
Grunt
The Curious Science of Humans at War
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Narrated by:
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Abby Elvidge
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By:
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Mary Roach
About this listen
Bestselling author Mary Roach explores the science of keeping human beings intact, awake, sane, uninfected, and uninfested in the bizarre and extreme circumstances of war.
Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries - panic, exhaustion, heat, noise - and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them. Mary Roach dodges hostile fire with the U.S. Marine Corps Paintball Team as part of a study on hearing loss and survivability in combat. She visits the fashion design studio of U.S. Army Natick Labs and learns why a zipper is a problem for a sniper. She visits a repurposed movie studio where amputee actors help prepare Marine Corps medics for the shock and gore of combat wounds. At Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, in east Africa, we learn how diarrhea can be a threat to national security. Roach samples caffeinated meat, sniffs an archival sample of a World War II stink bomb, and stays up all night with the crew tending the missiles on the nuclear submarine USS Tennessee. She answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks? How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit? Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks? Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you'll never see our nation's defenders in the same way again.
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Narrator drove me crazy
- By Ann on 04-23-14
By: Mary Roach
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Stiff
- The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
- By: Mary Roach
- Narrated by: Shelly Frasier
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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For two thousand years, cadavers have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They've tested France's first guillotines, ridden the NASA Space Shuttle, been crucified in a Parisian laboratory to test the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, and helped solve the mystery of TWA Flight 800. For every new surgical procedure, from heart transplants to gender reassignment surgery, cadavers have been there alongside surgeons, making history in their quiet way.
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I worked with cadavers for years, but....
- By POQA on 11-11-12
By: Mary Roach
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Fuzz
- When Nature Breaks the Law
- By: Mary Roach
- Narrated by: Mary Roach
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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What’s to be done about a jaywalking moose? A bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? Three hundred years ago, animals that broke the law would be assigned legal representation and put on trial. These days, as New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach discovers, the answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science: the curious science of human-wildlife conflict, a discipline at the crossroads of human behavior and wildlife biology.
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The footnotes
- By Alex on 09-24-21
By: Mary Roach
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Gory Details
- By: Erika Engelhaupt
- Narrated by: Mari Weiss
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Filled to the brim with far-out facts, this wickedly informative narrative from the author of National Geographic's popular Gory Details blog takes us on a fascinating journey through an astonishing new reality. Blending humor and journalism in the tradition of Mary Roach, acclaimed science reporter Erika Engelhaupt investigates the gross, strange, and morbid absurdities of our bodies and our universe.
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Feels like old school Discovery channel
- By Anonymous User on 02-15-23
By: Erika Engelhaupt
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Replaceable You
- Adventures in Human Anatomy
- By: Mary Roach
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
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In Replaceable You, Mary Roach sets sail on the uncharted waters of regenerative medicine, exploring the remarkable advances and difficult questions prompted by the human body’s failings. When and how does a person decide they’d be better off with a prosthetic than their existing limb? Is there a sensitive way to harvest tissue and bones from the deceased? Which animals might be the best organ donors? Through interviews with patients, physicians, pathologists, engineers, and scientists, Roach immerses listeners in the wondrous, improbable, and surreal quest to build a new you.
By: Mary Roach
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Better Left Buried
- By: Mary E. Roach
- Narrated by: Casey Holloway
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Lucy Preston just wants to go on vacation. But being the daughter of a famous private detective means that sometimes, your beach vacay goes off the rails a bit. Think: a clandestine meeting at an abandoned amusement park—except instead of a meeting, Lucy and her mom find a body. Because of course they do.
By: Mary E. Roach
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From Here to Eternity
- Traveling the World to Find the Good Death
- By: Caitlin Doughty
- Narrated by: Caitlin Doughty
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Fascinated by our pervasive terror of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty set out to discover how other cultures care for their dead. In rural Indonesia, she observes a man clean and dress his grandfather's mummified body. Grandpa's mummy has lived in the family home for two years, where the family has maintained a warm and respectful relationship. She meets Bolivian natitas (cigarette-smoking, wish-granting human skulls) and introduces us to a Japanese kotsuage.
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Caitlin has done it again
- By Shaun on 10-03-17
By: Caitlin Doughty
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All That Remains
- A Renowned Forensic Scientist on Death, Mortality, and Solving Crimes
- By: Sue Black
- Narrated by: Angela Dawe
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Dame Sue Black is an internationally renowned forensic anthropologist and human anatomist. She has lived her life eye to eye with the Grim Reaper, and she writes vividly about it in this book, which is part primer on the basics of identifying human remains, part frank memoir of a woman whose first paying job as a schoolgirl was to apprentice in a butcher shop, and part no-nonsense but deeply humane introduction to the reality of death in our lives. It is a treat for CSI junkies, murder mystery and thriller fans, and anyone seeking a clear-eyed guide to a subject that touches us all.
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I wanted a science book about forensics. I got a mostly-memoir instead.
- By A Customer on 11-29-19
By: Sue Black
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The Icepick Surgeon
- Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science
- By: Sam Kean
- Narrated by: Ben Sullivan
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Science is a force for good in the world—at least usually. But sometimes, when obsession gets the better of scientists, they twist a noble pursuit into something sinister. Under this spell, knowledge isn’t everything, it’s the only thing—no matter the cost. Bestselling author Sam Kean tells the true story of what happens when unfettered ambition pushes otherwise rational men and women to cross the line in the name of science, trampling ethical boundaries and often committing crimes in the process.
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FANTASTIC! & What’s up with all these naysayers (negative reviewers)?!
- By Zophie Leslea on 08-19-21
By: Sam Kean
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Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
- And Other Lessons from the Crematory
- By: Caitlin Doughty
- Narrated by: Caitlin Doughty
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty - a 20-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre - took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life’s work. With an original voice that combines fearless curiosity and mordant wit, Caitlin tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters, gallows humor, and vivid characters (both living and very dead).
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Loved it So Much I Bought it After Reading it Free
- By J. Mattox on 05-17-17
By: Caitlin Doughty
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Get Well Soon
- History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them
- By: Jennifer Wright
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1518, in a small town in Alsace, Frau Troffea began dancing and didn't stop. She danced until she was carried away six days later, and soon 34 more villagers joined her. Then more. In a month more than 400 people had been stricken by the mysterious dancing plague. In late-19th-century England an eccentric gentleman founded the No Nose Club in his gracious townhome - a social club for those who had lost their noses, and other body parts, to the plague of syphilis for which there was then no cure.
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Didn't know syphilis could be so fascinating.
- By Kindle Customer on 02-09-17
By: Jennifer Wright
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A Wild Idea
- By: Jonathan Franklin
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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The incredible true story of the entrepreneur turned conservationist - the founder of the iconic company The North Face who used his fortune to protect more than 25 million acres of land from development and exploitation and “foster peace between people and wild nature”.
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How could I have not known.
- By Nancy B. Bryant on 06-01-23
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At Home
- A Short History of Private Life
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to “write a history of the world without leaving home.”
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Bryson does it again
- By Robert on 10-15-10
By: Bill Bryson
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What the Dog Saw
- And Other Adventures
- By: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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The best-selling author of The Bomber Mafia focuses on "minor geniuses" and idiosyncratic behavior to illuminate the ways all of us organize experience in this "delightful" (Bloomberg News) collection of writings from The New Yorker. What is the difference between choking and panicking? Why are there dozens of varieties of mustard-but only one variety of ketchup? What do football players teach us about how to hire teachers? What does hair dye tell us about the history of the 20th century?
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Not Gladwell's best - and a recording problem
- By Rudi on 11-26-09
By: Malcolm Gladwell
Would you consider the audio edition of Grunt to be better than the print version?
Not necessarily, but it was perfect for a road trip. My wife and I listened to it on a trip that happened to be just about the same drive time as the book and it was great.What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?
It's both funny and informative, like all Mary Roach books.Have you listened to any of Abby Elvidge’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No, but my wife and I really enjoyed her. I am not sure why some of the other reviewers didn't. She did a really great job and does really good voices including male voices which is interesting since she has such a high pitched voice.Any additional comments?
If you like any of Mary Roach's other books, you will probably like this one. It goes into some weird aspects of the military that you wouldn't normally think of, like how does diarrhea effect combat missions? and how they train combat medics to deal with the shock of gore. It's really interesting and has that great Mary Roach sense of humor.A very good and interesting read.
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Very good, as usual ...
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Interesting material, terrible performance
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Another Stellar Book by Mary Roach!
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science found its sexy
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glad I stuck it out
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I never see the miltary the same way again
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Narrator voice a problem
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Give it time
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A fun ramble through the mess this is modern combat
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