Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe - When animals break the law (featuring Mary Roach)

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

Daniel and Kelly chat with Mary Roach about her latest book (Fuzz), and how she goes about getting the incredible stories that appear in her books.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Smokey the Bears. Then you know why Smokey tells you when he sees you passing through. Remember, please be careful. It's the least that you can do. It's what you desire. Don't play with matches. Don't play with fire.

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Grammy-winning producer, pastor, and music executive to talk about the beats, the business, and the legacy behind some of the biggest names in gospel, R&B, and hip-hop. Professionally, I started at Death World Records. From Mary Mary to Jennifer Hudson, we get into the soul of the music and the purpose that drives it. Listen to Culture raises us on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Kurt Brown-Oller. And I am Scotty Landis, and we host Bananas, the podcast where we share the weirdest, funniest, real news stories from all around the world. And sometimes from our guest's personal lives, too.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. Why are TSA rules so confusing? You got a hood of you. I'll take it off. I'm Mani. I'm Noah. This is Devin. And we're best friends and journalists with a new podcast called No Such Thing, where we get to the bottom of questions like that.

Why are you screaming? I can't expect what to do. Now, if the rule was the same, go off on me. I deserve it. You know, lock him up. Listen to no such thing on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. No such thing. So, Mary, what is the most embarrassing situation you've ever been in as part of your book research? That's an easy one. That one, not surprisingly. was for Bonk. The subtitle of that book is The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex. So that is a book about the delightful awkwardness of taking sex, arousal, orgasm, all of that, all the physiological

components of it, and putting it in a laboratory setting with, you know, a couple doing things, and then somebody in a white coat taking notes. So I wanted to get at that central awkwardness of what I just described. And I found this researcher in London. who's doing something with four-dimensional ultrasound, so 3D movies, basically, in ultrasound. It was a diagnostic tool, and he wanted to do one that was actually a penis and a vagina interacting, and I said, well, I would like to be there when you do that to observe. And he wrote back, well, if your organization can provide some volunteers, then I'd be happy to do that. So my organization asked its husband.

If you want to hear the rest of that story, you'll have to listen to the rest of the podcast. So on today's episode of Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe, we have the amazing Mary Roach on the show. Hi, I'm Daniel. a particle physicist, and I'm rarely embarrassed by my own science. I am Kelly Weiner-Smith, and my science has put me in loads of embarrassing situations, or maybe gross and embarrassing. All right, tell us quickly what is the grossest thing you've ever done for science. Oh, my gosh. All right, hands down, so I hate the smell of fish,

and I worked on a project where we were trying to figure out what kind of impact the coal-powered power plants on Lake Erie we're having on the local fish populations. These surveys happen every 20 years or so. And the way you do it is you essentially put a net into the water that gets sucked into these power plants and the water is used to like cool things down, generate steam, blah, blah, blah. But the fish gets smushed against the net and as the temperature of the water heats up, they all die. And so not all of them, but many of them. Some of the power plants pull the nets out and dump them into dump trucks, which literally

fill up halfway or more with dead fish. And somebody has to go in there, including in the middle of the same. summer with waiters on and like subsample and identify what species of fish are in here. How many are in here? Do any of them look like they have fungal diseases and would have died anyway? So I had to like become very intimate with dump trucks full of dead fish under a hot summer sun. And that is the most disgusting thing I've done in my whole life.

And I hate the smell of fish. And I still don't eat fish. I just can't. I just can't. Sounds like a good job for your future robot research assistant. Bring the robot overlords on. That sounds great. learned a lot about fish identification that summer, but I would maybe give up that knowledge

if I could have avoided that job. Well, sometimes doing science means getting all mucky and dirty and sometimes explaining science requires you to get in weird situations, sometimes scary, sometimes embarrassing, sometimes just downright odd. But always when they're explained by Mary Roach, absolutely hilarious. So let's just jump right into the interview. Let's not make people wait. on today's show we're incredibly lucky to have mary roach mary has been my absolute favorite pop-sci author since i picked up stiff as an undergrad in 2003 stiff spook bonk packing for mars gulp grunt and fuzz have all been new york times bestsellers and i have been at the bookstore the day

each of them have been released so that i could get my copy as soon as possible so if you've ever wondered how many lasers does it take to keep birds away from the vatican's flowers can you lower the national debt by doing a more thorough job of chewing your food? What's it like to go to the bathroom in space? What happens at a body farm? Have scientists been able to find the soul? Or any other equally weird questions? We've got the gal for you. Her latest book is Fuzz When Nature Breaks the Law. Welcome to the show, Mary. Hey, thanks. Thank you so much, you guys. I'm so excited to have you on the show. I got to talk to you once about cosmonauts, and that was so much fun. Oh, yeah, the cosmonauts love those guys. Yeah, they're special. To start off,

So one of the things that I love the most about your books is that there are topics that I didn't know I was dying to learn about. And then as soon as I start reading, it turns out I was dying to learn about these topics. So let's get started with Fuzz. How did you pick the topic for the book Fuzz? What was the thought process there? And then in general, how do you pick your book topics? I always wish that I had the really succinct and fantastic origin story for a book. You know, like that there was something in my past that triggered this passion that I had to spend two years down this rabbit hole that had

meant everything to me. It's never like that. It's like I turned in a book and I would like to do another one. That means I need an idea for another book and I don't have one. So it's this process of just sometimes looking back at things that I've covered before or something I heard about. In this case, I had heard about a lab up in Ashland, Oregon, the National Wildlife Forensics laboratory and there's a woman there who was an expert and published a paper on how to tell real versus artificial or counterfeit tiger penis, which is that this is used medicinally sometimes for virility. And she wrote this paper on how to tell real versus counterfeit tiger penis. And that's the thing I get kind of excited about that there's a scientist out there whose area of

expertise is detection of counterfeit tiger penis. Because of course, you know, if somebody's smuggling this stuff in, you need to prove that it is an endangered species in order to arrest the person. So she needs to be able to tell, is it real or not? And happily, it is almost always fake. It's usually cow or deer penis, which is a lot bigger than a tiger penis anyway. Does she do it by morphology or genetics? Oh, by morphology. It is so easy to tell. Like a tiger penis, you can't see because this is audio, but tiger penis is like, it's a little tiny thing. You know, and a deer penis is pretty big. But does either one actually have an effect on, you know, male performance? Does it really

matter if it's counterfeit? Like most of these things, I think, you know, maybe kind of psychologically inspiring, but not the tiger penis. That'd be a little depressing. Yeah, I don't think there's any peer-reviewed controlled studies suggesting that any of these penises have any solid effect on male performance. But regardless, people smuggle them in and out of the country. I thought, oh, well, that's an interesting line of forensics. Forensics is interesting. Well, maybe I'll go up there and I'll talk to her, which I did. And it was a wonder. morning we had dried animal penises laid out on the table and I took some pictures which is still on my phone every now and then the grandkids are like what's on your phone I'm like no no no

there's a lot of stuff on my phone you can't look at because I'll have to explain so I thought this is going well and then I went in to talk to the director of the lab and I said well here's what I love to do or that I need to do with the book I have to be on the scene and I imagined you know going in when they raided a fake tiger penis sweatshop in China. Like, you know, we'd go in and there'd be, these poor people, and they'd have to do this, they carve little barbs because felines have barbs on the penis, little sticky upy things, sort of like, get the rental car, you know, don't back up on this spikes like that. So somebody has to carve those, and I thought we'd hunched over carving these penises and

we'll go in and it'll be this incredible scene. I had this whole scenario in my head and then I'd find other things to write about. the guy goes, you know, legally, if it's an open case, investigation, you can't go a law. You just can't. It's the law. No. So that just shut me down. And so I went home and I was like, ah, damn. But then I came across this book, the criminal prosecution and capital punishment of animals, which made me think, this is a historical book, you know, about people used to put animals on trial that had misbehaved. And I thought, What if the animals were the perpetrators?

And I say perpetrators in quotes, obviously animals follow their instinct, not laws. So what if we turn it around and what if the animals are not the victims but the perpetrators? And then it turns out there's this whole area of science called human wildlife conflict with conferences and experts and textbooks. And I had never heard of human wildlife conflict, had no idea people devote their lives to figuring out how to coexist with wild animals. So that's a very long-winded way of saying that's not happened. This is how I got my idea for the book. I mean, it's a great story.

In general, I'd love to hear more about how you got into science writing. I mean, how did you identify this sort of opening in people's appetite that wasn't being completely served? Or, you know, this itch that people wanted scratching in a certain way. Well, again, not through a longstanding passion of mine. I was one of those people who thought in high school and in college. oh, science is boring. I want to be creative, which is so stupid. There's so much creativity in science. It wasn't something that I'd thought about in college. Or even when I first graduated, I was writing for the magazine of the Sunday paper here in the Bay Area, San Francisco Chronicle,

just general stories, kind of a little bit weird, Mary Roachie, but not science-related. And my editor went to another publication called Hippocrates, which was more just, focused on health and medicine, but they still let me be Mary Roach and do kind of odd stories, which was fun. And then from there, an editor from Discover Magazine said, would you like to do these weird Mary Roach stories for us? We are a science magazine. I know you're not a science writer, but why don't you do this? And I was like, oh, okay, so I did that. And those were the most interesting stories I'd done. And I loved writing about science, since I don't have. have a science background. They tend to be not heavy science. You know, they're definitely science

for people who have mistakenly thought that they don't like science or that they don't think science is interesting. I'm kind of a gateway drug to science writing. I'm heavy on narrative and fun and quirk. For me, the science and the discovery of learning about these different fields is tremendous fun and really gratifying. But am I really a science writer? I guess so. I don't know. Of course you are. I look at real science writers and, you know, they just, I can't understand their books. I think you are the kind of science writer where people actually learn something because they make it to the end of the book, which I think is huge. And like, that's a real skill getting people to stay to the end of the book.

Thank you. Thank you. Yes, you're welcome. That is my goal. Even just to the end of the chapter, man, I am always fighting for that. I really am. I am always sort of policing my words and my sentences going in. Has it been a couple pages, but since there's been anything really fun here or surprising, like, you know, let's punch it up.

They're going to put the book down. I know they're going to put the book down any second. I feel like it's an interesting activity when you're writing to figure out how long has it been since the funny thing that I said and then trying to not like overdo it. Yes. Zach and I had a problem where a couple chapters, we felt like we had gotten corny and we were just overdoing it. But, you know, you want to make sure they come at a regular pace.

It's an art. And you guys do it so well. Thanks. It is some really tough stuff that you're asking people to come along with you for, and you manage to keep it fun, and that is extraordinary. Thank you. I think you identified something really important, though, which is that a lot of science writing is done in a way that isn't actually that understandable, and yet a lot of people still love to consume it, which has always been something of a mystery to me. Like, I read Stephen Hawking, and I don't understand a lot of his books, and then people tell me, like, I loved a brief history of time, and I'm like, really? you actually understand it? Or did you just appreciate being in the presence of what felt like a

great mind? So I wonder what people are going for sometimes with those books, if they actually want to understand, or they just want to hang out with Stephen Hawking? I do too. I don't have an advanced degree, but I don't feel that I'm a moron. You know, I'll pick up, I don't know, Brian Green, maybe. These are really gifted, super intelligent, successful writers, but I'm like, I don't know. Or even like astronomy for people in a hurry, Neil deGrasse Tyson. And astrophysics for people in Harry. Yeah. And I'm like, I don't know.

I'm not following along. I'm falling behind. Help me. I'm falling behind. And I know these books are huge sellers. And I'm always curious about that, how many people read it all the way through. And really understand it in the way the author means it to be understood. I'd love to know that.

Can we get AI to give us an answer on that? I actually threw out my copy of Hawking's book because I realized I only had it on my shelf so that I could be the kind of person who looked like they could read that book. But I had only gotten through 10 pages and I was like, this book being on my shelf is a lie. And so I finally got rid of it. I'm glad to hear that. I mean, you know, no disrespect to Mr. Hawkingman. Oh, yeah.

He's clearly way smarter than I will ever be. Well, when you're writing your books, you dive deep into a topic. You talk to the experts. You must at some point pass over the threshold where you're something of an expert in the topic yourself. How do you keep hold of what the reader knows and what they don't understand? and what this must feel like to them the first time they're hearing about it. That's a real challenge, something you pull off amazingly in your book. That is always a concern that over the course of the two or three years that I work on a book,

have I actually learned enough that I'm assuming a level of knowledge on the part of my reader that doesn't exist? Because we are starting out at the same place, the place of just curiosity and near total ignorance. And then I'm moving along through speaking to researchers and experts, I'm actually getting to the point where I'm understanding things in a way that I now think, is it completely unclear what I'm saying here? And that's a little tough. I do have my editor at Norton is she's a poet and a novelist. She has no background in science. She's a good editor for me for that reason, because she will sometimes just put a note in the margin. I, Mary, you've lost me here or I don't know what you're talking about.

That is helpful. That's why I'm so excited to talk to somebody who is an expert in their field and when their field is something, you know, it's a little complicated, like, you know, stem cells say. I mean, I'm so grateful to find somebody who can explain it to me who has a sense of what I don't know, which is almost everything, and can then unpack it in a way that I understand. So part of what my job is is looking for those people who I'm going to then force to be an unpaid tutor for days on end and for endless emails. So I'm not entirely clear. Can you just explain? That's so necessary to keep in your head where people are at and whether you've left them behind.

Because I get, let's be honest, left behind by a lot of science books. I have this theory that Agatha Christie would be a great science. writer because she seems to have this ability of like, obviously, understanding what's actually happening in her story and introducing the facts in the way that the reader discovers them and unravels the mystery in an organic way. It seems to me sort of the same challenge to, like, write a mystery novel and keep in mind what the reader knows and doesn't know. I find that impossible.

I can't imagine writing a murder mystery. Yeah, this is why I never read murder mysteries. Or even when I see knives out, I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, I'm always making my husband And stop, wait, stop, stop, wait a minute, is that any hate it? He's like, can we just keep going with it? We just keep this going. No, but I don't know who's the guy. Is that the brother?

Or is that the, wait, what? It's the same kind of thing. You're asking people to keep in their head the facts that you explained three chapters ago. And it's easy for you because you learned it as the author. I have in the book that I just turned in, there's a moment where I'm like, as we learned and forgot in chapter three, there's nobody remembers.

How do the conversations with the experts often go and has it changed over the like 20 so years that you've been writing? Because, you know, sometimes I'll try to interview someone and they'll go right over my head. And I'm like, no, no, no, bring it down. And some of them can and some of them can't. And I also feel like the relationship with some of the experts has changed over time as NSF keeps telling all the scientists that we are also communicators. And they feel like, but they're not. What is that like? You get a sense of this in the first five minutes, I think, of a conversation by phone or on Zoom, of whether

there a person's going to really be able to do that. And sometimes I just, in my head, stop the, you know, I just asked one or two more token questions and I thank the person and says, oh, it never happened. You know, I will say, can we back up and can you explain whatever it is? And then the explanation is different, but also incomprehensible for me. So there isn't much to be done there. And that's why I just, when I find someone who actually enjoys explaining things in an accessible way, I just want to, you know, I can't kiss them because we are on the phone, but I'm just like, okay, you're now going to be my guy for induced pluripotent stem cells. I'm going to be pestering you on and off for the next six months and not paying you for that. I'll send you a book.

But has it changed? No, I think that's always been there. I mean, I once was assigned to do a story. wanted to go and you know those planes that fly into hurricanes. I had this idea that'd be a fun thing to do. And there was a hurricane hunter plane that was going into a certain kind of storm, not in fact a hurricane. I'm like, okay, I'm going to do that. And there was this meteorologist on board. And it was almost like a form of hostility. He would not explain things in a way that anybody who's not a meteorologist could understand. And I kept trying to, well, let's let's pretend I'm a sixth grader at a somebody's barbecue party and just talk to me like that. And he wouldn't.

And so we got down. It was just in Monterey. We landed and I called my editor and just said, forget it. You know, maybe you can pay my expenses, which aren't a lot from here to Monterey. And we're done because nothing can't do it. What a bummer. Yeah, I know. I love you or expecting someone to be a tutor approach.

I always have trouble figuring out how much research I should do before I reach out to someone. And I think that's because early on I asked for an interview and they said, well, tell me what you want to ask me about. And I sent them my questions and they said, nope, these are not the most interesting things that I do. I will not be interviewed by you. And they like, shut me down. And I was like, oh, and I was hoping you'd help me understand this stuff. But okay. And so I also feel like some people I talk to, it's almost like they don't respect the job of a Popsai author.

Like NSF keeps telling everyone, you do these broader impact, scientists can communicate. And I feel like a lot of scientists I've talked to now feel like, oh, if you're a scientist, you also can do science communication. just as easily, like, you learn that along the way. But it's a very different kind of writing. And so I feel like I encounter people who are very hostile. They don't feel like I've done enough. And then also people who are like, well, I could do what you do. I think to go back to your previous question,

not that there's anything wrong with the current question. To go back to your previous question, one thing that has changed for me over 20 years is that this is a wonderful thing when it happens. If I write to someone that I've never met and I say, hey, you know, I saw that you're working on such and such. I'm working on a book and I always have a little bio at the bottom of my email and when someone writes back and says, oh, I've read one of your books or I'm familiar with what you do. Sure, happy to talk.

I'd love to talk. I know that that's going to go well because they know the kind of weirdo that I am and the level at which I'm writing and their enthusiasm suggests this is going to be just what I need. Another thing that's changed is a lot of times when you reach out by email, you just don't get a reply. And I don't know if that's one of those people who hates science communicators or it's somebody who doesn't check their email or it's not a useful. I don't know what it is, but there's a lot more of just never hearing back through whether it's LinkedIn or a university email address. I think it's easier now for people to feel okay ignoring you because no one, eh, who checks their email? Nobody checks their email anymore. You know, you've got to text me.

Well, I don't have your number. So that's different. There's a gentleman in my department who I often go to with really hardcore questions about like general relativity and his attitude is you're wasting your time. There's no way you could ever explain these topics to the general public. And then he gives me a really excellent explanation, which I rely on for the podcast. And he keeps doing it. So he's quite grumpy about it sometimes, but he's also excellent at it.

And it seems to me that there's this sort of conflict in a lot of scientists. They feel like, I just want to be left alone to do my science, but they also feel like, hey, the public should support us, and this is important. And I think it's vital that people do the kind of work you do, because not every scientist can be out there explaining it to sixth graders. And I'm wondering, like, if you feel sort of any hostility from scientists or any sort of, like, you know, weirdness that you're telling their story instead of them, what do you feel like is your relationship with the science community there?

I don't feel hostility from the people who respond to me. me and agree to talk. I think that usually goes well. There was a woman who on Amazon was very put off by Gulp, which is adventures on the elementary canal. It's, you know, the tube between nose and asshole and all the weird things that go on in there. And she was very, very angry that I hadn't mentioned the mucus layer in the stomach. Basically, her feeling was that people like me are stealing science, making money off of it, cheapening it, dumbing it down. I looked her up on my professor, and she had, it was very mixed. There were people who were like, she's a really great professor, and I learned a lot. And then there are people like, she's such a bitch. I hate her.

I do not deserve that D. These are people who aren't reaching out to me. They're obviously talking for the most part behind my back. I'm sure that that's out there. I don't get a lot of it directed at me through email or, you know, I don't read my Amazon reviews anymore, and as I hope that you don't either. No. There was a reviewer who said the same kind of thing that making science accessible, I was disrespecting it, or, you know, that kind of reaction exists out there for sure, for sure. Probably far more people than I want to believe feel that way about me, but they're nice

enough to keep it to themselves. I bet that's the minority opinion. But let's take a break, and then when we come back, we will talk about animals getting in trouble. Get fired up, y'all. Season two of Good Game with Sarah Spain is underway. We just welcomed one of my favorite people and an incomparable soccer icon, Megan Rapino, to the show. And we had a blast. We talked about her recent 40th birthday celebrations, co-hosting.

a podcast with her fiance Sue Bird, watching former teammates retire and more. Never a dull moment with Pino. Take a listen. What do you miss the most about being a pro athlete? The final. The final. And the locker room. I really, really, like, you just,

you can't replicate, you can't get back. Showing up to locker room every morning just to shit talk. We've got more incredible guests like the legendary Candice Parker and college superstar AZ Fudd. I mean, seriously, y'all. The guest list is absolutely stacked for season two.

And, you know, we're always going to keep you up to speed on all the news and happenings around the women's sports world as well. So make sure you listen to Good Game with Sarah Spain on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the Psychology Podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about exploring human potential. I was going to schools to try to teach kids these skills.

And I get eye rolling from teachers or I get students who would be like, it's easier to punch someone in the face. When you think about emotion regulation, like, you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy, which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome as a result of it, if it's going to be beneficial to you. Because it's easy to say like, go you go blank yourself, right? It's easy. It's easy to just drink the extra beer. It's easy to ignore, to suppress, seeing a colleague who's bothering you and just like walk the other way. Avoidance is easier. Ignoring is easier. Denial is easier. Drinking is easier. Yelling, screaming is easy. Complex problem solving, meditating, you know, takes effort.

Listen to the psychology podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Smokey the bear. Then you know why Smokey tells you when he sees you passing through. Remember, please be careful. least that you can do. It's what you desire. Don't play with matches. Don't play with fire.

After 80 years of learning his wildfire prevention tips, Smokey Bear lives within us all. Learn more at smokybear.com. And remember, Only you can prevent wildfires. Brought to you by the USDA Forest Service, your state forester, and the ad council.

Have you ever wished for a change but weren't sure how to make it? Maybe you felt stuck in a job, a place, or even a relationship. I'm Emily Tish Sussman, and on-shee pivots, I dive into the inspiring pivots of women who have taken big leaps in their lives and careers. I'm Gretchen Whitmer, Jody Sweeten, Monica Patton, Elaine Welteroff. I'm Jessica Voss.

And that's when I was like, I got to go. I don't know how, but that kicked off the pivot of how to make the transition. Learn how to get comfortable pivoting because your life is going to be full of them. Every episode gets real about the why behind these changes and gives you the inspiration and maybe the push to make your next pivot. Listen to these women and more on She Pivotts, now on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. I would love for you to share your breakdown on pivoting. We feel sometimes like we're leaving a part of us behind when we enter a new space, but we're just building.

On a recent episode of Culture Raises Us, I was joined by Volisha Butterfield, Media Founder, Political Strategist, and Tech Powerhouse for a powerful conversation. on storytelling, impact, and the intersections of culture and leadership. I am a free black woman who worked really hard to be able to say that. I'd love for you to break down. Why was so important for you to do C? You can't win as something you didn't create. From the Obama White House to Google to the Grammys, Malicia's journey is a masterclass in shifting culture and using your voice to spark change. A very fake, capital-driven environment and society will have a lot of people tell half-truths.

I'm telling you, I'm on. the energy committee. Like, if the energy is not right, we're not doing it, whatever that it is. Listen to Culture raises us on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Daniel and I have this long-running debate about whether or not Virginia or California is better. And, oh, I guess you're probably going to fall on the California side. But I think Virginia is clearly better. But we were going to each ask a question about animal problems that are in our area.

And I have tons of trouble with deer. We have like 40 deer in our hayfields last night I counted, and they are also in the roads. And why don't they get out of the way when I'm driving towards them? So yeah, what's going on with the deer and how do we get them out of the roads? Yeah, the deer in the headlights phenomenon. When you think about animals not getting out of the way, an animal in the road sees a car coming at it and it perceives it as a predator, which makes sense. Like this thing is coming at me. I don't know. And so there's this thing, flight initiation distance, which is, how long can I

stay where I am? Maybe if I'm eating something delicious. How long can I stay here before I actually really need to get out of the way because I'm going to be hit or grabbed or eaten or whatever it is? But in general, the car hasn't been around that long, the automobile. So the evolution hasn't kind have incorporated, you know what, there's things going 60 miles per hour. So you need to like update your sense of how quickly do I need to run. How quickly do I need to get out of the way? So there's some confusion with that. I mean, pigeons are obviously really good at it. You can never hit a pigeon with your car. And I'm not saying that I try to do that. But the other thing going on is one of the ways that an animal can detect or a person for that man. The way we can tell how quickly something's

coming at us is looming like it's getting bigger and bigger. Like how quickly is it. getting bigger and bigger. That kind of tells us how quickly it's coming at us. And animals are not with cars again because they are very fast. Pedestrians too, you know, the faster the car, the harder it is to judge. You know, how quickly is it coming at us? Deer active, you know, it's dusk and night. And when what's coming at you is just two pinpoints of light. All you can see is these two pinpoints of light. It's very hard to see is that looming. Is it getting bigger? It just may look like two points of light, not changing. So you can imagine the deer looking at that, these two points of light, going,

huh, a couple points of light, huh, you know, boom. By the time they figure out that there's a car attached, it's too late. And that is really bad for deer, but also really bad for people. Because, you know, people often say, oh, what's the most danger? People ask me, what are these the most dangerous animal of all the animals that you wrote about, well, first of all, I would say, you know, bacteria or viruses, but they're not really animals. So deer in terms of the number of people, not because you hit the deer, but you swerved to not hit the deer and you hit a tree or you went off a cliff. So deer are very, very

dangerous in that way. The other thing that happens is a deer is running across the road in front of you and your eyes on that deer, and deer there's usually more than one. So you are looking at that deer, you hit the brakes and then what you end up hitting is the deer behind. that one that's also crossing at the same time. That exact thing happened to me as a teenager. Did you hit the second one? I hit the second one, yeah, exactly. Went through the windshield.

Yeah. I looked at it deep in the eyes and before it bounced off. Oh my gosh. Yeah, and it's terrifying. It's really dangerous when it's a tall animal like a moose or an elk because you're just hitting the legs and you're knocking the legs out from under and the whole body and the antlers come crashing down on the roof and the windshield. shield. So camels are a problem in the Middle East. A lot of broken necks. It's bad. It's bad stuff.

I was interested in the various ways that people have come up with to try to keep the deer off the road. Some of them were fairly hilarious. And I love that you introduced this topic with the woman who called into the radio show. Would you share that story with us? Yeah, Donna. Donna called I forget where this was a call in radio program. And this woman called in and said, I have a pet pee. why do they put deer crossing signs in these areas of high traffic? Why would you put it there? The guy's like there's a silence and goes, it sounds like you think that they're placing the signs.

It's like she didn't understand that you put the signs where the deer are crossing. You don't just choose where you're going to tell the deer to cross. the deer can't read the signs yeah exactly the tone of the DJs there's a mix of incredulity and kindness Donna it sounds as though I appreciate the kindness though

I feel like that's part of what made it such a charming funny story they put the sign right here it's like right before there's a curve and it's a terrible place to tell the deer to cross if only we could tell the deer what to do Well, these stories of like human animal interactions, human wildlife interactions, I think are really fascinating from like a public health point of view and a forest management point of view. And out here in the wonderful state of California, as of course, you know, we deal a lot with bears.

My family goes camping a lot. Recently we had this experience where we went camping. And of course, we had a bear bag. We made the mistake of leaving one can of seltzer in the backseat of the car. And there was a bear. And it came and it opened the car door and got the same. seltzer, crunched the seltzer, drank all of it, and didn't harm the car at all. It was incredible. Like, it used its snout to, like, open the door somehow. Anyway, bears are very, very smart.

And I often wonder, like, it must be very challenging to design bear-proof trash cans that are complex enough for bears to not be able to figure them out, but simple enough for humans to be able to figure that out. This is the problem. This is the problem. If you go, as I did, I was in Colorado, actually, not California for this chapter, but one point the researcher and I were walking down this alley where behind all the restaurants in downtown Aspen and these bareproof containers were either broken or not being used, partly because it's difficult.

It's like reading a Stephen Hawking book. It's like harder than one of those press while turning aspirin bottles. It was it required two hands. And you could imagine if you're some restaurant worker who's poorly paid, who's middle of a shift running out with a bag of garbage, you know, not bothering to lock it again. And also, one of the things that was being done well in an area near Aspen, not Aspen itself, was that they were holding educational talks for the people who worked in the kitchen.

The patrons and the restaurant owners have been educated, you know, okay, a fed bear is a dead bear. Like, this is what happens. The bears get used to being fed. They keep coming here. there's going to be a conflict, and then the bear will be killed. But the people who worked in the kitchen, some of them didn't speak English. They hadn't been told why it's important to lock this container. So they were doing outreach in Spanish in this community just so that people got it.

Like, oh, this is why we do it. And it's a nice thing to do for the bears. But, yeah, they're very smart. The guy that I spent time with had done a study on bears breaking into minivans in Yosemite. They would break in other cars, but for some, some reason it was so they all knew there's a certain minivan and he wasn't sure like i said is it the fault of the minivan maker are they not is there something about the doors that are easy to pop open he said it might be that but i think it's more that a minivan is a place with lots of children and lots of

spilled food and crumbs and soda and a lot of nice smells and the bears are like that's the place for me the same reason dogs like babies yeah yeah well you know i've been to aspen center for physics of course is there in Aspen and many times I've seen a genius theoretical physicist standing in front of those things and like unable to open it you know and it's like when you stand in a shower in a new hotel and you're like how you turn this thing on and what's hot and what's cold it's like a new puzzle every single time. Oh my God the number of times I called the front's like I'm standing here naked I can't take a shower because I'm too stupid to figure out your shower system. And the fancier the hotel, the more obscure the system is.

Oh, yes. And the less likely they already have coffee, which sucks. Give me a motel six with coffee. Probably bears could figure it out, though. They'd be happily taking showers. The bears could figure it out. The bears could figure it out. There was a guy from Colorado Fish and Wildlife or Fish and Game.

I forget what they call themselves there. But he was describing how, you know, up in the hills where there's a lot of delicious food for bears, natural and man-made. They got a lot of break-ins, and he was describing how he came to this one place where the bear had literally just pulled the door out of the frame, just like, you know, incredible Hulk style, pulled it up. But then carefully just set it aside and leaned it against the wall, not like threw it over the deck or knocked it down, just sort of carefully laid it aside. I just, I love that. I love bears. I love megafauna in general. I wish we had more megafauna still in North America, you know.

Like the giant sloths. Yeah, the giant sloths. Giant anything would be great. I once did a story on the Gippsland giant earthworm, which is this worm that is so, this size of a 45 record, it's big. And I was like, I'm going to interview this woman who studies the Gippsland giant earthworm. You're saying this is an earthworm like the size of a fire hose? Yeah.

Oh, my God. It is definitely at least that big. And you can hear them moving underground. So you go stomping around on the field and you hear this sort of gurgling sound as they move through their tunnels. And she was able to pinpoint where it was, dig with the shovel. And like we saw this glimpse of the giant earthworm like going away down the tunnel. Happily, she didn't cut it in half. But anyway, any giant thing.

But I was going to say, getting back to you, you were talking about how it had broken without, you know, to get the seltzer water, without causing damage. And there are bears that kind of get a reputation. And again, this was in Colorado. There was this one bear that was breaking into cabins and going in, and people would be like, you know what, he didn't touch anything. He just went to the fridge.

He took out the honey and the yogurt and the beer and shut the door and the left. And everything was fun. Help yourself, man. And because of that, no one wanted to call him in. And so there was this thought that maybe, you know, that these are the bears that. don't get killed by fish and wildlife, and that maybe over time will select for bears that are mellower and better mannered, and that maybe one day bears will just be like, you know, big raccoons,

you know, just kind of bumbling around, getting into the garbage. Are they checking to see if someone is home first? I feel like I'd feel different if I came home and was like, oh, my yogurt is on the counter. A bear must have been here. Or if I was like there, well, it was eating my yogurt. That was much scarier. Yeah, yeah. They prefer to come in when no one's there. but sometimes they don't know. There are stories of a bear coming in, grabbing a chicken off the dining table while people are eating

or somebody like they're sitting at home and a bear comes through the door and they run and lock themselves in the bathroom. They are sometimes coming in when you're there. And when it's dangerous is often if the person has a dog and the dog is, you know, of course, freaked out and the dog's going after the bear and the bear is in freak out defensive mode.

And if the person tries to come between the dog, and the bear, and they can redirect the attack onto the person. So that's a bad situation. Well, what do you think more broadly about this interaction between humans and wildlife? A lot of people feel like, oh, we have to protect the humans. We should get rid of the bears. Like, this is why we hunted a lot of megafauna to extinction. But, you know, the bears were there first, right? And like in my neighborhood, people worry about their cats because there's coyotes in the neighborhood. And I'm like, well, you know, coyotes live here. We moved in and brought our cats. People are funny about, oh, it's so cruel to keep a cat inside.

I've had cats as indoor cats. They're fine with it. You're just projecting on your cat. Your cat doesn't give a shit. It wants food and a lap. And the birds are happy if your cat stays inside a little. Exactly. The birds are happier, yeah.

So speaking of the cats, I've talked to a couple different people who do animal control work, and nobody wants to see someone out there like shooting the feral cats because we all like have warm and fuzzy feelings about the cats, even though they're killing the birds, they're killing the rodents. And so there are a lot of popular programs where the cats are captured, spayed are neutered, and then released again, where they're still, of course, being ecological menaces, but you hope that the numbers don't grow. And it seems like they were doing something similar with the monkeys that you studied in one of the chapters. Can you tell us about the monkeys and also what it was like to get robbed by a monkey? Sure, but I did want to, on the topic of cats first here, the program in New Zealand is really interesting.

Predator-Free New Zealand 2030, which is an attempt to rid the island of stotes, rats. What's a stout? It's like a weasel, a long, tubular, fierce, vicious thing. But cute. But cute. Possums, that's the other one. So they're non-native species. And, you know, New Zealand has flightless birds.

So that's like easy pickens if you're a stote. And the possums, you know, strip the trees and do other things. So there's this desire in order to preserve the native species. There's a program by using poisons to eliminate predators, but there are also, and again, these were brought in, the cats were not native, and there's a ton of feral cats in New Zealand. They brought them in thinking they could get rid of the rats, I think it was, anyway. If you're going to do predator-free New Zealand, you rationally should also be getting rid of the feral cats, but that is a flashpoint, and you can't do that.

So that's, yeah, interesting. Yeah, culture. It's so interesting how, you know, human emotions sort of make all of this much more complicated. Like, I think the macaques, they're in a culture where you're not supposed to kill animals. And so... Well, the macaques, yeah. I mean, in India, not just macaques, but elephants as well. Some of the nuisance, quote, nuisance animals are also representations of gods.

Hanuman is the monkey gods. So if you go to a Hanuman temple in India, there's monkeys, everywhere and people are, on the one hand, fed up with macaques because they break into houses and they steal things and they're very aggressive. But on the other hand, people are feeding them. It's like making an offering. So they hang around urban areas and temples and are fed at the same time they are despised and the poor people or the animal control types are completely fed up. It's an intractable problem because people are encouraging them. Also, there's not reliable garbage pickup. I was in Delhi, but also in other cities. So there's a lot of food for

them. And they're very smart, you know, like bears. I was staying at this hotel in Jaipur and around dusk. And you look at the rooftops and all of a sudden the monkeys are coming out. And the monkeys, you know, we were in a restaurant and this monkey just all of a sudden is on the rafters and is dropping down onto tables. And the waiters have, you know, a stick handy to just threaten the monkey and get to leave. They're everywhere. It's hard to get approval for any kind of control

because of the religious overtones of a monkey. To hire monkey catchers. I mean, what's done is to capture them and take them to this big area south in the southern part of Delhi. Used to be a quarry,

this big chunk of land. And so they're captured and brought there. But it's very hard to get somebody to take the job of monkey catcher because you're harassing a monkey. And that's, people are not comfortable with that. They're not comfortable with killing them.

They're not. even comfortable with birth control efforts which have been going on just because it's a god I mean it's not literally a god but it's too close for comfort and so it's a big problem yeah so what's going on in this region where it's all just the monkeys like the monkeys are in charge it's like some monkey kingdom I went there I got in there it is it's monkey central they feed them it's concentrated in certain areas it's an old quarry but it is all overgrown it's actually a lovely place to be a monkey it's just a wild space but there are villages close by and the monkeys are really good at climbing right up over the wall and harassing people

in the village. There was a guy there was like, you cannot even eat a roti. The monkey will always come and take it. They're not being kept in very well. I think there's a lot of things that we do when it comes to animal control that makes us feel good, but isn't actually changing anything. I think when you move animals from one place to another, so you know, you mentioned that the monkeys get out. I think a lot of times you move an animal and they've spent their whole life getting used to area. They know where the food is, and now you've dropped them as an adult into an area they don't know. And it seems like in the book you discovered that that's a problem. Well, it may be effective for the town from which you removed them, but you've now put them in an area where they're going

to figure out where, say, it's a bear, where's the closest town that has a restaurant or that has houses with cat food or what, you know, just attractants, as they say. And they're going to start doing the same thing there. So you've just kind of moved the problem. That's an issue for the control agency or the wildlife folks who decided to do the relocation if that bear gets into any kind of situation where it's becoming aggressive and it hurts or kills somebody in that new town now you the wildlife agency that moved to the bear that translocated the bear now you are liable now so you're open to a lawsuit and that has happened there have been some big payouts in situations where that bear that they know has got

habituated to food. They know that's a high-risk bear and they've moved it and something happened. So that's also a consideration. It works a little better in a younger bear that hasn't gotten set in its ways, but it's very expensive also to do. And the senses among some of the wildlife control people that it's done in cases where there's a lot of publicity. In other words, you're not going to kill that bear because you're going to get a lot of heat and anger from the public. So it looks good to do that, but it doesn't always work in terms of what the bear's behavior is in the new place. And it's also not necessarily a nice thing to do. As you mentioned, this is an animal that knows food sources, knows the terrain in the place that it is. So you're

now taking it and putting it somewhere else. There were researchers that looked at the survival of, it was either raccoons or squirrels that had been trans. I think it was squirrels that had been translocated, and very few of them survived. They put radio collars on them. They'd find like a piece of radio collar, you know, it's like, all that remains of squirrel 67. We're probably torn apart by the local squirrel gangs, right? I'm not happy to have some new person come eating their nuts. Exactly. I mean, I know we feel that way whenever Virginians moved to California, we're like, hey, you know.

That's why I left. That's why I left. Stop eating my nuts. Exactly. All right, well, let's take a break. And when we get back, we're going to ask Mary about some of the most extreme situations that her work has put her in. Get fired up, y'all. Season two of Good Game with Sarah Spain is underway.

We just welcomed one of my favorite people and an incomparable soccer icon, Megan Rapino to the show, and we had a blast. We talked about her recent 40th birthday celebrations, co-hosting a podcast with her fiancé Sue Bird, watching former teammates retire and more. Never a dull moment with Pino. Take a listen.

What do you miss the most about being a pro athlete? The final. The final. And the locker room. I really, really, like, you just, you can't replicate. You can't get back. Showing up to locker room every morning just to shit talk. We've got more incredible guests like the legendary Candace Parker and college superstar AZ Fudd.

I mean, seriously, y'all. The guest list is absolutely stacked for season two. And, you know, we're always going to keep you up to speak. on all the news and happenings around the women's sports world as well. So make sure you listen to Good Game with Sarah Spain on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the Psychology Podcast.

Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about exploring human potential. I was going to schools to try to teach kids these skills, and I get eye rolling from teachers or I get students who would be like, it's easier to punch someone in the face. When you think about emotion regulation, like, you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome as a result of it

if it's going to be beneficial to you. Because it's easy to say like, go you go blank yourself, right? It's easy. It's easy to just drink the extra beer. It's easy to ignore, to suppress, seeing a colleague who's bothering you and just like walk the other way. Avoidance is easier.

Ignoring is easier. Denials is easier. drinking is easier yelling screaming is easy complex problem solving meditating you know takes effort listen to the psychology podcast on the iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts smoky the bear then you know why smoky tells you when he sees you passing through remember please be careful it's the least that you can do After 80 years of learning his wildfire prevention tips, Smokey Bear lives within us all.

Learn more at smokybear.com, and remember, Only you can prevent wildfires. Brought to you by the USDA Force Service, your state forester and the ad council. Have you ever wished for a change but weren't sure how to make it? Maybe you felt stuck in a job, a place, or even a relationship. I'm Emily Tish Sussman, and on she pivots, I dive into the inspiring pivots of women who have taken big leaps

in their lives and careers. I'm Gretchen Whitmer, Jody Sweeten. Monica Patton. Elaine Welteroff. I'm Jessica Voss. And that's when I was like, I got to go. I don't know how, but that kicked off the pivot of how to make the transition. Learn how to get comfortable pivoting because your life is going to be full of them.

Every episode gets real about the why behind these changes and gives you the inspiration and maybe the push to make your next pivot. Listen to these women and more on She Pivots, now on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. I would love for you to share your breakdown on pivoting. We feel sometimes like we're leaving a part of us behind when we enter a new space, but we're just building. On a recent episode of Culture Raises Us, I was joined by Volisha Butterfield,

media founder, political strategist, and Tech Powerhouse for a powerful conversation on storytelling, impact, and the intersections of culture and leadership. I am a free black woman who worked really hard to be able to say that. I'd love for you to break down why it was so important for you to do C. You can't win as something you didn't create. From the Obama White House to Google to the Grammys, Malicia's journey is a masterclass in shifting culture and using your voice to spark change. A very fake, capital-driven environment and society will have a lot of people tell half-truths.

I'm telling you, I'm on the energy committee. Like, if the energy is not right, we're not doing it, whatever that it is. Listen to Culture raises us on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, Mary, what is the most embarrassing situation you've ever been in as part of your book research? That's an easy one. That one, not surprisingly, was for bonk. The subtitle of that book is the curious coupling of science and sex. So that is a book about the delightful awkwardness of taking sex, arousal, orgasm, all of that,

all the physiological components of it and putting it in a laboratory setting with, you know, a couple doing things and then somebody in a white coat taking notes. So I wanted to get at that central awkwardness of what I just described. And I found this researcher in London who's doing something with. four-dimensional ultrasound, so 3D movies basically, in ultrasound, which is something that surgeons could use, say, if you were working on a cleft lip and you wanted to get a sense of how that lip is moving before you did the surgery. And he had, I think it was a Peyroni study that he had done with an erecting penis and looking at before surgery, what am I dealing with?

It was a diagnostic tool. And he wanted to do one that was actually a penis and a vagina interacting. And I said, well, I would like to be there when you do that to observe. And he wrote back, well, if your organization can provide some volunteers, then I'd be happy to do that. So my organization asked its husband. And my husband is such a good sport. You know, he had said, oh, sex research, sign me up. You know, he was like, well, I don't know, whatever. I really put the emphasis on, let's go to London, you know, I'll pay for a nice hotel, and we'll, you know, we'll go to see some plays. I think Jeremy Irons is in something right now, and it'll be really fun, and we have to, you know, have sex in front of a guy. I look back now on that, and I think, how did that even?

I guess I'm just really committed to getting good material. Material that would be fun to write up, fun for the reader. I knew that that was going to be really fun to write and also really not fun to do. So you went through with it? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I did. Yeah. And your marriage survived.

It's a very fun scene. It's only a couple pages. It's only a couple pages. It was funny because my editor goes, Mary, I don't, you know, she has a thing about people need to take you seriously as a science writer. You know, this is science writing. It's people to respect you. And so she was like, I don't know if this. scene should really be in here. And then my agent read it and goes, Mary, you need more detail in this scene.

So I'm like, I think I hit it just about right. We're going to leave that as is. I think that's why we take you seriously, because it's like, she is actually willing to, like, get involved in this stuff and be a data point in a study. Yeah. Yeah. Physics is so much less embarrassing and relieved. How about scary?

Have you ever signed up for something, thought this is a great idea? and then when you were in the moment thought this was a bad idea? There were things that I did and that he didn't really think about it until later, that it was probably a stupid thing to do. For example, in the leopard chapter in the book, this is a section of the Middle Himalayas where leopards actually do prey on people, children, old people, easy targets. And as we'd come into this area,

the researcher had sort of done this death tour of, see this bus stop, an old gentleman was taken waiting, sitting there, See this field? So it was like this tour of mallings. And so I, at one point, it was a nice evening and I said, I'm going to go out for a walk and nobody wanted to come with me. So I went out for a walk and then the sun went down more quickly than I thought. And that's the hour at which all these attacks happened. And I was walking back thinking, this is really stupid of me. And it was spooky because of what I knew as I was doing it, but then sort of looking back, just like that was really stupid of me. But not terrifying. I sometimes put myself in a situation that my husband will go, like, you did what? I did the story before it's on, this was years ago, and I wrote for salon.com, and I did a story about bashful bladder, parioresis, which is a condition, you know, men at the urinal, they can't start to pee. And it can be extreme. There are people who bring a self-cathorization kit when they travel, just because they just, if anybody's close, they can't. I don't think who's,

is a woman problem much, but anyway, the way that these folks get help is similar to if you're afraid of spiders, you know, it's a progressive, the spiders closer, it's in the room, and eventually it's, you know, two inches away. So there's a treatment that is where you're somebody's pee buddy, where, you know, they drink a lot of water, and then you're like out in the living room and they're like, okay, I'm going to pee now, I'm in the bathroom. You're like, okay, I'm in the living room. And then you get sort of closer to them to the point where you're, or I was, out the bathroom door and I'm like outside the bathroom door and the guy's like okay I'm doing it and I'm peeing so anyway I was like wow I really helped this guy and this is great and it's an interesting story and my husband's like where were you this afternoon so rando guy's house who's peeing and I'm standing outside the door and he's like did you know this person no I didn't know you know there's a Google group whatever it was back then where I just posted something and somebody said said, yes, you can help me and be my pee buddy.

So I'm just always like, ah, that sounds great. That'll be really interesting. Is there data to suggest that this sort of like protocol works in the long term? Yeah, it does. I forget the term in psychology for phobias. You start small. He just kind of incrementally increase somebody's exposure. And so like I'm the spider.

He wrote to me later and he said he was very grateful. He said, you know, I have a girlfriend now. I'm able to go to the bathroom off the bedroom and pee in the middle of the night. I could never do that before. And I'm like, good. Oh, yay. I know. Imagine having Mary Roach be your like pee pal who got you over your phobia.

That's like a great story at the bar. Yeah, that was something good that came from my writing. Yay. Or my research anyway. Well, you mentioned that you sometimes have people who don't respond to interview requests. I wonder if there's ever an interview you really, really wanted that you pushed for, that you were persistent in going after until you got it. How do you convince somebody to talk to you if they're not sure about it?

Oh, yeah. First of all, I just feel that enthusiasm helps a lot. And sometimes enthusiasm takes the form of sending a second and even a third email. It doesn't always work, but people respond, I think, to, you know, if you're that curious and interested and enthusiastic about their research, and that is appealing for people. And I think people like to talk about their work. You know, maybe their family doesn't want to hear about it anymore. And to have somebody say, I'm super interested in what you do.

And I want to see and observe and learn about it. I think that that goes a long way. Also, I think people don't like to say no three times. So, you know, persistence pays off also. You can't just wear them down to a stub. Just keep at them. It doesn't always work. I mean, there's definitely people who, and it's often something.

But the nature of their work, they don't want. any attention in the media, they don't want to, and I think more so now with, you know, with social media, and if just one person twists what they do and gets on social media and everybody piles on, I totally understand why that's a scary thing and why you want to avoid that. So that's become harder for me. Any lab work is done with animals, that's very hard to get in. I had a situation with my last book where the university said no. They didn't really say why. They just said no.

And then the guy who runs the lab said, it's my lab. You're going to come to my office and we're going to talk. And then we're going to walk across the hall. And we're not going to go to the animal lab. But yes, you can come and they can't tell me what to do. But, you know, he was familiar with my work and that was he's been there long enough that he didn't give it with the people in the public. affairs office had to say, but often there's reasons why people are wary about an outsider coming in

and writing about what they're doing. And I completely understand that. I have friends who are climate science researchers, and they're very concerned about how they're portrayed. Yeah. You know, the nuances are crucial in that field. Yeah. The other thing that I do is I will tell them, you can fact check this to make sure I have it right. And I will never send the material to the person, but I will get on the phone and read it. And I'll say, stop me if something's wrong. And that works really well. If you give it to them, they'll go in and rewrite it. I've made that mistake. You did. No. So that doesn't happen. But just reading it to people, I'm always very nervous to do that. That's always a scary thing to do. But when it goes well and somebody

actually likes the way you've portrayed their work and them, that's very gratifying. That's a good day. It's terrifying to write about somebody else's expertise and then send it to them for review and you're like waiting to hear back. Yeah. I know that feeling. Yeah. Yeah. That's why I do it on the phone. Yeah.

That's smarter. Yeah. That's I think what I'll do in the future. So we are just about out of time and I want to respect your time. Are you allowed to tell us what your next book is going to be about or is that top secret until it comes out? Oh, no. I can tell you it's called replaceable you. So it's all kinds of bits and pieces of the human.

body and replacement elements. Some of it's historical, some of its current, you know, it's my usual Mary Roach wandering dingbat approach. I cannot wait. Is it coming out soon? September. So almost a year. The lead time is quite long these days for books. Yeah. So it's painful submitting a manuscript and waiting a whole year. I know and I have the sense that everything is out of date. You know, I've already done one round of, has anything changed, surprisingly things change slowly. You know, you have this sense that there are new discoveries every month. And it's like, well, yeah, there's probably not going to happen for another five to ten years. So it's okay, but it does feel like it's hard to be up to date in anything when you're turning it in. I wouldn't write about AI right now because

I feel like that year would be a huge. Your book would be out of date the second it hit the shelves. Yeah, exactly. How does anybody write about AI? I don't know. All right. Well, thank you so much, Mary, this was so much fun. I will be a little bit more careful with the deer. And Daniel, you need to not travel with seltzer water anymore. Was it even flavored seltzer water? It was, yes, watermelon. Are you sure it wasn't stuff that the kids had, like,

ground into the rug beforehand? Seltzer what, why would they go for that? I think the seltzer water was a red herring. Yeah, I think so. It could be. Could be. All right. Well, be more careful, Daniel.

Thanks, you guys. That was so much fun. Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by IHeartRadio. We would love to hear from you. We really would. We want to know what questions you have about this extraordinary universe. We want to know your thoughts on recent shows, suggestions for future shows. If you contact us, we will get back to you.

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Smokey the bar. Then you know why Smokey tells you when he sees you passing through. Remember, please be careful. It's the least that you can do. What you desire, don't play with matches, don't play with fire, yeah. After 80 years of learning his wildfire prevention tips, smoky bear lives within us all. Learn more at smokybear.com, and remember, only you can prevent wildfires. Brought to you by the USDA Forest Service, your state forester and the ad council.

I was diagnosed with cancer on Friday, and cancer-free the next Friday. No chemo, no radiation, none of that. On a recent episode of Culture Raises Us podcast, I sat down with Warren Campbell, Grammy-winning producer, pastor, and music executive to talk about the beats, the business, and the legacy behind some of the biggest names in gospel, R&B, and hip-hop. Professionally, I started at Deathwell Records. From Mary Mary to Jennifer Hudson, we get into the soul of the music and the purpose that drives it. Listen to Culture raises us on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

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New episodes of bananas drop every Tuesday in the exactly right network. Listen to bananas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Why are TSA rules so confusing? I'm Mani. I'm Noah. This is Devin. And we're best friends and journalists with a new podcast called No Such Thing, where we get to the bottom of questions like that.

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