You are replaceable Adventures in human anatomy

The body is the most complex machine in the world, and the only one for which a replacement part cannot be obtained from the manufacturer. Over the centuries, medicine has made do with what is available – carving noses out of copper, borrowing frog skins and pig hearts, making eye parts out of jet lids and breasts out of leftover petroleum. Today, we try to grow body parts from scratch using stem cells and 3D printers. How successful are we? Have we reached our goal? In her book "Replaceable You", Mary Roach explores the amazing advances and difficult questions raised by the imperfections of the human body. When and how does a person decide that a prosthetic limb is better than the one they have? Can a donated heart be made to beat forever? Could the intestine provide a practical alternative to the vagina? Roach proceeds with her usual energy and captivating sense of humor. Her travels take her to the operating room of a legendary burn unit in Boston, a “scratch-clean” exotic pig farm in China, and a hair stem cell “nursery” at the San Diego Tech Center. She speaks with researchers, surgeons, amputees, colostomy patients, and designers of kidneys and wearable organs. She spends time on a ventilator that has been in operation since the 1950s, stays up all night with resuscitation technicians as they disassemble and reconstruct a tissue donor, and travels across Mongolia with cataract surgeons at Orbis International. "Replaceable You" is an invincible and easy-to-understand book that immerses readers in a wonderful, improbable, and surreal journey to build a new self.