Mary roach author biography essay

Interview

Amongst other things, Mary Roach talks about why she got interested in the 'lives' of human cadavers in the first place and whether there are any 'bad' uses for dead bodies.

What got you interested in the "lives" of human cadavers in the first place?
One day I was talking to a man who designs crash test dummies.

Mary Roach - Wikipedia

He told me that actual humans--both living and dead--have also been used by automotive safety researchers. He explained that you not only need to know how much force an impact is unleashing on a body (dummies tell you that); you also need to know what kind of damage that much force will cause to an actual body. And for anything other than very minor impacts, you would want that body to be dead.

Anyway, I began to realize there's this whole work force of donated cadavers out there, being put through their paces in labs and universities.

Like any new and foreign world, it was fascinating to Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law, by Mary Roach HUS