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

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

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: So, Mary, what is the most embarrassing situation you've ever
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: been in as part of your book research.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: That's an easy one. That one, not surprisingly was for Bonk.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: The subtitle of that book is The Curious Coupling of
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Science and Sex. So that is a book about the
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: delightful awkwardness of taking sex, arousal, orgasm, all of that,
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: all the physiological components of it, and putting it in
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: a laboratory setting with a couple doing things and then
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: somebody in a white coat taking notes. So I wanted
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: to get at that central awkwardness of what I just described.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: And I found this researcher in London who's doing something
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: with four dimensional ultrasounds, so three D movies basically in ultrasound.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: It was a diagnostic tool, and he wanted to do
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: one It was actually a penis and a vagina interacting,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: and I said, well, I would like to be there
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: when you do that to observe, and he wrote back, well,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: if your organization can provide some volunteers, then I'd be
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: happy to do that. So my organization asked its husband.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: If you want to hear the rest of that story,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: you'll have to listen to the rest of the podcast.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: So on today's episode of Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: we have the amazing Mary Roach on the show.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Hi.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: I'm Daniel, I'm a particle physicist, and I'm rarely embarrassed
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: by my own science.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: I am Kelly Wiener Smith, and my science has put
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: me in loads of embarrassing situations or maybe gross and embarrassing.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: All right, tell us quickly, what is the grossest thing
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: you've done, ever done for science?
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Oh? My gosh, all right, hands down. So I hate
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: the smell of fish. And I worked on a project
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: where we were trying to figure out what kind of
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: impact the coal powered power plants on Lake Erie we're
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: having on the local fish populations. These surveys happen every
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: twenty years or so, and the way you do it
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: is you essentially put a net into the water that
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: gets sucked into these power plants, and the water is
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: used to like cool things down, generate steam, blah blah blah.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: But the fish gets smushed against the net and as
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: the temperature of the water heats up, they all die.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: And so not all of them, but many of them.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Some of the power plants pull the nets out and
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: dump them into dump trucks which literally fill up halfway
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: or more with dead fish, and somebody has to go
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: in there, including in the middle of the summer, with
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: waiters on, and like subsample and identify what species of
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: fish are in here? How many are in here? Do
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: any of them look like they have fungle diseases and
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: would have died anyway? So I had to like become
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: very intimate with dump trucks full of dead fish under
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: a hot summer sun. And that is the most disgusting
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: thing I've done in my whole life. And I hate
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: the smell of fish. And I still don't eat fish.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: I just can't. I just can't.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: Sounds like a good job for your future robot research assistant.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Bringing the robot overlords on. That sounds great. I mean
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I learned a lot about fish identification that summer, but
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: I would maybe give up that knowledge if I could
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: have avoided that job.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: Well, sometimes doing science means getting all mucky and dirty,
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: and sometimes explaining science requires you to get in weird situations,
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: sometimes scary, sometimes embarrassing, sometimes just downright on, but.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Always when they're explained by Mary Roach, absolutely hilarious. So
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: let's just jump right into the interview. Let's not make
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: people wait. On today's show, We're incredibly lucky to have
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Mary Roach. Mary has been my absolute favorite popsey author
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: since I picked up Stiff as an undergrad in two
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: thousand and three. Stiff, Spook, Bonk, Packing from Mars, Gulp, Grunt,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: and Falls have all been New York Times bestsellers, and
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: I have been at the bookstore the day each of
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: them have been released so that I could get my
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: copy as soon as possible. So if you've ever wondered,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: how many lasers does it take to keep birds away
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: from the Vatican's flowers? Can you lower the national debt
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: by doing a more thorough job of chewing your food?
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: What's it like to go to the bathroom in space?
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: What happens at a body farm? Have scientists been able
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: to find the soul? Or any other equally weird questions.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: We've got the Gael for you. Her latest book is
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Fuzz When Nature Breaks the Law. Welcome to the.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: Show, Mary, Hey, thanks, thank you so much.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Guys, I'm so excited to have you on the show.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: I got to talk to you once about cosmonauts and
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: that was so much fun.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the cosmonauts love those guys.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're special to start off. So one of the
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: things that I love the most about your books is
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: that their topics that I didn't know I was dying
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: to learn about, and then as soon as I start reading,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: it turns out I was dying to learn about these topics.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: So let's get started with Fuzz. How did you pick
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: the topic for the book Fuzz? What was the thought
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: process there? And then in general, how do you pick
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: your book topics?
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: I always wish that I had the really succinct and
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: fantastic origin story for a book, you know, like that
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: there was something in my past that triggered this passion
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: that I had to spend two years down this rabbit
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: hole that had meant everything to me. Is that like that?
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: It's like I turned in a book and I would
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: like to do another one. That means I need an
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: idea for another book, and I don't have one. So
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: it's this process of just sometimes looking back at things
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: that I've covered before or something I heard about. In
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: this case, I had heard about lab up in Ashland, Oregon,
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: the National Wildlife Forensics Laboratory, and there's a woman there
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: who was an expert and published a paper on how
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: to tell real versus artificial or counterfeit tiger penis, which
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: is that this is used medicinally, sometimes for virility. And
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: she wrote this paper on how to tell real versus
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: counterfeit tiger penis. And that's the thing I get kind
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: of like that there's a scientist out there whose area
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: of expertise is detection of counterfeit tiger penis because of course,
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: you know, if somebody's smuggling this stuff in, you need
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: to prove that it is an endangered species in order
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: to arrest the person. So she needs to be able
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: to tell is it real or not? And happily, it
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: is almost always fake. It's usually cowerd deer penis, which
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: is a lot bigger than a tiger penis.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Anyway, does she do it by morphology or genetics?
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, by morphology it is so easy to tell. Like
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: a tiger piece you can't see because this is audio,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: but tiger pens is like it's a little tiny thing,
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: you know, what a dear penis is.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: But does either one actually have an effect on you know,
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: male performance? Does it really matter if it's counterfeit?
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: Like most of these things, I think, you know, maybe
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: kind of psychologically inspiring, but not the tigre penis that'd
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: be a little depressing. Yeah. I don't think there's any
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: peer reviewed controlled studies suggesting that any of these penises
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: have any solid effect on male performance, but regardless, people
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: smuggle them in and out of the country. I thought, oh, well,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: that's an interesting line of forensics. Forensics is interesting. Well,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: maybe I'll go up there and I'll talk to her,
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: which I did, and it was a wonderful morning. We
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: had dried animal penises laid out on the table and
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: I took some pictures, which is still on my phone,
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: and every now and then the grandkids are like, what's
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: on your phone. I'm like, no, no, no, no, there's a
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: lot of stuff on my phone we can't look at
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: because I'll have to explain. So I thought this is
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: going well. And then I went in to talk to
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: the director of the lab and I said, well, here's
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: what I love to do, or that I need to
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: do with the book. I have to be on the scene.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: And I imagined, you know, going in when they rated
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: a fake targer penis sweatshop in China, Like you know,
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: we'd go in and there'd be these four people and
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: they have to do this. They carve little barbs, because
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: felines have barbs on there. The penis little sticky eppie things,
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: sort of like get the rental car, you know, don't
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: back up on this spikes, so somebody has to carve those.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: And I thought we'd be hunched over carving these penises,
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: and we'll go and it'll be this incredible scene. I
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: had this whole scenario in my head, and then I'd
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: find other things to write about. And then the guy goes,
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: you know, legally, if it's an open case investigation, you
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: can't go along. You just can't. It's the law. No.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: So that just shut me down. And so I went
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: home and I was like, ah, damn.
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: But then I came across this book, The Criminal Prosecution
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: and Capital Punishment of Animals, which made me think, this
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: is a historical book, you know, about people used to
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: put animals on trial that had misbehaved.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: And I thought, what if the animals were the perpetrators?
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: And I say perpetrators in quotes. Obviously animals follow their instinct,
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: not laws. So what if we turn it around and
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: what if the animals are not the victims but the
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: perpetrators And then it turns out there's this whole area
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: of science called human wildlife conflict, with conferences and experts
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: and textbooks, And I had never heard of human wildlife conflict,
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: had no idea people devote their lives to figuring out
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: how to coexist with wild animals. So that's a very
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: long winded way of saying that's what happened. This is
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: how I got my idea for the book.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's a great story in general. I'd love
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: to hear more about how you got into science writing.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, how did you identify this sort of opening
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: in people's appetite that wasn't being completely served, or you know,
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: this itch that people wanted scratching in a certain way.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Well, again, not through a longstanding passion of mine. I
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: was one of those people who thought, in high school
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: and in college, oh, science is boring. I want to
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: be creative, which is so stupid. There's so much creativity
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: in science. It wasn't something that I had thought about
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: in college or even when I first graduated. I was
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: writing for the magazine of those Sunday paper here in
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: the Bay Area San Francisco Chronicle, just general stories, kind
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: of a little bit weird Mary Rochie but not science related.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: And my editor went to another publication called Hippocrates, which
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: was more focused on health and medicine, but they still
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: let me be Mary Roach and do kind of odd
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: stories and which was fun. And then from there an
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: editor from Discover magazine said, would you like to do
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: these weird Mary Roach stories for us? We are a
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: science magazine. I know you're not a science writer, but
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: why don't you do this? And I was like, okay,
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: So I did that and those were the most interesting
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: stories I'd done. And I loved writing about science. Since
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: I don't have a science background, they tend to be
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: not heavy science, you know, they're definitely science for people
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: who have mistakenly thought that they don't like science or
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: that they don't think science is interesting. I'm kind of
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: a gateway drug to science writing. I'm heavy on narrative
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: and fun and quirk. For me, the science and the
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: discovery of learning about these different fields is tremendous fun
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: and really gratifying. But am I really a science writer?
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: I guess so I don't know.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Of course you are.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: You look at real science writers and you know, they
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: just I can't understand their books.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: I think you are the kind of science writer where
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: people actually learn something because they make it to the
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: end of the book, which I think is huge and
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: like that's a real skill getting people to stay to
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: the end of the book. Thank you, thank you, Yes,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: you're welcome.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: That is my goal, even just to the end of
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: the chapter. Man. I am always fighting for that, I
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: really am. I'm always sort of policing my words and
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: my sentences going in has been it's been a couple
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: of pages, but since there's been anything really fun here
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: or surprising, like let's punch it up, they're going to
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: put the book down. I know they're going to put
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: the book down any second.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's an interesting activity when you're writing
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: to figure out how long has it been since the
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: funny thing that I said, and then trying to not
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: like overdo it. Yes, Zach and I had a problem
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: where a couple chapters we felt like we had gotten
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: corny and we were just overdoing it. But you know,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: you want to make sure they come at a regular pace.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: It's an art, and you guys do it so well,
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: some really tough stuff that you're asking people to come
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: along with you for and you managed to keep it fun,
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: and that is extraordinary. Thank you.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: I think we identified something really important, though, which is
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: that a lot of science writing is done in a
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: way that isn't actually that understandable, and yet a lot
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: of people still love to consume it, which has always
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: been something of a mystery to me. Like I read
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: Stephen Hawking and I don't understand a lot of his books,
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: and then people tell me like I loved A Brief
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: History of Time, and I'm like, really, did you actually
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: understand it? Did you just appreciate being in the presence
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: of what felt like a great mind. So I wonder
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: what people are going for sometimes with those books, if
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: they actually want to understand, if they just want to
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: hang out with Stephen Hawking.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: I do too. I don't have an advanced degree, but
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: I don't feel that I'm a moron, you know, I'll
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: pick up I don't know, Brian Green, maybe these are
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: really gifted, super intelligent, successful writers, but I'm like, I
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: don't know, or even like astronomy for people in a
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: hurry Neil deGrasse.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: Tyson astrophysics for people in hurry, yeah.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, I don't know. I'm not following along
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: I'm falling behind. Help me, I'm falling behind. And I
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: know these books are huge sellers, and I'm always curious
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: about that. How many people read it all the way
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: through and really understand it in the way the author
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: means it to be understood. I'd love to know that.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Can we get Ai to give us an answer on that.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: I actually threw out my copy of Hawkings's book because
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: I realized I only had it on my shelf so
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: that I could be the kind of person who looked
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: like they could read that book. But I gotten through
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: ten pages and I was like, this book being on
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: my shelf is a lie, and so I kindly got
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: rid of it.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: But I'm glad to hear that. I mean no disrespect
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: to mister Hawking.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Then, oh yeah, he's clearly way smarter than I will
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: ever be.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: Well, when you're writing your books, you dive deep into
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: a topic, You talk to the experts. You must at
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: some point pass over the threshold where you're something of
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: an expert in the topic yourself. How do you keep
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: hold of what the reader knows and what they don't understand,
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: and what this must feel like to them the first
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: time they're hearing about it. That's a real challenge something
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: you pull off amazingly in your book.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: That is always a concern that, over the course of
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: the two or three years that I work on a book,
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: have I actually learned enough that I'm assuming a level
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: of knowledge on the part of my reader that doesn't
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: exist because we are starting out at the same place,
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: the place of just curiosity and near total ignorance. And
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: then I'm moving along through speaking to researchers and experts,
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: I'm actually getting to the point where I'm understanding things
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: in a way that I now think, is it completely
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: unclear what I'm saying here? And that's a little stuff
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: I do have. My editor at Norton is she's a
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: poet and a novelist. She has no background in science.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: She's a good editor for me for that reason because
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: she will sometimes just put a note in the margin,
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: I Mary, you've lost me here, or I don't know
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: what you're talking about. That is helpful. I'm so excited
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: to talk to somebody who is an expert in their field,
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: and when their field is something you know, it's a
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: little complicated, like you know, stem cells say. I mean,
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: I'm so grateful to find somebody who can explain it
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: to me, who has a sense of what I don't know,
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: which is almost everything, and can then unpack it in
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: a way that I understand. So part of what my
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: job is is looking for those people who I'm going
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: to then force to be an unpaid tutor for days
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: on end and for endless emails. So I'm not entirely
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: clear on can you just explain that's so necessary to
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: keep in your head where people are at and whether
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: you've left them behind, because I get, let's be honest,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: left behind by a lot of science books.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: I have this theory that Agatha Christie would be a
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: great science writer because she seems to have this ability
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: of like obviously understanding what's actually happening in her story
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: and introducing the facts in a way that the reader
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: to discovers them and unravels the mystery in an organic way.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: It seems to be sort of the same challenge to
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: write a mystery novel and keep in mind what the
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: reader knows and doesn't know. I find that impossible. I
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: can't imagine writing a murder mystery.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is why I never read murder mysteries, or
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: even when I see knives out I'm like, wait, wait,
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: did she wait a minute? You know? And I'm always
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: making my husband stop, we stop, stop, wait a minute?
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: Is that? And he hates it. It's like, can't we
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: just keep going with it? We just keep this going? No,
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: but I don't know who's the guy? Is that the brother? Who?
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: Or is that the wait? What? This is the same
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: kind of thing you're asking people to keep in their head,
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: the facts that you explained three chapters ago. And it's
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: easy for you because you learned it as the author
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: I have in the book that I just turned in.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: There's a moment where I'm like, as we learned and
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: forgot in chapter three, it's nobody remembers.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: How did the conversations with the experts often go and
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: has it changed over the like twenty so years that
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: you've been writing, because you know, sometimes I'll try to
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: interview someone and they'll go right over my and I'm like, no, no, no,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: bring it down. And some of them can and some
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: of them can't. And I also feel like the relationship
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: with some of the experts has changed over time, as
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: NSF keeps telling all the scientists that we are also communicators,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: and they feel like but they're not what is that like?
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: You get a sense of this in the first five minutes.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: I think of a conversation by phone or on zoom
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: of whether a person's going to really be able to
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: do that, And sometimes I just in my head, stop
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: the ner. You know, I just asked one or two
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: more token questions, and I thank the person and says, no,
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: it never happened. You know. I will say, can we
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: back up and can you explain whatever it is? And
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: then the explanation is different but also incomprehensible for me.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: So there isn't much to be done there. And that's
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: why I just when I find someone who actually enjoys
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: explaining things in an accessible way, I just want to
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: You know, I can't kiss them because we are on
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: the phone, but I'm just like, Okay, you're now going
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: to be my guy for induced pluripotent stem cells. I'm
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: going to be pestering you on and off for the
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: next six months and not paying you for that. I'll
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: send you a book. But what hasn't changed. No, I
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: think that's always been there. I mean I once was
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: a sign to do a story I wanted to go.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: And you know those planes that fly into hurricanes. I
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: had this idea that'd be a fun thing to do.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: And there was a hurricane hunter plane that was going
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: into a certain kind of storm, not infect a hurricane.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, I'm going to do that. And there
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: was this meteorologist on board, and it was almost like
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: a form of hostility. He would not explain things in
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: a way that anybody who's not a meteorologist could understand.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: And I kept trying to well, I what if I'm
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: let's pretend I'm a sixth grader at a somebody's barbecue
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: party and just talk to me like that, and he wouldn't,
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: And so we got down. It was this in Monterey.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: We landed, and I called my editor and just said,
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: forget it. You know, maybe you can pay my expenses,
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: which aren't a lot from here to Monterey and we're
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: done because nothing can't do it.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: What a bummer. Yeah, I know, I love you are
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: expecting someone to be a tutor approach. I was in
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: trouble figuring out how much research I should do before
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: I reach out to someone. And I think that's because
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: early on I asked for an interview and they said, well,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: tell me what you want to ask me about and
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: I sent them my questions and they said, Nope, these
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: are not the most interesting things that I do. I
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: will not be interviewed by you, and they like shut
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: me down. And I was like, oh, I mean I
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: was hoping you'd help me understand this stuff, but okay.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: And so I also feel like some people I talk
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: to it's almost like they don't respect the job of
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: a popsie author, like NSF keeps telling every when you
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: do these broader impacts, scientists can communicate, And I feel
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: like a lot of scientists I've talked to now feel like, oh,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: if you're a scientist, you also can do science communication
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: just as easily, Like you learn that along the way.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: But it's a very different kind of writing. And so
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: I feel like I encounter people who are very hostile.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: They don't feel like I've done enough. And then also
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: people who are like, well I could do what you do.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: I think to go back to your previous question, but
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: not that there's anything wrong with the current question. To
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: go back to your previous question. One thing that has
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: changed for me over twenty years is that this is
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: a wonderful thing when it happens. If I write to
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: someone that I've never met, and I say, hey, you know,
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: I saw that you're working on such and such. I'm
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: working on a book, and I also at a little
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: bio at the bottom of my email. And when someone
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: writes back and says, oh, I've read one of your books,
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: or I'm familiar with what you do. Sure, happy to talk.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: I'd love to talk. I know that that's going to
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: go well because they know the kind of weirdo that
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: I am and the level at which I'm writing, and
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: their enthusiasm suggests this is going to be just what
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: I need. Another thing that's changed is a lot of
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: times when you reach out by email, you just don't
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: get a reply. And I don't know if that's one
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: of those people who hates science communicators, or it's somebody
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: who doesn't check their email, or it's not a useful
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know what it is. But there's a lot
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: more of just never hearing back through, whether it's LinkedIn
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: or a university email address. I think it's easier now
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: for people to feel okay ignoring you because no one
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: who checks their email. Nobody checks their email anymore. You know,
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: you got to text me, well, I don't have your number,
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: so that's different.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: There's a gentleman in my department who I often go
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: to with really hardcore questions about like general relativity, and
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: his attitude is, you're wasting your time. There's no way
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: you could ever explain these topics to the general public.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: And then he gives me a really excellent explanation, which
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: I rely on for the podcast, and he keeps doing it.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: So he's quite grumpy about it sometimes, but he's also
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: excellent at it. And it seems to me that there's
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: this sort of conflict in a lot of scientists. They
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: feel like, I just want to be left alone to
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: do my science, but they also feel like, hey, the
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: public should support us, and this is important, and I
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: think it's vital that people do the kind of work
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: you do, because not every scientist can be out there
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: explaining it to sixth graders. And I'm wondering, like, if
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: you feel sort of any hostility from scientists or any
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: sort of like, you know, weirdness that you're telling their
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: story instead of them, What do you feel like is
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: your relationship with the science community.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: There, I do feel hostility from the people who respond
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: to me and agree to talk. I think that usually
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: goes well. There was a woman who on Amazon was
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: very put off by Gulp, which is Adventures on the
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: Alimentary Canal. It's you know, the tube between nose and
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: apple and all the weird things that go on in there.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: And she was very, very angry that I hadn't mentioned
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: the mucus layer in the stomach. Basically, her feeling was
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: that people like me are stealing science, making money off
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: of it, cheapening it, dumbing it down. I looked her
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: up onpe my professor, and she had It was very mixed.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: There were people who are like, she's a really great
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: professor and I learned a lot, and then there are
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: people like, she's such a hater. I do not deserve that.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: D These are people who aren't reaching out to me.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: They're obviously talking about for the most part, behind my back.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: I'm sure that that's out there. I don't get a
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: lot of it directed at me through email or I
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: don't read my Amazon review reviews anymore, and as I
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: hope that you don't either. No, there was a reviewer
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: who said the same kind of thing that making science successible,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: I was disrespecting it, or you know, that kind of
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: reaction exists out there for sure. For sure, probably far
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: more people than I want to believe feel that way
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: about me, but they're nice enough to keep it to themselves.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: I bet that's the minority opinion. But let's take a
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: break and then when we come back, we will talk
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: about animals getting in troule. So Daniel and I have
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: this long running debate about whether or not Virginia or
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: California is better, and oh, irobably going to fall on
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: the California side, but I think Virginya is clearly better.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: But we were going to each ask a question about
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: animal problems that are in our area. And I have
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: tons of trouble with deer. We have like forty deer
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: in our hay fields last night I counted. And they
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: are also in the roads, yes, and why don't they
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: get out of the way what I'm driving towards them? So, yeah,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: what's going on with the deer and how do we
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: get them out of the roads.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the deer in the headlights phenomenon. When you think
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: about animals not getting out of the way, an animal
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: in the road sees a car coming at it and
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: it perceives it as a predator, which makes sense, Like
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: this thing is coming at me, I don't know. And
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: so there's this thing flight initiation distance, which is how
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: long can I stay where I am? Maybe if I'm
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: eating something delicious, how long can I stay here before
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: I actually really need to get out of the way
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: because I'm going to be hit or grabbed or eaten
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: or whatever it is. But in general, the car hasn't
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: been around that long the automobile, so the evolution hasn't
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: kind of incorporated you know what, There's things going sixty
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: miles per hour, so you need to update your sense
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: of how quickly do I need to run? How quickly
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: do I need to get out of the way. So
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: there's some confusion with that. I mean, pigeons are obviously
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: really good at it. You can never hit a pigeon
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: with your car, and I'm not saying that I try
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: to do that. But the other thing going on is
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: one of the ways that an animal can detect or
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: a person for them, and the way we can tell
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: how quickly something's coming at us is looming like it's
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: getting bigger and bigger, Like how quickly is it getting
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: bigger and bigger? That kind of tells us how quickly
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: it's coming at us, and animals are not with cars
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: again because they are very fast pedestrians too. You know,
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: the faster the car, the harder it is to judge.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: You know, how quickly is it coming at us? Deer active,
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: you know, it's dusk and night, and when what's coming
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: at you is just two pinpoints of light, all you
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: can see is these two pinpoints of light. It's very
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: hard to see is that looming? Is it getting bigger?
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: It just may look like two points of light, not chain.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: So you can imagine the deer looking at that, these
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: two points of light going huh A couple points of
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: light huh boo. By the time they figure out that
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: there's a car attached, it's too late, and that is
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: really bad for deer but also really bad for people
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: because you know, if people often say, oh, what's the
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: most danger people ask me, what are these the most
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: dangerous animal of all the animals that you wrote about. Well,
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: first of all, I would say, you know, bacteria or
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: virus is, but they're not really animals. So deer in
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: terms of the number of people not because you hit
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: the deer, but you swerved to not hit the deer
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: and you hit a tree where you went off on cliff.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: So deer are very very dangerous in that way. The
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: other thing that happens is a deer's running across the
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: road in front of you, and your eye is on
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: that deer, and deer there's usually more than one, so
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: you are looking at that deer, you hit the brakes,
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: and then what you end up hitting is the deer
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: behind that one that's also crossing at the same time.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: That exact thing happened to me as a teenager.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Did you hit the second one?
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: I hit the second one, Yeah, exactly, went through the windshield.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: I like looked at it deep in the eyes forward
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: bounced off.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, my god. Yeah. And it's terrifying, really dangerous when
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: it's a tall animal like a moose or an elk,
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: because you're just hitting the legs and you're knocking the
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: legs out from under and the whole body and the
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: antlers come crashing down on the roof and the windshield.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: So camels are a problem in the Middle East. A
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: lot of broken necks. It's bad. It's bad stuff.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: I was interested in the various ways that people have
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: come up with to try to keep the deer off
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: the road. Some of them were fairly hilarious, and I
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: love that you introduced this topic with the woman who
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: called into the radio show. Would you share that story.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: With us, Yeah, Donna. Donna called it was I forget
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: where this was a call in radio program and this
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: woman called in and said, I have a pet pee.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Why do they put deer crossing signs in these areas
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: of high traffic? Why would you put it there that
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: The guy's like, there's a silence, he goes. It sounds
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: like you think that they're placing the signs. So it's
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: like you shouldn't understand that you put the signs where
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: the deer are crossing. It nothing. You don't just choose
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: where you're going to tell the deers. Exactly the tone
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: of the DJs, there's a mix of incredulity and kindness. Donna,
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: it sounds as though.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: I appreciate the kindness though, I feel like that's part
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: of what made it such a charming, funny story.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: They put the sign right here, Let's like right before
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: there's a curve, and it's a terrible place to tell
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: the deer to cross.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: If only we could tell the deer what to do. Well,
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: these stories of like human animal interactions human wildlife interactions
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: I think are really fascinating from like a public health
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: point of view and in forest management point view and
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: out here in the wonderful state of California. As of course,
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: you know, we deal a lot with bears. My family
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: goes camping a lot. Recently we had this experience where
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: we went camping, and of course we had a bear bag.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: We made a mistake of leaving one can of Seltzer
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: in the backseat of the car, and there was a
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: bear and it came in. It opened the car door
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: and got the seltzer, crunched the seltzer, drank all of it,
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: and didn't harm the car at all. It was incredible,
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: like it used its snout to like open the door somehow. Anyway,
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: bears are very very smart, and I often wonder like
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: it must be very challenging to design bear proof trash
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: cans that are complex enough for bear to not be
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: able to figure them out, but simple enough for humans
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: to be able to do.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: This is the problem. This is the problem if you
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: go as I did. I was in Colorado, actually not
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: California for this chapter, but at one point the researcher
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: and I were walking down this alley where behind all
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: the restaurants in downtown Aspen, these bear proof containers were
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: either broken or not being used hardly because it's difficult.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's like reading a Stephen Hawking book. It's like,
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: you know, harder than one of those you know press
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: while turning aspirin bottles. It was it required two hands.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: And you could imagine if you're some restaurant worker who's
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: poorly paid, was middle of a shift running out with
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: a bag of garbage, you know, not bothering to lock
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: it again. And also one of the things that was
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: being done well in an area near Aspen, not Aspen itself,
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: was that they were holding educational talks for the people
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: who worked in the kitchen. The patrons and the restaurant
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: owners have been educated. You know, okay, fed bear is
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: a dead bear. Like this is what happens. The bears
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: get used to being fed, they keep coming here. There's
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: going to be a conflict and then the bear will
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: be killed. But the people who worked in the kitchen,
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: some of them didn't speak English. They hadn't been told
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: why it's important to lock this container. So they were
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: doing outreach in Spanish in this community, just so that
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: people got it like, oh, this is why we do it,
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: and it's a nice thing to do for the bears.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: But yeah, they're very smart. The guy that I spent
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: time with had done a study on bears breaking into
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: minivans in Yosemite. They would break into other cars, but
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: for some reason it was so they all knew there's
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: a certain minivan and he wasn't sure, Like I said,
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: is it the fault of the minivan maker? Are they not?
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Is there something about the doors that are easy to
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: pop open? He said, it might be that, but I
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: think it's more that a mini van is a place
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: with lots of children and lots of spilled food and
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: crumbs and soda and a lot of nice smells. And
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: the bears are like, that's the place for me, mm, the.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: Same reason dogs like babies. Yeah, exactly. Well, you know,
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: I've been to Aspen Center for Physics. Of course, is
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: there an Aspen, And many times I've seen a genius
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: theoretical physicist standing in front of one of those things
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: and like unevil, you know, And it's like when you
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: stand in a shower in a new hotel and you're like,
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: how you turned this thing on? And what's hot and
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: what's cold. It's like a new puzzle everything.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, the number of times I called the
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: fronts like I'm standing here naked, I can't take a
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: shower because I'm too stupid to figure out your shower
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: system exactly.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: And the fancy or the hotel, the more obscure the
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: system is. Let's look that they are have coffee, which sucks.
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: Probably bears could figure it out, though they'd be happily
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: taking showers.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: Pars could figure it out. The bears could figure out
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: there also. And there was a guy from Colorado Fish
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: and Wildlife or fish and Game, I forget what they
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: call themselves there, but he was describing how, you know,
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: up in the hills where there's a lot of delicious
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: food for bears, natural and man made, they got a
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: lot of break ins. And he was describing how he
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: came to this one place where the bear had literally
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: just pulled the door out of the frame, just like
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: like you know, incredible hulk style pulled it off, but
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: then carefully just set it aside and leaned it against
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: the wall, not like threw it over the deck or
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: knocked it down, just sort of carefully laid it aside.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: I just I love that. I love bears.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: I love megafauna in general. I wish we had more
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: megafauna still in North America, you know, like.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: The Giant's loss.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Giant's loss. Giant anything would be great. I
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: once did a story on the Gippsland giant earthworm, which
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: is this worm that is so this is the size
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: of a forty five record around big. And I was like,
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: I'm going to interview this woman who studies the Gippsland
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: giant earthworm.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: You're saying, this is an earthworm like the size of
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: a fire hose.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my god, it is definitely at least that big.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: And you can hear them moving underground. She goes stomping
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: around on the field and you hear this this sort
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: of gurgling sound as they moved through their tunnels. And
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: she was able to pinpoint where it was dig with
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: the shovel, and like we saw this glimpse of the
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: giant earthworm like going away down the tunnel, and happily
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: she didn't cut it in half. But anyway, any giant thing.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: But I was going to say, getting back to you,
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: you're talking about how it had broke in without to
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: get the seltzer water without causing damage. And there are
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: bears that kind of get a reputation. And again this
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: was in Colorado. There's this one bear. It was breaking
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: into cabins and going in and people would be like,
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: you know what, he didn't touch anything. He just went
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: to the fridge. He took out the honey and the
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: yogurt and the beer and shut the door on the
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: left and everything was fo Yeah, And because of that,
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: no one wanted to call him in. And so there
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: was this thought that maybe, you know, that these are
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: the bears that don't get killed by fish and wildlife,
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: and that maybe over time will select for bears that
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: are mellower and better mannered, and that maybe one day
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: bears will just be like you know, big raccoons, you know,
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: just kind of bumbling around getting into the garbage.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: Are they checking to see if someone is home first?
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'd feel different if I came home
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: and was like, oh, my yogurt is on the counter,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: a bear must have been here, or if I was like, there, well,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: it was eating my yogurt.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. They prefer to come in when no one's there,
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: but sometimes they don't know there are stories of a
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: bear coming in grabbing a chicken off the dining table
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: while people are eating, or somebody like they're sitting at
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: home and a bear comes through the door and they
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: run and lock themselves in the bathroom. They are sometimes
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: coming in when you're there, and when it's dangerous is
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: often if the person has a dog and the dog
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: is you know, of course, freaked out, and the dog's
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: going after the bear and the bear is in freak
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: out defensive mode, and if the person tries to come
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: between the dog and the bear, and they can redirect
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: the attack onto the person, So that's a bad schoys.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: Well, what do you think more broadly about this interaction
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: between humans and wildlife. A lot of people feel like, oh,
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: we have to protect the humans. We should get rid
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: of the bear. It's like, this is why we hunted
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: a lot of megafauna to extinction. But you know, the
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: bears were there first. Right in my neighborhood. People worry
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: about their cats because there's coyotes in the neighborhood and
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: I'm like, well, you know, coyotes live here. We moved
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: in and brought our cats.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: People are funny about it. Oh, it's so cruel to
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: keep a cat inside. I've had cats as indoor cats.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: They're fine with it. You're just projecting on your cat.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: A cat doesn't give it. It wants food.
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: And a lap, and the birds are happy if your
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: cat stays.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: Inside exactly, the birds are happier. Yeah.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: So, speaking of the cats, I've talked to a couple
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: different people who do animal control work, and nobody wants
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: to see someone out there like shooting the feral cats,
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: because we all like have warm and fuzzy feelings about
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: the cats, even though they're killing the birds, they're killing
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: the rodents, and so there are a lot of popular
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: programs where the cats are captured, spaine or neutered and
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: then released again, where they're still of course being ecological menaces,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: but you hope that the numbers don't grow. And it
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: seems like they were doing something similar with the monkeys
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: that you studied in one of the chapters. Can you
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: tell us about the monkeys and also what it was
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: like to get rubbed by a monkey?
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: Sure? But I did one on the topic of cats
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: first here. The program in New Zealand is really interesting
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Predator Free New Zealand twenty thirty, which is an attempt
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: to rid the island of stoats rats. What's it's like
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: a weasel, a long, tubular, fierce, vicious thing. So cute
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: possums that's the other one. So they're non native species
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: and you know New Zealand has flightless birds, so that's
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: like easy pickens if you're a stout. And the possums,
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: you know, strip the trees and do other things. So
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: there's this desire in order to preserve the native species.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: Is there's a program by using poisons to eliminate predators,
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: but there were also and again these were brought in.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: The cats were not native, and there's a ton of
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: feral cats in New Zealand. They brought them in thinking
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: they can get rid of the rats. I think it was. Anyway,
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: if you're going to do predator free New Zealand, you
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: rationally should also be getting rid of the feral cats.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: But that is a flashpoint and you can't do that.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: So that's interesting.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Culture, it's so interesting how you know, human emotions
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: sort of make all of this much more complicated. Like
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: I think the macaques, they're in a culture where you're
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: not supposed to kill animals, and.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: So well, the macacus. Yeah, I mean in India, not
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: just macacs, but elephants as well. Some of the nuisance
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: quote nuisance animals are also representations of gods hanuman Is
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: and the monkey gods. So if you go to a
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: honumon temple in India, there's monkeys everywhere and people are
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: on the one hand fed up with macaques because they
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: break into houses and they steal things and they're very aggressive.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: But on the other people are feeding them. It's like
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: making an offering. So they hang around urban areas and
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: temples and are fed. At the same time, they are
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: despised and the poor people who are the animal control
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: types are completely fed up. It's an intractable problem because
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: people are encouraging them. Also, there's not reliable garbage pickup.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: I was in Delhi, but also in other cities. It's
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: so there's a lot of food for them and they're
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: very smart, you know, like bears. I was staying at
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: this hotel in Jaipor and around dusk you look at
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: the rooftops and all of a sudden, the monkeys are
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: coming out and the monkeys. You know, we were in
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: a restaurant and this monkey just all of a sudden
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: is on the rafters and is dropping down onto tables,
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: and the waiters have you know, a stick handy to
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: just threaten the monkey and get to leave. They're everywhere.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: It's hard to get approval for any kind of control
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: because of the religious overtones of a monkey. To hire
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: monkey catchers. I mean what's done is to capture them
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: and take them to this big area south in the
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: southern part of Delhi used to be a quarry, this
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: big chunk of land, and so they're captured and brought there.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: But it's very hard to get somebody to take the
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: job of monkey catcher because you're harassing a monkey, and
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: that's people are not comfortable with that. They're not comfortable
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: with killing them. They're not even comfortable with birth control
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: efforts which have been going on just because it's a god.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: I mean it's not literally a god, but it's too
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: close for comfort, and so it's a big problem.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So what's going on in this region where it's
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: all just the monkeys, Like the monkeys are in charge.
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: It's like some monkey kingdom.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: I went there, I got in there. It is. It's
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: monkey central. They feed them. It's concentrated in certain areas
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: it's an old quarry, but it is all overgrown. It's
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: actually a lovely place to be a monkey. It's just
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: a wild space, but there are villages close by, and
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: the monkeys are really good at climbing right up over
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: the wall and harassing people in the village. There was
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: a guy there is like, you cannot even eat a
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: ROTI there's a monkey wall that's coming to you. They're
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: not being kept in very well.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of things that we do
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: when it comes to animal control that makes us feel good,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: but isn't actually changing anything. I think when you move
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: animals from one place to another, so you know you yes,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: you mentioned that the monkeys get out. I think a
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: lot of times you move an animal and they've spent
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: their whole life getting used to an area they know
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: where the food is, and now you've dropped them as
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: an adult into an area they don't know. And it
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: seems like in the book you discovered that that's a problem.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: Well, it may be effective for the town from which
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: you removed them, but you've now put them in an
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: area where they're going to figure out where's say it's
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: a bear, where's the closest town that has a restaurant
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: or that has houses with cat food or just attractants,
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: as they say, and they're going to start doing the
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: same thing there. So you've just kind of moved the problem.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: That's an issue for the control agency or the wildlife
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: folks who decided to do the relocation. If that bear
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: gets into any kind of situation where it's becoming aggressive
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: and it hurts or kills somebody in that new town,
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: Now you the wildlife agency that moved the bear, that
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: translocated the bear, now you are liable, so you're open
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: to a lawsuit. And that has happened. There have been
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: some big payouts in situations where that bear that they
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: know is got habituated to food, they know that's a
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: high risk bear, and they've moved it and something happened,
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: So that's also a consideration. It works a little better
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: in a younger bear that hasn't gotten set in its ways,
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: but it's very expensive also to do, and the sense
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: is among some of the wildlife control people that it's
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: done in cases where there's a lot of publicity. In
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: other words, you're not going to kill that bear because
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: you're going to get a lot of heat and anger
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: from the public. So it looks good to do that,
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: but it doesn't always work in terms of what the
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: bear's behavior is in the new place. And it's also
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: not necessarily a nice thing to do. As you mentioned,
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: this is an animal that knows food sources, knows the
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: terrain in the place that it is, so you're now
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: taking it and putting it somewhere else. There were researchers
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: that looked at the survival of it was either raccoons
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: or squirrels that had been trends. I think it was
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: squirrels that had been translocated, and very few of them survived.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: They put radio collars on them. They'd find like a
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: piece of radio color. All that remained of squirrel sixty.
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: Seven, probably torn apart by the local squirrel gangs. Right,
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: it's not happy exactly the person come eating their exactly.
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, I know we feel that way. Whenever Virginians
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: moved to California. We're like, hey, you know, that's why
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: I left.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: That's why I left.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: Stop eating my nuts exactly.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's take a break, and when we
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: get back, we're going to ask Mary about some of
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: the most extreme situations that her work has put her in, So, Mary,
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: what is the most embarrassing situation you've ever been in
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: as part of your book research?
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: That's an easy one. That one, not surprisingly was for Bonk.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: The subtitle of that book is The Curious Coupling of
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: Science and Sex. So that is a book about the
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: delightful awkwardness of taking sex, arousal orgasm, all of that,
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: all the physiological components of it, and putting it in
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: a laboratory setting with you a couple doing things and
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: then somebody in a white coat taking notes. So I
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: wanted to get at that central awkwardness of what I
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: just described. And I found this researcher in London who's
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: doing something with four dimensional ultrasound, so three D movies
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: basically in ultrasound, which is something that surgeons could use,
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: say if you were working on a cleft lip and
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: you wanted to get a sense of how that lip
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: is moving before you did the surgery. And he had
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: I think there was a Pearne study that he had
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: done with an erecting penis and looking at before surgery.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: What am I dealing with? It was a diagnostic tool
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: and he wanted to do when it was actually a
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: penis and a vagina interacting, and I said, well, I
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: would like to be there when you do that to observe,
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: and he wrote back, well, if your organization can provide
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: some volunteers, then I'd be happy to do that. So
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: my organization asked its husband, and my husband is such
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: a good sport, you know, he had said, oh, sex research,
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: sign me up. You know. He was like, well, I
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: don't know whatever. I really put the emphasis on, Let's
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: go to London and I'll pay for a nice hotel
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: and we'll, you know, we'll go to see some plays.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: I think Jeremy Irons is in something right now, and
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: it'll be really fun and we have to, you know,
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: have sex in front of a guy. I look back
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: now on that and I think, how did that even?
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: I guess I'm just really committed to getting good material.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: Material would be fun to write up, fun for the reader.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: I knew that that was going to be really fun
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: to write and also really not fun to do.
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: So you went through with it?
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, oh yes, yes I did.
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and your marriage survived.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: It's a very fun scene. It's only a couple of pages.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: It's only a couple of pages. It's funny because my
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: editor goes, Mary, I don't you know, she has a
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: thing about what people need to take you seriously as
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: a science writer. You know, this is science writing. It's
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: just for people to respect you. And so she was like,
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: I don't know if this scene should really be in here,
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: And then my agent read it and goes, Mary, you
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: need more detail in this scene. So I think I
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: hit it just about right. We're going to leave that
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: as is.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: I think that's why we take you seriously, because it's
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: like she is actually willing to like get involved in
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: this stuff and be a data point in a study.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, physics is so much less embarrassing and relieved.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: How about scary? Have you ever signed up for something
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: thought this is a great idea, and then when you
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: were in the moment, thought this was a bad idea.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: There were things that I did and that I didn't
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: really think about it till later that it was probably
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: a stupid thing to do. For example, and the leopard
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: chapter in the book, this is a section of the
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: Middle Himalayas where leopards actually do prey on people, children,
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: old people, easy targets. And as we'd come into this area,
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: the researcher had sort of done this death tour of
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: see this bus stop. An old gentleman was taken waiting
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: sitting there, see this field. So it was like this
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: tour of maulings. And so I at one point it
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: was a nice evening and I said I'm going to
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: go out for a walk, and nobody wanted to come
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: with me. So I went out for a walk and
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: then the sun went down more quickly than I thought,
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: and that's the hour at which all these attacks happened.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: And I was walking back thinking, this is really stupid
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: of me, and it was spooky because of what I
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: knew as I was doing it, but then sort of
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: looking back just like that was really stupid of me,
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: but not terrifying. I sometimes put myself in a situation
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: that my husband will go like, well you did what
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: I did. The story before it's on. This is years ago,
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: and I wrote for Salon dot com and I did
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: a story about bashful bladder paruresis, which is a condition
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: you know men at the urinal they can't start to pee,
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: and it can be extreme. There are people who bring
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: a self catheterization kit when they travel just because they
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: just if anybody's close, they can't I don't think this
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: is a woman problem much. But anyway, the way that
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: these folks get help is similar to if you're afraid
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: of spiders. You know, it's a progressive the spiders closer,
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: it's in the room, and eventually it's you know, two
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: inches away. So there's a treatment that is where you're
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: somebody's pea buddy, where you know, they drink a lot
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: of water and then you're like out in the living
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: room and they're like, okay, I'm gonna pee. Now I'm
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: in the bathroom. You're like, okay, I'm in the living room,
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: and then you get sort of closer to them and
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: to the point where you or I was outside the
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: bathroom door and I'm like outside the bathroom door and
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: the guy's like, okay, I'm doing and I'm peeing. So anyway,
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: I was like, wow, I really helped this guy and
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: this is great and it's an interesting story. And my
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: husband's like, where were you this afternoon some rando guy's
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: house who's peeing and I'm standing outside the door and
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: he's like, did you know this person? No? I don't know.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: You know, there's a Google group whatever it was back
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: then where I just posted something and somebody said, yes,
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: you can help me and be my pea buddy. So
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: I'm just always like, ah, that sounds great, that'll be
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: really interesting.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: Is there data to suggest that this sort of like
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: protocol works in the long term?
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it does it. I forget the term in psychology
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: for phobias. You start small. He just kind of incrementally
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: increase somebody's exposure and so like I'm the spider. He
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: wrote to me later and he said he was very grateful.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: He said, you know, I have a girlfriend now and
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: I'm able to go to the bathroom off the bedroom
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: and pee in the middle of the night. I could
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: never do that before. I'm like good, Oh yeah, I know.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: Imagine having Mary Roach be your like pe that's in
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: the bar.
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was something good that came from my writing
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: or my research. Anyway.
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: Well, you mentioned that you sometimes have people who don't
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: respond to interview requests. I wonder if there's ever an
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: interview you really really wanted, that you pushed for, that
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: you were persistent in going after until you got it.
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: How do you convince somebody to talk to you if
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: they're not sure about it.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, First of all, I just feel that enthusiasm
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: helps a lot, and sometimes enthusiasm takes the form of
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: sending a second and even a third email. It doesn't
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: always work, but people respond, I think to you know,
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: if you're that curious and interested and enthusiastic about their research,
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: and that is appealing for people. And I think people
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: like to talk about their work. You know, maybe their
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: family doesn't want to hear about it anymore. And to
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: have somebody say I'm super interested in what you do
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: and I want to see and observe and learn about it,
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: I think that that goes a long way. Also, I
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: think people don't like to say no three times, so
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: you know, persistence pays off. Also, it just wear them
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: down to a stub. Just keep at them. I've done
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: all's work. I mean, they're definitely people who and it's
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: often something but the nature of their work, they don't
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: want any attention in the media. They don't want to
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: And I think more so now with you know, with
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: social media, and if just one person twists what they
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: do and gets on social media and everybody piles on,
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: I totally understand why that's a scary thing and why
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: you want to avoid that. So that's become harder for me.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: Any lab where work is done with animals, that's very
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: hard to get in. I had a situation with my
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: last book where the university said no. They didn't really
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: say why, they just said no. And then the guy
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: who runs the lab said, it's my lab. You're going
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: to come to my office and we're going to talk,
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: and then we're going to walk across the hall and
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: we're not going to go to the animal lab. But yes,
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: you can come, and they can't tell me what to do.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: But you know, he was familiar with my work, and
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: that was he's been there long enough that he didn't
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: give it what the people in the public affairs office
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: had to say. But often there's reasons why people are
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: wary about an outsider coming in and writing about what
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: they're doing. And I completely understand that.
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: I have friends who are climate science researchers and they're
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: very concerned about how they're portrayed, and you know, the
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: nuances are crucial in that field.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the other thing that I do, as I will
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: tell them you can fact check this to make sure
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: I have it right, and I will never send the
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: material to the person, but I will get on the
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: phone and read it and I'll say stop me if
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: something's wrong, And that works really well. If you give
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: it to them, they'll go in and rewrite it.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: I made that the same you.
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: No, so that doesn't happen. But just reading it to people,
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: I'm always very nervous to do that. That's always a
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: scary thing to do. But when it goes well and
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: somebody actually likes the way you've portrayed their work, and
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: then that's very gratifying. That's a good day.
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: It's terrifying to write about somebody else's expertise and then
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: send it to them for review and you're like waiting
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: to hear back. I know that.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, that's why I do it on the phone.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah that's smarter. Yeah, that's I think what I'll do
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: in the future. So we are just about out of time,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: and I want to respect your time. Are you allowed
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: to tell us what your next book is going to
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: be about? Or is that top secret until it comes out?
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: Oh? No, I can tell you. It's called Replaceable you.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: So it's all kinds of bits and pieces of the
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: human body and replacement elements. Some of it's historical, some
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: of it's current. You know, it's my usual Mary Roach
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: wandering ding that approach.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: I cannot wait? Is it coming out soon?
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: September? So almost a year. The lead time is quite
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: long these days for books.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's painful suppending a manuscript and waiting a
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: whole year, I know.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: And I have the sense that everything is out of date.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: You know, I've already done one round of Has anything changed? Surprisingly?
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: Things change slowly, you know. You have this sense that
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: their new discoveries every month, and it's like, well, yeah,
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: there's probably not gonna happen for another five to ten years,
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: you know. So it's okay, but it does feel like
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: it's hard to be up to date in anything when
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: you're turning it in.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't write about AI right now because I feel
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: like that year would be a huge cheerfook would be
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: out of date. The second hit the shelves.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, how does anybody write about AI? I don't know.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, thank you so much, Mary, This was
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: so much fun. I will be a little bit more
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: careful with the deer and Daniel. You need to not
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: talk with Seltzer water anymore.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: Was it even flavored Seltzer water?
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: It was, yes, watermelon?
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, are you sure it wasn't stuff that the kids
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: had like ground into the rug beforehand. Seltzer, Why would
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: they go for that?
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: I think the Seltzer water was a read Harry.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, we'll be more careful, Daniel.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: Thanks you guys. I was so much fun.
• 55:16
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