This isn't a serious scientific book. It's not even close. Yes, it's billed as that with the science tackles the afterlife subtitle but you probably need to think about Penn and Teller's Showtime series. It's more along those lines. It's not supposed to be serious but it's not funny either. So I'm not sure where Mary Roach wanted to go with this book. It's awful. She uses Google as her sources but yet she attempts to tackle a serious subject and speaks to serious people. Not sure. Just didn't enjoy this book. I doubt I try another one of her books even though friends have said that Stiff is better. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.