ALPHABETICAL BRAIN® VOCABULARY HUMANIST GALAXY OF SECULAR SCIENCE STARS July 12, 2022 AN IMMENSE WORLD: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us Ed Yong Random House, 2022 (464 pages) Quote = "Ed Yong sets his sights on sensory biology and animal behavior. The distinctive sensory experience of any particular creature is called 'Umwelt.' The 'sensescapes' of different animals can be dominated not just by vision, smell, taste, touch, or sound but also heat, flow, and even magnetoreception. The menagerie of critters and their unique perceptual abilities described in the book include the platypus with a bill that detects electric fields, sand scorpions that rely on surface vibrations to hunt prey, the echolocation prowess of bats and dolphins, the ultrafast vision of killer flies, and the outstanding olfaction of elephants. The facts are frequently astonishing." (Paraphrased slightly by webmaster from Booklist Review). Quote = "The book takes us on 'a thrilling tour of nonhuman perception' (from The New York Times review). It allows us to experience the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that other animals perceive. Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses to 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 just 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. The book takes us on what Marcel Proust called 'the only true voyage... not to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes'." (Paraphrased slightly by webmaster from publisher's blurb). BOOK OUTLINE Note = Numbers in parentheses refer to pages INTRODUCTION — The only true voyage (3-16) 1) LEAKING SACKS OF CHEMICALS — Smells and tastes (17-52) 2) ENDLESS WAYS OF SEEING — Light (53-83) 3) RURPLE, GRURPLE, YURPLE — Color (84-116) 4) THE UNWANTED SENSE — Pain (117-134) 5) SO COOL — Heat (135-155) 6) A ROUGH SENSE — Contact and flow (156-187) 7) THE RIPPLING GROUND — Surface vibrations (188-209) 8) ALL EARS — Sound (210-242) 9) A SILENT WORLD SHOUTS BACK — Echoes (243-275) 10) LIVING BATTERIES — Electric fields (276-299) 11) THEY KNOW THE WAY — Magnetic fields (300-319) 12) EVERY WINDOW AT ONCE — Uniting the senses (320-334) 13) SAVE THE QUIET, PRESERVE THE DARK — Threatened sensescapes (335-355) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (357-359) NOTES (361-384) BIBLIOGRAPHY (385-429) INSERT PHOTO CREDITS (431-432) INDEX (433-449) ABOUT THE AUTHOR, SUMMARY, AND BOOK DESCRIPTION ABOUT THE AUTHOR = Ed Yong is a Pulitzer Prize–winning science writer on the staff of The Atlantic, where he also won the George Polk Award for science reporting, among other honors. His first book, I Contain Multitudes, was a New York Times bestseller and won numerous awards. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, National Geographic, Wired, The New York Times, Scientific American, and more. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Liz Neeley, and their corgi, Typo. Twitter: @edyong209 To inquire about booking Ed Yong for a speaking engagement, please contact the Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau at: speakers@penguinrandomhouse.com SUMMARY = This New York Times Bestseller is funny, rigorous, and suffused with the joy of discovery. 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. This book welcomes us into a previously unfathomable dimension — the world as it is truly perceived by other animals. BOOK DESCRIPTION = Ed Yong takes us on "a thrilling tour of nonhuman perception" (from The New York Times review). It allows us to experience the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that other animals perceive. Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses to 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 just 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. The book takes us on what Marcel Proust called "the only true voyage... not to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes." EDITORIAL BOOK REVIEWS PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY REVIEW = Pulitzer-winning journalist Ed Yong (I Contain Multitudes) reveals in this eye-opening survey of the animal world through their own perceptions. Every animal is "enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble," he writes, or its own "perceptual world." Yong's tour covers vision (mantis shrimp have "12 photoreceptor classes"), sound (birds, researchers suggest, hear in a similar range as humans but they hear faster), and nociception, the tactile sense that sends danger signals (which is so widespread that it exists among "creatures separated by around 800 million years of evolution"). There are a wealth of other senses outside the standard five: sea turtles have two magnetic senses, electric fish generate currents to "sense their surroundings" as well as to communicate with each other, and the platypus's sensitive bill gives it what scientists think may be "electrotouch." Yong ends with a warning against light and sound pollution, which can confuse and disturb animals' lives, and he advocates for "natural sensescapes" that ought to be preserved and restored. He is a strong writer who makes a convincing case against seeing the world as only humans do: "By giving in to our preconceptions, we miss what might be right in front of us. And sometimes what we miss is breathtaking." This is science writing at its best. BOOKLIST REVIEW = In the book, I Contain Multitudes (2016), science writer Ed Yong exquisitely explored the tiniest domains of life, microbiomes. Now he sets his sights on sensory biology and animal behavior. Umwelt is the term used to describe the distinctive sensory experience of any particular creature. The "sensescapes" of different animals can be dominated not just by vision, smell, taste, touch, or sound but also heat, flow, and even magnetoreception. The menagerie of critters and their unique perceptual abilities Yong examines here include the platypus with a bill that detects electric fields, sand scorpions that rely on surface vibrations to hunt prey, the echolocation prowess of bats and dolphins, the ultrafast vision of killer flies, and the outstanding olfaction of elephants. The facts are frequently astonishing. For example, the majority of insects appear to be deaf. Pain is referred to as the "unwanted sense," and naked mole-rats are relatively impervious to some types of it. Yong's writing is empathetic, impeccably researched, imaginative, and entertaining. The tongue of a slithering rattlesnake "turns the world into both map and menu" whereas catfish are depicted as Daliesque "swimming tongues." Yong worries about humanity's "ecological sins," as sensory pollution — noise, night lighting, chemicals — is ubiquitous. Yong's scientific curiosity and concern for the natural world are contagious. This is sensational reading! PROFESSIONAL BOOK REVIEWS [1] I don't know how to put into words the awe I felt while reading this book—for the incredible sensory diversity of our planet, and for Ed Yong's talents. – Mary Roach, author of the book, Stiff. [2] There is almost no writer I admire as much as I do Ed Yong. He is an extraordinary reporter and a writer of such grace that his work seems effortless. An Immense World is a journal of discovery and animal magic, and a sensory exploration that is a joy to read. – Susan Orlean, author of the book, On Animals. [3] What would we do without Ed Yong? This book feels like a tremendous burst of oxygen, animating everything around us with life and color and texture and wonder at precisely the moment we all need it. – Rebecca Skloot, author of the book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. [4] Equal parts science and poetry: Yong guides us through the magic of the animal kingdom in ways that have unlocked something inside of me I did not know was there. I will never look at our planet the same way again. – Clint Smith, author of the book, How the Word Is Passed. [5] Though we cannot sense magnetic or electrical fields and have noses too blunt to see the world, this book gives us the next best thing: appreciation for those who can. Ed Yong expands our world as he lets us see into others. – Alexandra Horowitz, author of the book, Inside of a Dog. [6] Yong's writing gifts offer us a thoughtful blend of whip-smart enchantments — dazzling revelation after revelation about animals and how they encounter the world. The breadth and depth of his knowledge is downright effervescent and exacting."— Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of the book, World of Wonders. [7] A cornucopia of wonders — a fascinating reminder that most of what happens among life forms on Earth is beyond our ken. – David Quammen, author of the book, The Tangled Tree. [8] Utterly surprising, like stepping into Alice in Wonderland... the perfect mixture of revelation, curiosity, science, beautiful prose, and buckets full of wonders. – Andrea Wulf, author of the book, The Invention of Nature. [9] A whirlwind tour of animal perceptual abilities, this magnificent book challenges your imagination and fills you with wonder about the living world. – Frans de Waal, author of the book, Different. [10] A powerful and immersive deep dive into the perceptual lives of other organisms — and a persuasive case for more empathy and understanding of the complexity, sophistication, and sheer riotous joy of the nonhuman world — it is an instant classic. – Jeff VanderMeer, author of the book, Authority. [11] The book is an expansive, constantly revelatory exploration of the biosphere's sensorium, from the rigidly pheromonic behavioral programming of ants to the constant subsonic conversations of elephants. Ed Yong is my favorite contemporary science writer. – William Gibson, author of at he book, Agency. [12] Enter a new dimension — the world as it is truly perceived by other animals — from the Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times bestselling author of the book, I Contain Multitudes. [13] A stunning achievement, steeped in science but suffused with magic." – Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of the book, The Gene I Random House. AMAZON READER BOOK REVIEW [1] PamReviews - See the world through new eyes = This book opened my eyes to the different ways that we animals living on this planet perceive the world. It turns out that there are many more senses other than the five that we were taught about in school. Some of the ones the author discussed I knew about, but many I had never heard of. I knew about sonar and echolocation, for example, but animals that can sense magnetic fields? I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the natural world. My thanks to Random House and NetGalley for an advance reader copy of this book. The book was my pleasure to read and review. EXCERPT Chapter 1: Leaking Sacks of Chemicals Smells and Tastes "I don't think he has been in here before," Alexandra Horowitz tells me. "So it should be very smelly." By "he," she means Finnegan — her ink-black Labrador mix, who also goes by Finn. By "here," she means the small, windowless room in New York City in which she runs psychological experiments on dogs. By "smelly," she means that the room should be bursting with unfamiliar aromas, and thus should prove interesting to Finn's inquisitive nose. And so it does. As I look around, Finn smells around. He explores nostrils — first, intently sniffing the foam mats on the floor, the keyboard and mouse on the desk, the curtain draped over a corner, and the space beneath my chair. Compared to humans, who can explore new scenes by subtly moving our heads and eyes, a dog's nasal explorations are so meandering that it is easy to see them as random and thus aimless. Horowitz thinks of them differently. Finn, she notes, is interested in objects that people have touched and interacted with. He follows trails and checks out spots where other dogs have been. He examines vents, door cracks, and other places where moving air imports new odorants — scented molecules. He sniffs different parts of the same object, and he'll sniff them at different distances, "like he's approaching the Van Gogh and seeing what the brushstrokes look like up close," says Horowitz. "They're in that state of olfactory exploration all the time." Horowitz is an expert on dog olfaction — their sense of smell — and I'm here to talk with her about all things sniffy and nasal. And yet, I'm so relentlessly visual that when Finn finishes nosing around and approaches me, I'm instantly drawn to his eyes, which are captivating and brown like the darkest chocolate. It takes concerted effort to refocus on what's right in front of them — his nose, prominent and moist, with two apostrophe-shaped nostrils curving to the side. This is Finn's main interface with the world. Here is how it works. Take a deep breath, both as demonstration and to gird yourself for some necessary terminology. When you inhale, you create a single airstream that allows you to both smell and breathe. But when a dog sniffs, structures within its nose split that airstream in two. Most of the air heads down into the lungs, but a smaller tributary, which is for smell and smell alone, zooms to the back of the snout. There it enters a labyrinth of thin, bony walls that are plastered with a sticky sheet called the olfactory epithelium. This is where smells are first detected. The epithelium is full of long neurons. One end of each neuron is exposed to the incoming airstream and snags passing odorants using specially shaped proteins called odorant receptors. The other end is plugged directly into a part of the brain called the olfactory bulb. When the odorant receptors successfully grab their targets, the neurons notify the brain, and the dog perceives a smell. You can breathe out now. Humans share the same basic machinery, but dogs just have more of everything: a more extensive olfactory epithelium, dozens of times more neurons in that epithelium, almost twice as many kinds of olfactory receptors, and a relatively larger olfactory bulb. And their hardware is packed off into a separate compartment, while ours is exposed to the main flow of air through our noses. This difference is crucial. It means that whenever we exhale, we purge the odorants from our noses, causing our experience of smell to strobe and flicker. Dogs, by contrast, get a smoother experience, because odorants that enter their noses tend to stay there, and are merely replenished by every sniff. The shape of their nostrils adds to this effect. If a dog is sniffing a patch of ground, you might imagine that every exhalation would blow odorants on the surface away from the nose. But that is not what happens. The next time you look at a dog's nose, notice that the front-facing holes taper off into side-facing slits. When the animal exhales while sniffing, air exits through those slits and creates rotating vortices that waft fresh odors into the nose. Even when breathing out, a dog is still sucking air in. In one experiment, an English pointer (who was curiously named Sir Satan) created an uninterrupted inward airstream for 40 seconds, despite exhaling 30 times during that period. With such hardware, it is no wonder that dog noses are incredibly sensitive. But how sensitive? Scientists have tried to find the thresholds at which dogs can no longer smell certain chemicals, but their answers are all over the place, varying by factors of 10,000 from one experiment to another.4 Rather than focusing on these dubious statistics, it is more instructive to look at what dogs can actually do. In past experiments, they have been able to tell identical twins apart by smell. They could detect a single fingerprint that had been dabbed onto a microscope slide, then left on a rooftop and exposed to the elements for a week. They could work out which direction a person had walked in after smelling just five footsteps. They have been trained to detect bombs, drugs, landmines, missing people, bodies, smuggled cash, truffles, invasive weeds, agricultural diseases, low blood sugar, bedbugs, oil pipeline leaks, and tumors. Migaloo can find buried bones at archeological sites. Pepper uncovers lingering oil pollution on beaches. Captain Ron detects turtle nests so that the eggs can be collected and protected. Bear can pinpoint hidden electronics, while Elvis specializes in pregnant polar bears. Train, who flunked out of drug detection school for being too energetic, now uses his nose to track the scat of jaguars and mountain lions. Tucker used to hang off the bow of boats and sniff for orca poop; he has since retired, and his duties now fall to Eba. If it has a scent, a dog can be trained to detect it. We redirect their Umwelten in service of our needs, to compensate for our olfactory shortcomings. These feats of detection are worth marveling at, but they are also parlor tricks. They allow us to abstractly appreciate that dogs have a great sense of smell, without truly appreciating what that means for their inner lives or how their olfactory world differs from a visual one. Unlike light, which always moves in a straight line, smells diffuse and seep, flood and swirl. When Horowitz observes Finn sniffing a new space, she tries to ignore the clear edges that her vision affords, and instead pictures "a shimmering environment, where nothing has a hard boundary," she says. "There are focal areas, but everything is sort of seeping together." Smells travel through darkness, around corners, and in other conditions that vex vision. Horowitz can't see into the bag slung over the back of my chair, but Finn can smell into it, picking up molecules drifting from the sandwich within. Smells linger in a way that light does not, revealing history. The past occupants of Horowitz's room have left no ghostly visual traces, but their chemical imprint is there for Finn to detect. Smells can arrive before their sources, foretelling what is to come. The scents unleashed by distant rain can clue people in to advancing storms; the odorants emitted by humans arriving home can send their dogs running to a door. These skills are sometimes billed as extrasensory, but they are simply sensory. It is just that things often become apparent to the nose before they appear to the eyes. When Finn sniffs, he is not merely assessing the present but also reading the past and divining the future. And he is reading biographies. Animals are leaking sacks of chemicals, filling the air with great clouds of odorants. While some species deliberately send messages by releasing smells, all of us inadvertently do so, giving away our presence, position, identity, health, and recent meals to creatures with the right noses. "I never thought much about the nose at all," says Horowitz. "It didn't occur to me." When she started studying dogs, she focused on things like their attitudes to unfairness — the kind of topic that is interesting to psychologists. But after reading Uexküll and thinking about the Umwelt concept, she shifted her attention to smell — the kind of topic that is interesting to dogs. She notes, for example, that many dog owners deny their animals the joys of sniffing. To a dog, a simple walk is an odyssey of olfactory exploration. But if an owner does not understand that and instead sees a walk as simply a means of exercise or a route to a destination, then every sniffy act becomes an annoyance. When the dog pauses to examine some invisible trace, it must be hurried along. When the dog sniffs at poop, a carcass, or something the owner's senses find displeasing, it must be pulled away. When the dog sticks its nose in the crotch of another dog, it is being indecorous: Bad dog! After all, in Western cultures at least, humans do not smell each other. "You could give someone a hug, but if you actually sniffed them, that would be very weird," says Horowitz. "I could say that your hair smells great, but I cannot say that you smell great, unless we are intimate." Time and again, people impose their values — and their Umwelt — onto their dogs, forcing them to look instead of sniff, dimming their olfactory worlds and suppressing an essential part of their caninehood. That was never clearer to Horowitz than when she took Finn to a nosework class. RECOMMENDATION: You can re-read this summary according to a reinforcement schedule, such as a few hours later and a few days later and then several times in the next week or two. This strategy can help you take advantage of the power of the spaced-repetition method of memorization. Such deep introspection can strengthen your natural willpower and change your adaptable self-identity in order to increase your self-esteem. REMEMBER ALWAYS: You Are Your Adaptable Memory! Click or Tap Star to: RETURN TO THE HUMANIST GALAXY OF SECULAR SCIENCE STARS ALPHABETICAL BRAIN® VOCABULARY produced by Infinite Interactive Ideas®