"Within ten to twenty seconds," came the report, "the mealworm is chewing out of the animal's stomach."

The U.S. has plans for a manned visit to Mars by the mid-2030s. The ESA and Russia have sketched out a similar joint mission, and it is claimed that China's space program has the same objective. Apart from their destination, all these plans share something in common: extraordinary danger for the explorers. What happens if someone dies out there, months away from Earth?

Astronaut foods during the Gemini and Apollo programs were highly processed, because "low-residue" food meant fewer encounters with the dread fecal bag. To prevent crumbs, which could float into eyes… Read the rest of the article: Space Food: The Best and Worst

Following up on the castration comics, here's another pair of panels by Ariyana Suvarnasuddhi, inspired by my books (in this case, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers). This one… Read the rest of the article: Human decomposition comics from Mary Roach and Ariyana Suvarnasuddhi

My last book, Bonk, has a chapter about penis transplants and reattachments. It includes the story of an epidemic of penile dismemberments in Thailand during the 1970s. In the wake… Read the rest of the article: Castration comics from Mary Roach and Ariyana Suvarnasuddhi

The coolest thing I own is a Styrofoam cup that went down to the bottom of the Palmer Deep, off the Palmer Peninsula in Antarctica. It was in a net… Read the rest of the article: Styrofoam cup after 3,100 feet underwater

A centrifuge creates excess gravitational force (G's) by spinning things, and sometimes people. (It's excess G's that press you into your roller coaster seat on those nauseating loops.) Aerospace medicine… Read the rest of the article: Apparatus for Facilitating the Birth of a Child by Centrifugal Force