Space doesn't just encompass the sublime and the ridiculous. It erases the line between. Mary Roach More Quotes by Mary Roach More Quotes From Mary Roach I used to do my best thinking while staring out airplane windows. The seat-back video system put a stop to that. Now I sit and watch old' Friends' and 'Everybody Loves Raymond' episodes. Walking is good, but here again, technology has interfered. I like to listen to iTunes while I walk home. I guess I don't think anymore. Mary Roach walkbestgoodtechnology In terms of sustainability and what we eat and what its footprint is on the environment and the consequences of eating one thing versus another, obviously it makes a lot of sense to be eating insects. They're incredibly plentiful. They've got a very short turnover rate. You could be eating termites. Mary Roach shortyousustainabilityeating I think by and large, humans prefer to think of themselves as minds from the neck up. We don't really like to think of ourselves as another animal, another digesting, excreting, mating, snoring, sleeping kind of sack of guts. I don't think we like that. I think we'd rather not be reminded of it. Mary Roach i-thinklikethinkanimal Gravitation is the lust of the cosmos. Mary Roach gravitationcosmoslust Chew on this: Human teeth can detect a grain of sand or grit 10 microns in diameter. A micron is 1/25,000 of an inch. If you shrank a Coke can until it was the diameter of a human hair, the letter O in the product name would be about 10 microns across. Mary Roach nameyousandhair Animals' taste systems are specialized for the niche they occupy in the environment. That includes us. As hunters and foragers of the dry savannah, our earliest forebears evolved a taste for important but scarce nutrients: salt and high-energy fats and sugars. That, in a nutshell, explains the widespread popularity of junk food. Mary Roach junk-foodenvironmentimportantfood There are three kinds of people in this world: 1) People who make lists, 2) People who don't make lists, and 3) People who carve tiny Nativity scenes out of pecan hulls. I'm sorry, there isn't really a third category; it's just that a workable list needs a minimum of three items, I feel. Mary Roach feelsorrypeopleworld Astronauts are like these mythic legends, but really, they are just regular people, people who wear chinos. Mary Roach wearlikelegendspeople My husband recently made me try on a bikini. A bikini is not so much a garment as a cloth-based reminder that your parts have been migrating all these years. My waist, I realized that day in the dressing room, has completely disappeared beneath my rib cage, which now rests directly on my hips. I'm exhibiting continental drift in reverse. Mary Roach yourdaymehusband Saliva has antibacterial properties. It also has things called nerve growth factor, skin growth factor, histatins which help with wound closure. So when you see an animal licking a wound or even a mom kissing a child's boo-boo, there's some, there's some good science behind why one might do this. Mary Roach goodyougrowthscience Because there are now online databases of federally funded research, and these databases are searchable by keyword, sex researchers have to be careful how they title their projects. It's become a simple matter, for those who are so inclined, to find and target researchers whose work they object to on religious grounds. Mary Roach researchsimpleworksex We exist in this weirdly schizo culture, where sex is everywhere in the media, and yet, at the same time, you don't sit down and have a conversation about what you did in bed last night with your friends. Despite the ubiquity of sex, it's still a taboo when it comes to day-to-day conversation. Mary Roach youtimenightculture I don't read good books anymore, it seems; I just buy them and put them on the shelf and every now and then walk over and pet them. I'm like the optimistic dieter who fills her closet with clothes two sizes too small and dreams of the day she can wear them. I know just what I want to do when I retire. Mary Roach walkdreamsdaygood People are surprisingly off put just by saliva, the substance that you carry around in your mouth. You swallow it. You have no objection to it. But then it leaves your body, and you're just revolted. So it - that - just that right there to me is a fascinating thing. Mary Roach meyoubodypeople Editors are more concerned with the first chapters of a book; that's what everyone reads first in the bookstore or in the online sample. Mary Roach everyonemorefirstbook I don't know of many people who've done sex research with an eye toward people saying sex is bad for you, except for the promiscuity and cervical cancer link - which is actually a valid discovery. Mary Roach youresearchsexpeople Eighty percent of flavor comes from your nose, including a set of internal nostrils. When you chew food and hold it in your mouth, the gases that are released goes into these nostrils. People who wolf their food are missing some of the flavor. Mary Roach youryoufoodpeople I've always been a bit of a space geek. I wrote an article years ago about the neutral buoyancy tank, which is this biblically sized pool where they train astronauts. And it was just the coolest thing. Mary Roach alwayspoolspacetrain When someone tells me, 'Oh, we have so many problems on Earth; space exploration costs too much money,' I say, 'I absolutely agree with you. But I still hope we do it.' Mary Roach meyoumoneyhope
