Stiff (Post #2 pgs. 148-221)

Continuing to educate us of cadavers and their uses, Mary Roach includes plenty of factual evidence combined with her non-stop humor and use of imagery. Throughout this chunk of Stiff, Roach discusses the multiple uses of cadavers in medicine and science such as, crucification experiments, beating heart cadavers, live burials, decapitation, reanimation, and the human head transplant. Within this chunk, Roach raises a question in the reader's mind, what excatly determines whether a person is still alive or not? Do we consider a brain dead person living, knowing they still have a heartbeat, or not? She also explains the research of many scientist conducted to prove the authenticity of "Shroud of Turin", and the early research projects from the first head transplants performed by doctors and scientist. Mary Roach includes plenty of humor while presenting plenty of useful information, for example while she looked on as doctors took part in the harvesting of organs, she refers to the abdomn filled with blood and crushed ice as a "Cherry Sno-Kone". Another instance of this, was shown when Roach said "But whenever it is that I am however I feel about it, I know that all cheek cells belonging to me within fifty miles of here feel the same way". She also bring up the good point of how live patients are wheeled down hallways with a sense of urgency, rather than cadavers,or the dead, which aren't in any type of rush. I never thought about how true she actually is, I appreciate how Roach sparks new points of view for me, while simply presenting facts and backing it up with proven research.

Clarification:
Why excatly were scientist going around doing head transplants on dogs? I didn't understand why Guthrie grafted one dog's head to another, making the first manmade two-headed dog, what was the purpose?

Application:
Would you ever consider donating your body to science if that meant being apart of experients such as studying the effects of decapitation, or being the main attraction at the next organ harvest?

Stiff (Post #1 pgs.74-147)

Mary Roach's "Stiff", explores the multiple uses of cadavers and their contribution to the advances of sciences. Throughout this first chunk, she uses imagery, and anecdotes, combined with the countless expert opinion and plenty of humor. Within this section of the book, she really puts things into perspective for us, as far as the variety of things cadavers are used for and plenty of things we don't take the time to put into consideration. For example, "A cow carcass is upsetting, a brisket is dinner. A human leg has no face, no eyes, no hands...This is just tissue. It has no feelings, and no one has feelings for it".(pg.105) Roach also includes non-stop humor scattered from page to page as she talks of her experiences visiting and shadowing people with different professions involved with the use of cadavers in one way or another.

Clarification:
Were all the animals dead or alive while taking part in these experiments?(I was really confused on whether it was one or the other, or possibly both, depending on the experiment.)

Application:
Do you think people donating thier bodies would truly want to know what aspect of science they'll be used for?(Specifically, what procedures will be done on them.)