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Sto caricando le informazioni... An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us (edizione 2023)di Ed Yong (Autore)
Informazioni sull'operaAn Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us di Ed Yong
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. Just an amazing book. A very deep look at various senses, and how they differ in animals between us and other animals. It covers the gamut, from sight and smell to sensing electronic fields and the earth's magnetic field. A really rewarding read. Yong doesn't just talk about the science, but he tells the stories of various scientists working in the fields, and the stories of how the research was done. One of the best popular science books I've read in a long long time. Very highly recommended. ( ) La tierra esta repleta de imágenes y texturas, sonidos y vibraciones, olores y sabores, campos eléctricos y magnéticos. Pero cada individuo esta encerrado dentro de su burbuja sensorial, propia y única y solo percibe una pequeña porción de la inmensidad de nuestro planeta. Este libro nos abre las puertas a dimensiones hast ahora insondables: el mundo tal como lo perciben otros aniimales. Encontraremos escarabajos que se siente atraidos por el fuego; tortugas que pueden rastrear los campos magnéticos de la Tierra; peces que llenan los ríos con mensajes eléctricos; humanos que tienen sonares igual que los murciélagos; y plantas que vibran con las canciones inaudibles de cortejo de los insectos. Aprenderemos que ven las abejas en las flores, que escuchan los pájaros en sus melodías y que huelen los perros en la calle. In a Nutshell: A great option for animal nonfiction lovers. Goes a bit too technical with scientific parlance at times, but most of the content is comprehensible to lay readers. Humans have always tried to understand animals. However, one key thing that we either forget or don’t realise is that we try to use *our* understanding of the world to perceive *their* understanding of the world. Scientists have realised the flaw of this method, and have already begun the change in methodology for animal behaviour analysis, using the concept of Umwelt to understand animal behaviour rather than anthropomorphising them. Umwelt is the German word for ‘environment’, and it denotes an organism’s sensory world. Our sensory world is dictated by our senses—the five that are commonly termed senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch) and the various other senses that we aren’t even aware of possessing (heat, pain, vibrations, balance,…) However, we all know that the senses aren’t standard across species. For instance, a dog perceives a fewer number of colours than humans, while birds perceive colours much beyond what we can. Does this mean that dogs know that they can see less and birds are aware that they can see more? Not at all – their Umwelten has always been the same. So seeing ultraviolet shades is perfectly routine for birds while we go ‘Wow!’ at the thought. The book takes all of the common and most of the uncommon senses, and elaborates on each of them through multiple anecdotes and examples. The anecdotes come from various sensory biologists and their research experiences, which range from awe-inspiring to frustrating. Each chapter is dedicated to a specific Umwelt, and is supported by elaborate footnotes. (and I mean ‘elaborate’ in every sense – about a quarter of the book contains just the footnotes.) There is a strong underlying thread of humour throughout the content, courtesy not just the anecdotes but the author’s funny remarks about some of the facts/animals. What I loved most about the author’s approach is that he never places any sense or animal above or below another, and is certainly not biased towards humans or human senses. The book’s primary focus is not on establishing superiority but on understanding the diversity of the natural world. More importantly, the agenda is very clear: the intention is not to seek a better understanding of our world by understanding other species first. Rather, it is to understand other species, period. A plus point to the beautiful colour photo inserts, but a minus for having them in one clump at the end of the book (before the footnotes) rather than inserting them at the relevant spots within the related chapter. (This feedback is based on the Kindle version.) Further on the flip side, the content gets a tad overwhelming at times, especially when it comes to providing data-based support. Some stats became too tedious, and some explanations too jargonistic. The writing style is also a bit jumpy at times as the author seeks to include as many instances as he can to support his point. A bigger red flag personally was learning about some of the experiments & research methodology in use. A few experiments raised in my head the same old doubt: how far should humans go during animal research? I admire what the scientists seek to do, but advocating such research also feels like supporting cruelty. These experiments left me quite torn about my feelings. I couldn’t buy their argument that we humans are doing all this for the animals. No, humans are doing all this mainly for themselves. We want to learn more and more about everything around us, even if the learning comes at some cost to other species. This is not exactly a flaw in the writing, but a negative emotional impact of the content. On the whole though, this is a treasure trove of information for every nature lover and to those curious about how senses (across species) function. Reading it will open your eyes (to the extent of their paltry four photoreceptor cones & rods) towards the vibrant diversity found in nature. Definitely recommended if the subject matter interests you. Would suggest you read it a chapter at a time as it gets quite saturating otherwise. 4 stars. ——————————————— Connect with me through: My Blog | The StoryGraph | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter A grand tour through the hidden realms of animal senses that will transform the way you perceive the world --from the Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times bestselling author of I Contain Multitudes. The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of an immense world. This book welcomes us into a previously unfathomable dimension--the world as it is truly perceived by other animals. 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 humans that 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 which lie unsolved. In An Immense World, author and acclaimed science journalist 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. Because in order to understand our world we don't need to travel to other places; we need to see through other eyes. nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
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"The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of an immense world.This book welcomes us into a previously unfathomable dimension-the world as it is truly perceived by other animals. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires (and fireworks), songbirds that can see the Earth's magnetic fields, and brainless jellyfish that nonetheless have complex eyes. 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, and that even fingernail-sized spiders can make out the craters of the moon. We meet people with unusual senses, from women who can make out extra colors to blind individuals who can navigate using reflected echoes like bats. Yong tells the stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, and also looks ahead at the many mysteries which lie unsolved"-- Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)591.5Natural sciences and mathematics Zoology Specific topics in natural history of animals Habits and behaviorClassificazione LCVotoMedia:
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