{"id":59112,"date":"2016-09-16T15:56:31","date_gmt":"2016-09-16T20:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=59112"},"modified":"2026-10-20T11:43:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T16:43:16","slug":"podcast-235-curious-science-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/culture\/history\/podcast-235-curious-science-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Podcast #235: The Curious Science of War"},"content":{"rendered":"

War has always been a catalyst for technological innovations. There\u2019s nothing that will spur human creativity and ingenuity quite like figuring out how to kill your enemies more effectively, and how to keep them from killing you.<\/span><\/p>\n

But besides refining the techniques of killing and defending against human combatants, militaries across time and culture have spent a lot of money and energy figuring out ways to make their soldiers more physically and psychologically robust to other kinds of battlefield perils as well: panic, exhaustion, heat exposure, and much more. Many of the discoveries that military scientists have made in this quest to make soldiers sturdier have benefited the civilian world as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

My guest today on the podcast did a firsthand investigation of the fascinating history of military research and shared her findings in a highly readable and entertaining book. Her name is Mary Roach and she\u2019s the author of Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War<\/a>. <\/i>Today on the show, Mary gives us a look inside the military fashion departments that create uniforms that keep soldiers cool, comfortable, and protected from chemical weapons, all while still looking good, unpacks why diarrhea has always been one of the biggest threats in war, and discusses why conquering the need to sleep has been a goal of militaries around the world for ages.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

War has always been a catalyst for technological innovations. There\u2019s nothing that will spur human creativity and ingenuity quite like figuring out how to kill your enemies more effectively, and how to keep them from killing you. But besides refining the techniques of killing and defending against human combatants, militaries across time and culture have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":195762,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42376,42385,156],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-history","category-podcast"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/235-538x280.png","medium_large":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/235-768x432.png","aom":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/235-372x230.png","reactor-320":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/235-320x180.png","reactor-640":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/235-640x360.png"},"yoast_head":"\nGrunt: An Interview With Mary Roach About Military Science | The Art of 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