How Replaceable Are You?

Short Wave

NPR

Science, Life Sciences, Daily News, Astronomy, News, Nature

4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 10 December 2025

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the 1970’s TV show called Six Million Dollar Man, a test pilot is in a horrible accident. The show’s famous line goes, “We can rebuild him. We have the technology.” Now, in the 2025 book, Replaceable You, science writer Mary Roach explores how people have collectively lived up to the task of rebuilding human bodies when they fail, as well as all the ways we may not quite be there yet. In this episode Regina G. Barber and Mary Roach discuss three chapters of the book, get into everything from iron lungs to private parts and try to answer the question, “How replaceable are you?”

Interested in more science behind the human body? Check out our episodes on synthetic cells and the first pig kidney transplant. Email us your question at [email protected].

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Transcript

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0:14.6	Learn more at freshworks.com.
0:17.8	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:23.5	When I was younger, I was excited to get older.
0:27.0	And not just my 20s and 30s, but maybe even my 60s and 70s.
0:31.7	At the time, the golden girls were cool.
0:34.2	I loved science.
0:35.5	And I thought if any part of my body didn't work anymore, it could
0:38.5	probably be replaced.
0:40.6	My heart, my lungs, my legs.
0:45.1	But I recently read a book that made me think again.
0:48.6	It's called Replaisable You, my nonfiction author, Mary Roach.
0:52.6	Fairly far along in the process of writing this book,
0:54.9	I was like, is there anything that we humans have built or designed or cooked up
1:01.0	that is a 100% perfect or pretty much just does what the original part does?
1:10.3	And I thought, okay, the tears, how about tears? Have we got a perfect
1:15.6	artificial tear? You know, and I found this guy who works for tear lab, and he spent decades
1:21.4	working on tiers when we got on to a Zoom call. And I said, okay, so artificial tears?
1:26.9	He's like, yeah, they'll help for an hour or two.
	...

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