| Description |
x, 449 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 21 cm |
| Contents |
Introduction: The only true voyage -- Leaking sacks of chemicals : smells and tastes -- Endless ways of seeing : light -- Rurple, grurple, yurple : color -- The unwanted sense : pain -- So cool : heat -- A rough sense : contact and flow -- The rippling ground : surface vibrations -- All ears : sound -- A silent world shouts back : echoes -- Living batteries : electric fields -- They know the way : magnetic fields -- Every window at once : uniting the senses -- Save the quiet, preserve the dark : threatened sensescapes |
| Summary |
"The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every kind of animal, including humans, is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of our immense world. In An Immense World, Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth’s magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and even humans who wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile’s scaly face is as sensitive as a lover’s fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries that remain unsolved. Funny, rigorous, and suffused with the joy of discovery, An Immense World takes us on what Marcel Proust called “the only true voyage . . . not to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes.”" --Cover |
| Notes |
"One of the New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year" |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 385-429) and index |
| Subject |
Senses and sensation
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Animal behavior
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Physiology
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Neurosciences
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physiology.
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Animal behavior
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Neurosciences
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Physiology
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Senses and sensation
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| ISBN |
9780593133255 |
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0593133250 |
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