Author Mary Roach explores the strange science of rebuilding the human body

Uh, that, but nonetheless, uh, pretty cool stuff.

Yeah.

By the end of the book, Mary, you, you go looking for one simple body part, uh, that science has actually managed to fully replicate.

We've been talking about a lot that, you know, uh, have years and years of, of research ahead of them.

What did you find about that simple body part that science is now able to fully replicate?

Uh, you know what? The best transplant, the best one, uh, that I c- [laughs] I could find, the be- uh, is the fecal microbiome transplant, and that is simply to take the microbiome, the bacteria of a healthy person's intestines, colon, and put it into somebody who has a C.

diff infection, which is a sometimes lethal overgrowth of this bacteria C. difficile.

So, uh, it works f- like, 90% of the time.

Um, uh, i- in theory it would be cheap if you just took the fecal material, which is what they used to do.

So, um, that works really, really well, but [laughs] but that's pretty simple.

That's, um, somebody's poop, basically.

Um-

Replaced by somebody else's poop

...

the, exactly.

You know, taking a healthy person's poop and putting it in, or the, you know, you're after the bacteria, not the whole poop.

But, uh, it used to be done with The whole enchilada.

[laughs] And now there are capsules of course.

But, uh, okay, so that's amazing.

That's, that's very effective.

The other one that I, um, I thought, and I, I, I was starting to think what is, is there anything that science has come up with that is as good, 100% as good as what we started out with, what nature gave us? And I thought, what about tears? That seems pretty simple.

That's what, salt water, right? Some oil, lubrication, probably pretty easy.

And I got on the phone with this guy from a company called TearLab, and we talked for two rounds of the 45-minute free Zoom, 'cause I'm too cheap to pay for Zoom.

[laughs]

So we, uh, 90 minutes talking about the tear film, not the stuff that you cry, but the material that keeps your eye safe, lubricated, infection-free.

Uh, that, but nonetheless, uh, pretty cool stuff.

Yeah.

By the end of the book, Mary, you, you go looking for one simple body part, uh, that science has actually managed to fully replicate.

We've been talking about a lot that, you know, uh, have years and years of, of research ahead of them.

What did you find about that simple body part that science is now able to fully replicate?

Uh, you know what? The best transplant, the best one, uh, that I c- [laughs] I could find, the be- uh, is the fecal microbiome transplant, and that is simply to take the microbiome, the bacteria of a healthy person's intestines, colon, and put it into somebody who has a C.

diff infection, which is a sometimes lethal overgrowth of this bacteria C. difficile.

So, uh, it works f- like, 90% of the time.

Um, uh, i- in theory it would be cheap if you just took the fecal material, which is what they used to do.

So, um, that works really, really well, but [laughs] but that's pretty simple.

That's, um, somebody's poop, basically.

Um-

Replaced by somebody else's poop

...

the, exactly.

You know, taking a healthy person's poop and putting it in, or the, you know, you're after the bacteria, not the whole poop.

But, uh, it used to be done with The whole enchilada.

[laughs] And now there are capsules of course.

But, uh, okay, so that's amazing.

That's, that's very effective.

The other one that I, um, I thought, and I, I, I was starting to think what is, is there anything that science has come up with that is as good, 100% as good as what we started out with, what nature gave us? And I thought, what about tears? That seems pretty simple.

That's what, salt water, right? Some oil, lubrication, probably pretty easy.

And I got on the phone with this guy from a company called TearLab, and we talked for two rounds of the 45-minute free Zoom, 'cause I'm too cheap to pay for Zoom.

[laughs]

So we, uh, 90 minutes talking about the tear film, not the stuff that you cry, but the material that keeps your eye safe, lubricated, infection-free.