Grunt : the curious science of humans at war / Mary Roach

Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-285)

Second skin: What to wear to war -- Boom box: Automotive safety for people who drive on bombs -- Fighting by ear: The conundrum of military noise -- Below the belt: The cruelest shot of all -- It could get weird: A salute to genital transplants -- Carnage under fire: How do combat medics cope? -- Sweating bullets: The war on heat -- Leaky SEALs: Diarrhea as a threat to national security -- The maggot paradox: Flies on the battlefield, for better and worse -- What doesn't kill you will make you reek: A brief history of stink bombs -- Old chum: How to make and test shark repellent -- That sinking feeling: When things go wrong under the sea -- Up and under: A submarine tries to sleep -- Feedback from the fallen: How the dead help the living stay that way

'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 youll never see our nations defenders in the same way again