The study of sexual physiology -- what happens, and why, and how to make it happen better -- has been a paying career or a diverting sideline for scientists as far-ranging as Leonardo da Vinci and James Watson. The research has taken place behind the closed doors of laboratories, brothels, MRI centers, pig farms, sex-toy R&D, labs, and Alfred Kinsey's attic.

Mary Roach, 'the funniest science writer in the country,' devoted the past two years to stepping behind those doors. In Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, Roach shows us how and why sexual arousal and orgasm, two of the most complex, delightful, and amazing scientific phenomena on earth, can be so hard to achieve and what science is doing to slowly make the bedroom a more satisfying place.

Mary Roach is also the author of 'Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers' and 'Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife.'

This event took place on April 18, 2008, as a part of the Authors@Google Series.