The Curious Science of Humans at War By Mary Roach

On March 20, 1959, Mary Roach was born. She was raised in Etna, New Hampshire.But she is now living in Oakland, California. Some of her credentials were herdegree in psychology from Wesleyan, her public relations work, and being acolumnist. Working for the Zoological Society of San Francisco, SFZS, helpedRoach start her career. During her off time from SFZS, she wrote freelancepapers for the San Francisco Chronicle’s Sunday Magazine. Now, Mary Roach is anauthor that publishes topics involving popular science. She has written 5 booksand co-authored a few more.

All her books have received many awards.

For example, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Humankind Cadavers, Entertainment Weekly’s BestBooks of 2003 and the Amazon.com Editor’s Choice award in 2003. In Grunt: TheCurious Science of Humans at War, she writes about military, science, andtechnology. Instead of focusing on the usual aspects of war like guns, weapons, and tactics, she focuses more on soldiers' challenges: bacteria, heat, shock, medical maggots and more.In the book, Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War, Mary Roach focuses onsaving lives and improving the quality of life for soldiers.

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In the first fewchapters Roach dives into protecting soldiers during battle. She discusses flameresistant uniforms, liquid repellant clothes, and finding the right color forcamouflage. Then she discusses military medical science. She talks to eliteresearchers and doctors who are developing new medicines, innovative trainingmethods, and innovative technology. For example, she talks about medical maggotsand the war on heat. Finally, she performs finds some military studies. Onestudy tried to make shark repellent and the other their to weaponize stink bombs.

I personally found the topics very interesting, but some parts had too muchdetail and did not touch on important matters. Roach sheds light on problemsmost people have not considered. Like, Why zippers could be problematic forsnipers? Why injuries to the foot and heel are life-changing and hard to heal?How medical maggots help heal soldiers? All these topics seem pretty obscure yetwere pretty interesting. I also liked that Roach was concerned with aspects ofwar that saved rather than killed. Even though she covered many interestingtopics, she underplayed the devastating nature of PTSD and intentionally dodgedthe darker question of why humans have an unending desire for war. I assume thereason she talks about maggots or diarrhea instead of PTSD or our desire for waris that maggots are tangible and easily tested.

Also, Roach discussed the use ofmedical maggots and genital reconstruction. These were weird topics and I feltit had too much detail. Doctor Reed would use medical maggots to clean oursoldier's wound. The maggots would debride the patient which means to removeforeign tissue from wounds. She also writes about soldiers who lost theirgenitals and needed phalloplasty. She describes phalloplasty as quote 'a penisreconstruction made from cannoli roll of their own forearm skin implanted withsaline inflated rods.' I was a bit grossed out by these stories. Another aspectwas the unorganized nature of the book. When I read Grunt it seemed like a bunchof mini books that were incoherently put together as it jumped from one topic toanother. As a result of this style, some chapters' of Grunt were more boringthan others. The chapters on stink bombs and stress inoculation for combatdoctors were boring.Roach attempts to write about war and the military.

However, she does not focuson military strategy, combat, and weapons. Instead, she focuses on the scienceto keep soldiers alive and healthy during battle. In the first chapter, Roachvisits Natick labs. Margaret Auerbach gives the tour of the Ouellette thermaltest facility. Roach is various materials and how burning affects each one. Forinstance, Polyester melts and sticks to the skin while the Nomex gives wearersup to 5 seconds before it catches fire. This is one example of how could sciencekeep more solid during battle. Another example is the use of the WAIMan, theWarrior Injury Assessment Manikin, which helps scientists study the most commoninjuries, deck-slams. When an IED detonates it comes from the bottom leading tomuch lower-body injury.

The WAIMan is so realistic it can determine whichtendons would be injured in a human. This technology can help the military tofind solutions to stop the IED detonation from being so devastating. This bookdefinitely increased my knowledge of how science could be used to save lives, but I did not learn about weapons, combat and more. I learned about medicalmaggots, penis transplants, diarrhea hugely impacting the military, and muchmore.Overall I enjoyed reading Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War By Mary Roach. I found the book to be interesting and informative despite some of thegraphic stories in the book.

I also liked how on how to saves lives in warrather than kill. Additionally, I want to read more books because I feel that Ican learn so much about the world. I feel like I would be a genius if I readevery day Now, I understand why most millionaires and billionaires read 30minutes every day. So, thank you for giving me this book report because itinspired me to read more books.