without further ado, please welcome mary roach and jeff greenwald.applause] >> eyeing a few octaves lower. it's not really laryngitis anymore, because you can't hear me now. i hope it holds out. we should be good. let's go right into it and thank you for the great introduction. i'm going to start with this question. your work always sprouts from unusual seeds. so what gave birth to ground. co. grunt? >> i was reporting a piece on the world's hottest chili pepper. i was in india and someone told me when i was reporting on this contest, somebody's head the military weaponize this chili pepper so i went over to this site and -- science lab and talked about the chili pepper they never deployed because they said it was prone to mildew. [laughter] so it's kind of bombed. so it never was deployed there were other interesting things going on. they were working on a beach repellent right up my alley. so that is kind of where the idea came from. i thought it sounds far more esoteric and more than you might think. so that's what got the ball rolling. >> this is

she's going to be in conversation tonight with our own jeff greenwald.the author of five best-selling books including scratching the t surface and his latest he's also -- [laughter]so he's also on the faculty so you can find out more about the conference is into you can find out all the information before you leave tonight for in our newsletter so without further ado please welcome mary roach and jeff greenwald.. [applause] [inaudible] >> i am a few octaves lower with a case of not really laryngitis anymore because you can hear me now. thanks everybody for coming in for that great introduction. i'm going to start with this question. is your work always sprouts so what gave birth to ground? >> i was reporting a piece in india and someone told me the military weaponize this chili pepper and i thought i need to report on that so i went to the science lab and talked to them about the chili pepper theyth never deployed because the man said it was prone to mildew. so it kind of bombed so the exploding chili pepper grenade never was deployed but there were othe