In 2003, when Roman was working at KALW in San Francisco a book called Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach came across his desk. The book was a deeply researched and deeply funny exploration of human cadavers and their contributions to science. Roman booked Mary Roach for her first media interview.
Over the years Roach has continued to release some of the funniest science books on the market. Her latest book Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy is all about designing replacement parts for the worn out and diseased parts of the human body. Roman and Mary sat down to talk about what makes designing body parts so difficult and why pigs are the go to organisms for replacement organs.
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Hi, I am a long time listener and love how interesting the show topics are. Thank you Roman! On this particular topic, I wanted to comment that I am 54 years old and was born with a pulmonary heart valve issue. Congenital disease and had two surgeries. One at 4 weeks old and the other at 9 weeks. I was turning blue in my mother’s arms she has told me. I recently have been told I have to have the valve replaced. They don’t use pig, its a cow.
Cedar Sanai Heart Program in LA.l has been going through all the tests to measure my hearts size and function. They tell me to not wait but that it is not urgent. I could wait until symptoms due to the replacement only lasting about 10 years.
What are your thoughts and thought Id write in and say what they said. Its not a total transplant just a part replacement.
I feel like a car.
Tristan from Santa Barbara area