Full name: Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War

Author: Mary Roach Year: 2016 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Science, Non Fiction, War/Military, History, Humor Purchase/reserch links: Amazon Goodreads LibraryThing ISBNs: 9780393354379 0393354377

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. Similar books: Stiff by Mary Roach Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words by Randall Munroe How To by Randall Munroe Microscopic Monsters by Nick Arnold Spook by Mary Roach A Really Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson Six Feet Over by Mary Roach Phineas Gage by John Fleischman Soonish by Kelly Weinersmith Why Is Snot Green? by Glenn Murphy What If? by Randall Munroe Packing for Mars by Mary Roach Soldier Dogs by Maria Goodavage Fool Me Twice by Shawn Lawrence Otto Gulp by Mary Roach How to Invent Everything by Ryan North Bonk by Mary Roach Scatter, Adapt, and Remember by Annalee Newitz My Planet by Mary Roach A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson