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Sep 19, 2025 37 min

Mary Roach Loves Writing About Weird Science

from The Book Review Hosted by The New York Times

The best-selling science journalist Mary Roach has written about sex and death and the digestive system — basically, all of the topics that children are taught to avoid in polite company. In her latest, “Replaceable You,” she examines prosthetics, robotics and other ways that technology can interact with human anatomy. On this week’s episode of the podcast, Roach tells host Gilbert Cruz how she comes up with her ideas and what keeps drawing her back to the bizarre, hilarious bits of trivia that the human body offers up. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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The best-selling science journalist Mary Roach has written about sex and death and the digestive system — basically, all of the topics that children are taught to avoid in polite company. In her latest, “Replaceable You,” she examines prosthetics, robotics and other ways that technology can interact with human anatomy. On this week’s episode, Roach tells host Gilbert Cruz how she comes up with her ideas and what keeps drawing her back to the bizarre bits of trivia that the human body offers up.

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Mary Roach Loves Writing About Weird Science

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