the thing. We're having a little trouble finding volunteers. 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:36.799 So if your organization can supply a willing couple for study, 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:42.479 I'd be happy to arrange it. So my organization called 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:49.360 it's husband and I'm like, honey, you know how he said, 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:51.680 you haven't been to London in a long time. Well 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:54.680 we should go and I'll like expense us a really 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:55.359 nice room. 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:58.000 We'll go to see a play. Jeremy Irons is in 0:06:58.200 --> 0:06:59.800 something in the West End. It'll be great. 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.520 Also, have to have sex in front of a researcher. 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:08.640 My husband is he's he's such a first of all, 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:11.280 he's a man, he's a great guy. And he had 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:13.360 also said up front when he heard what the book 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:16.800 was about, he's like, sex research, sign me up. 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:26.720 Extent on exactly. So so yeah, so. 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:29.800 We went and did that, and and people think it 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:32.920 was an mri I tube, which fine, I would I'd 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:34.280 have sex and an m R two. But you know, 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:36.480 I said, you have privacy. Right, you're in a little tube. 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:38.560 It's uncomfortable. You're cramped in there. I don't even know 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:40.840 if you could fit two people. Well you can't because 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:45.320 somebody else. Yeah, somebody else did it, those little acrobats, 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:51.360 people from the Netherlands up his name was jup Jupe 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:54.520 and his wife or girlfriend or whatever anyway, but you know, 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:58.360 you have some privacy. But with ultrasound, it's the wand 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:01.520 And I don't know to go too much into the 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:07.600 logistics here, but the guy has the wand on my belly, 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:09.960 which means you know, ED is behind me, but the 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:10.880 guy's right there. 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:14.720 You're like arms length and it's it was awkward. 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:20.600 Yeah, Viagara was used in a magazine. A magazine was 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:22.840 used because your husband wasn't facing you or something. 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:28.200 But I can't pure he goes, don't worry. He goes, yeah, 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:30.600 well we have we have viagra. And he said, and 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:33.000 I have some like stimulative literature. I think it was 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:37.040 like a was there a copy of g QQ or something. 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:38.880 I mean it was something like it wasn't poor and 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.040 it was you know, I think you know how they 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:43.320 have a pretty woman telling a joke or something at 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:44.480 Esquire and I was like. 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:46.760 That's what he like that. 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:49.640 I probably know this, but both of my children are 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:53.240 in vitro, so I had to go h and make 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:57.160 deliveries and the quality of the. 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:59.680 Stimulating material and they should be top notched. 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:04.040 They are always like, you know, very scratchy portant films 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:05.880 from the nineteen seventies or something. 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:08.480 You got a movie, at least you I. 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:08.960 Had a video. 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:11.040 I had a little video, but I didn't have a partner, 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:13.599 so you know, it was we needed to compensate. 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:16.199 So wow, wow. 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:21.320 Yes, it was filmed in It was four D, which 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:23.599 means three D plus time. I think this is the 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:26.400 way that anyway, Yes, it was an ultrasound movie. I 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:29.960 looked him up recently to see if the story ever, 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.480 i mean, the journal paper ever appeared, and it didn't. 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:35.240 And part of that was that the three D didn't 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:37.600 come out that well. You could actually the film was 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:39.280 online of Oh my god. 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:43.960 So, I mean, I want to talk a little bit 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.679 about about all your books and how you get there, 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:49.040 but can you talk a little bit about because for 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:51.679 people that may not be familiar with your work, like 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:55.959 Gulp is really about what our bodies do with food 0:09:56.040 --> 0:09:58.719 from beginning to end, and where the waste goes, and 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:01.480 how it's the whole pane of the journey. 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:02.640 Uh, it's the. 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:06.800 Tube, yees, the tube us right as this knows to ask, Yeah, how. 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:10.440 Do you decide? It's exactly what you said? 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:12.440 You saw you know, you read this one little fact 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:13.520 to it and you went, I think I want to 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:17.320 pursue this. You the subjects of your work, as I say, 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:21.240 are always the crossoad of something scientific and h and 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:23.679 your extraordinary sense of humor comes into play. But how 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:26.319 do you how do you go, this is it? I'm 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:28.319 gonna I found it. I found the next one. I'm 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:31.679 going to oz what what's is there? A? How do 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:33.640 if that happens, it flips the switch for you? 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:34.959 Yeah? 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:37.880 I wish it were always as simple as the colposcopic 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:40.240 films of Masters in Johnson, which was like the thirty 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:43.000 second I have my next book. Yeah, But more often 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:46.400 it's sometimes it's something I stumble onto in one book, 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:51.520 like in Stiff, I came across, uh, some studies that 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:54.240 the early days of trying to figure out what do 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:56.440 all these bits and pieces of the human body do? 0:10:56.720 --> 0:10:58.600 Like what is this thing. You know, before people knew 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:01.439 it's a liver. Are like, maybe this is the seed 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:04.360 of the soul, right, this is a really handsome organ. 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:07.400 Perhaps the soul is here. So people using science to 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:10.920 figure out the spirit or the soul. I'm like, that's 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:14.000 kind of a weird application of science. So for me, 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:21.719 it's science plus weird or surreal. So I know, I 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:26.720 know when I see it and Gulp, people think Gulp 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:29.760 is a book about you know, it's about nutrition or 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:31.560 digest and I'm like, no, no, no, what I do 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:32.480 that to my readers? 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:32.640 Now? 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:35.679 This is like this is this is the weird tube 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:38.199 that starts in your nose and mouth runs all the 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:41.800 way through you full of bacteria. It's like the donut hole. 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:44.280 I mean, you're the donut. And then there's this weird 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:48.680 other world that's this tube literally from your mouth to 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:52.320 your anus, and it's a whole different set of rules 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:55.480 in there. It's really weird. So so I'm not you know, 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:58.640 there's I do possibly here and there touch on things 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:03.160 like digestion, nutrition, but it's that it would be to 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:05.079 do the Book of the Service Live. There's a chapter 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:09.200 about you know ken it was got me what got 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:11.240 me going on. It was the Jonah story, and I'm like, 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.800 is it possible for anybody to survive in anyone else's stomach? 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:17.880 And we went I went down this rabbit hole that 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:19.080 that uh, you know, and. 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:20.160 Then like chewing. 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:23.480 There's a whole lab in the Netherlands where they study 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:26.480 the way that you you know, when you chew, you 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:29.160 break something down and then and then you just you'd 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:32.559 form it into a bowlus like, so it's it's swallowable. 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:35.679 It has to be in the swallowable state. And they like, 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:39.720 do you know video X rays of people chewing and 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:42.120 forming boluses and just the. 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:44.920 Whole I don't any any with science. 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:48.480 So often there's some thing that you've taken for granted 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:51.800 that all of a sudden you're like, wow, bullus formation 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:56.079 is really interesting and gross, let's get Mary roach on them. 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:57.760 I love that you take this out and you're not 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:00.320 a scientist either, which is lovely that it's out of 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:02.559 curiosity and you go deep, you go down, you go down. 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:03.120 Robert Hoiles. 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:06.760 Yeah, But I also love that where your curiosity goes 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:10.120 to in science is to the stuff that I guess, 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:15.120 in some ways might be considered the tabooy stuff, you 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:17.360 know where people do want to know how does an 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:18.360 astronaut boop? 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:20.520 You know how? And you go and you. 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:22.640 Know most of us would would we mean and we 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:24.200 had an astronaut on our show, that was the. 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:26.280 Last question we would ever ask them. But you go 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:26.959 right to it. 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:29.439 I have no shame, ye Jason. 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:33.680 I know, I completely own the fact that my mind is, 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:38.200 let's say, in the gutter sometimes and and the other 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.320 thing with a taboo with with with taboo topics and books. 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:45.240 Early on in my career, I know I hadn't written 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:47.400 I'd written a lot of magazine stuff, but I hadn't 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:49.080 done a book, and I was thinking, like, what is 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:52.600 it that hasn't been written about already? Yeah, and the 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:55.760 taboo things are things that other people might go I 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:58.400 would never write a book about Kidavers because people would 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:01.199 think there's something wrong with me. I'm like, I'm bringing you, 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:01.880 give it to me. 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:02.520 I'll do it. 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:04.800 But because I get back to the astronaut thing, you 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:05.840 did zero gravity, right? 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:06.800 I did? 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:07.120 Yeah? 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:07.520 I did? 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:08.600 And did you? So? 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:11.040 I think you wrote that. The way they had to 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:12.880 test the toilet stuf because they have to because they're 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:14.719 sending people up, is they had to have a guy 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:18.000 try and do it in zero grat I mean, it's. 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:20.760 That amazing, you know, it's it's a chamter. I'm glad 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:22.840 you're asking me, but I love to talk about. 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:26.880 So how yeah, how they figure out how to do this? 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:40.400 I'm glad you're asking me, but I love to talk about. 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:44.440 So how yeah, how they figure out how to do this? 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:47.920 Oh god, it's so it's so interesting because it's you know, 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:51.200 you take a toilet, okay, this is a system that 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:56.360 relies on gravity and water flow, water flowing down and flush. 0:14:56.400 --> 0:14:58.440 There's that keyword, flushing. 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:05.080 Away and and so you now, when you're talking about 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:09.280 putting a waste management system in space, you need to 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:11.880 completely rethink the system, you know. And so in the 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:15.400 first two space programs, you know, in in actually three 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:17.800 and Mercury they didn't need it. Gemini and Apollo, there 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:21.400 was no toilet. There was the fecal bag because there 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:23.840 was no you know, they hadn't redesigned the system. They 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:26.560 didn't have enough space. So you were like crapping in 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:29.520 a in a plastic bag with a little fingercut to 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:32.160 coach the material because you don't have good separation. The 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:34.560 gravity is not pulling the poop away from your body, 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:36.480 so you had to like coax it along. And they 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:40.720 hated it. They absolutely the morale was like, you know, 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:44.480 like off the charts negative, like this is this is 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:46.760 like it smelled like a latrine in there. After two 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:49.560 weeks and they're like something has to change. And then 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:51.880 there was like a at one point Nasha's like, yes, 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:54.640 we have to do better, and they and they, so 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:59.720 finally we have to do better. And so for this, 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:02.960 for the Space Shuttle and for the ISS. Now there 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:06.560 are toilets, but the waste management engineering people, god, those 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:10.440 are heroes. They figured it out. It's an airflow system. 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:14.080 You're like in training the here's my favorite youthhemism from 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:18.760 NASA the material. Right, you're you're in training the material 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:26.840 or wait, contributions. That's a good one too, contribution. 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:28.760 On. 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:33.720 So they had to yes, so they had to completely 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:35.360 rethink it and now, all right, you're not going to 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:38.760 put this multi million dollar device up into zero gravity 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:41.440 without testing it first. Uh So they had to put 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:44.240 it on the the what used to be called the 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:47.600 vomit comet, that plane that goes up and down on 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:52.280 a roller coaster, and you have twenty seconds of weightlessness 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:56.440 in which to test your new fancy NASA toilet. And 0:16:56.480 --> 0:16:59.560 that means some poor guy from the waste management to 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:05.320 partment and as twenty seconds to do it, and he 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:07.679 has to make a contribution on cue. So and I 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:10.160 talked to a guy was my last was not on 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:13.320 such a flight. But I talked to an engineer from 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:16.920 the waste management world who who had who had been 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:18.760 on there? And he's like, yeah, okay, so they had 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:21.919 picture they got they got a curtain around him, all right, 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:23.760 but we can see you know, the bottom of the 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:26.280 toilet and the feet, okay, and we start to go, 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:32.240 you know, over over the part where you're weightless. Was like, go, go, go, 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:38.480 go go the pressure God pressure, and he failed. He 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:39.679 couldn't do it. Who could? 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:40.959 You know, It's like who can. 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:45.040 It's like you could time your yeah, set your watch 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:46.560 by most people's sphincters, you know. 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:48.760 You're like, there's a certain time of day you can go. 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:49.199 And that's it. 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:52.240 And so they so they're like, what do we do? 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:56.280 And then so then they hired or they gave the 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:59.359 assignment to someone at NASA AMES to come up with 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:04.400 a high fidelity human fecal simulant and I have seen 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:07.480 the paper and there are recipes and photographs and. 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:08.040 It was a series. 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:10.280 The guy would not reply to my emails, so I 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:13.840 last didn't get to interview this man. But but he 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:16.119 really took it to heart, like I'm gonna there's the 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:19.120 exact amount of E. Coli even in here, the reology, 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:23.119 the viscousness, everything is the same. And so that enabled 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:27.199 them to test this toilet, uh and subsequent toilets. And 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:30.160 for me, this is not so much about poop as 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:34.159 it is about just the surreal wonderfulness of engineering. 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:37.240 You bought the challenge and about that challenge, how important 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:38.359 that's a make or break. 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:40.399 My favorite moment on that one would have been the 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:43.879 guy outside the curtain twenty seconds later going Houston, we 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:44.640 have a problem. 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:50.440 The other part of that is dandriff, All this stuff 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:53.280 is floating around if you're not careful, yes, and you're 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:55.920 I mean, so imagine that. 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:57.880 If they didn't have that, I understand. 0:18:57.920 --> 0:18:59.920 Yeah, they called them they called okay, So yeah, with 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:06.439 space the shuttle toilet it had a little cap that 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:09.600 would a little door that would close when you were done. Okay, 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:14.560 because because the stuff, the contribution is briefly hovering. It's 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:18.479 floating right, okay. So and if you if you shut 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:20.639 the door at the wrong time, you would have what 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:22.280 was called fecal decapitation. 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:25.720 And this is an actual term. I didn't make it up. 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:30.520 This is a n acid term. So, but that little beheaded, 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:36.640 the little head of is now going to float around, yes, 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:38.520 the space shuttle. 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:41.320 And it's to you to chase it down. 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:43.400 How get over here? 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:46.119 On our first episode we learned about fecal clouds, and 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:46.800 now here we. 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:49.359 Are, so let's go so quickly. 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:52.000 So some of the other Yeah, what I thought would 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:54.520 be fun and a great way to introduce your work 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:56.159 to people who may not be familiar with all of 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:58.720 it is I thought I'd name one book at a 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:01.800 time and maybe you could share, like the most fascinating 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:04.320 thing that you thought came out of that book for you, 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:06.639 like the fun fact that you went, oh, oh. 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:08.680 My god, this is so hard, this is so hard. 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:15.960 If you're wrong, we don't know, We have no idea. 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:18.520 So I think the first one was stiff, right, which 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:21.800 was the Curious subtitle of The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:25.639 which was a yes, really an exploration of what we 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:29.159 do with dead bodies from the moment of departure till 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:33.600 they're they're done being used, either interred or eused science. 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:37.200 What what what was the most fascinating or one of 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:39.679 the most fascinating revelations came out of that book for you? 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:41.640 Oh God, that one. 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:45.520 You know, people are familiar most with with you know, 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:48.960 only people we donate your body to science. It's often 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:52.320 you're being used to teach anatomy or to learn some 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:55.840