Mireya Mayor is an astonishing, inspirational woman who has done some amazing things in her adventures around the globe. She's a Fulbright scholar, she's a National Science Foundation Fellow, she has a Ph.D. from Stony Brook, she discovered a new species of mouse lemur and she even worked with the government in Madagascar to create a National Park to protect the mouse lemur's habitat. Impressive. But some of her fans might be surprised by what Mayor was up to before she trekked around remote regions of the world.

This new "craze," if you can call it that, isn't likely to hit Harlem Shake levels -- and that's probably a good thing -- but at least it has reached as far as Houston Texans cheerleading practice and given us the video you see above. In an age of tell-alls and TMZ, Mayor shows remarkable restraint in what she chooses to reveal about her personal life. I loved that, too. I loved the simple and limited way she describes meeting and falling in love with her husband (as well as what she tells, which isn't much, about the circumstances of their meeting and their romance).But this isn't a book about discovering lemurs or getting chased by elephants. It's a book about being a female scientist who is equal parts female and scientist:

She went on her first expedition, funded by National Geographic, shortly after that, and started graduate school in anthropology. Since then, she's been nominated for Emmy Awards (twice), become a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, starred in two TV shows ("Wild Nights with Mireya Mayor," and History Channel’s "Expedition Africa: Stanley & Livingstone"), and become a Fulbright Scholar and a National Science Foundation Fellow. Along the way, she's conducted and published a ton of peer-reviewed research, and discovered and formally described the smallest primate species currently known, the mouse lemur Microcebus mittermeieri.

As a result of her credentials and her enthusiasm, there's a pretty good (and important) story in this book. This, I suspect, is why Jane Goodall wrote the forward. Cheerleaders are physically fit and can dance well. More importantly, they must necessarily also have spunk and spirit. However, when it comes to cheerleading, is there is a thing as too much spirit? Well, the man in this picture makes us believe it is quite possible. His high spirit may have led to one embarrassing photo but we certainly think too much spirit is better than having no spirit at all. Oh No, I Am Gonna Fall! Of course, books like Bonobo Handshake and Pink Boots and a Machete aren't really like The Jungle Book at all, and that's a good thing. Not only do they contain a strong narrative and interesting characters, but science is central in these books (sometimes, science is even a character itself, in some ways). Many of the scientists and animal species mentioned in the book are familiar to me, although the fossa, a cat-like carnivore related to the mongoose family was a new one...it is such an odd looking creature with similarities to a cat, but with a long lean body.

Mayor says it looked similar to known species of mouse lemur, but there was something different about the one she caught. Being a male cheerleader isn’t easy. To start with, male cheerleaders do not enjoy the same kind of popularity as their female counterparts. However, more importantly, male cheerleaders often have to lift their fellow squad members and perform moves and step which require a lot of physical strength. For instance, the guy in this picture is certainly trying very hard but he clearly does not have the strength for it. You may think cheerleading is all about dancing, stunting, cheering and tumbling. While all of those things are important, a cheerleader must also work on her cheerleading face. After all, the face is where the camera goes often. Unfortunately, we do not think anyone shared this important piece of information with this young lady. She certainly hasn’t figured out her good cheerleading face yet and the mess that her hair is here isn’t helping either. We really think the other ladies on her team should have come to her rescue, at least in the hair department.I started noticing that my hands were swelling," she says. "And then spontaneous wounds started appearing and red streaks started going up my leg." We just can’t take our eyes off this beautiful cheerleader’s abs — we can’t even imagine having abs as great as hers. While this lady here has certainly worked her on her body, she hasn’t given much thought to her cheerleading face. This one closed eye and tongue out face is certainly not working in her favour. The One with Too Much Teeth Here's an excerpt from one: "the show can't decide whether to treat Mayor as an expert, or as the title and location hint, a bit of a sex symbol." He then added, "But throughout the show she wears a wool cap and drab clothes that just beg us to take her seriously." This was in contrast to the observation of another critic, who wrote, "Explorers require rugged gear, the sort Indiana Jones girds himself in. Then there's Mireya Mayor, a sexy blond explorer. She fills out a tank top nicely." I can't win. If I wear tank tops, I'm vying for attention. If I cover up, it's only because I want to be taken seriously. Regardless, the first critic lost all credibility when he called my clothes drab. They were both hip and designer. I was thrilled to receive a signed copy of this memoir by the author. The following is my honest review after reading the book.

Mireya Mayor is a former NFL cheerleader turned NatGeo explorer - don't worry, if you didn't get it the first time, she repeats it many, many times throughout the course of this memoir. Mayor tries hard to justify both parts of her personality - the bug-loving little girl who grew up to be the Ph.D totin' explorer, but who is also still the cheerleader who loves being able to blow dry her hair. It makes me sad to think that she feels the need to defend it so constantly. It could certainly be the theme - there's threads of it woven into each chapter. The book itself even ends with a chapter of how she tries to juggle the life of a working mother - even if her work brings her away from her children much more so than most. The writing was therefore better than expected, though not great. It's conversational, but so much is left out! As other Goodreads reviewers have noted, she starts a story, gets to the climax, and then ends it. The example someone else has given of hanging off a mountainside and noticing that her rope was fraying, and then suddenly she's at the top of the mountain, is typical.If there is one central theme of the book, it it this: that this sort of juxtaposition that many might find strange or odd - the mixture of the stereotypically feminine and the stereotypically masculine - is, well, not that strange or odd at all.