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An Immense World
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us | Ed Yong
A grand tour through the hidden world of animal senses that will transform the way you perceive the world--from a winner of the Pulitzer Prize. 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 planet's biggest eyes 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 colours 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. In An Immense World, author and famed science journalist Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to begin to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism and pulses of pressure that surround us. Because in order to understand our world, we have not to travel to other places, but to see through other eyes.
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rachelk
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Pickpick

Yong takes us on a journey of animal sensory perception by explaining the ways they live in a different world, informed by their own unique bodies. I won‘t remember all of the facts (this would make a good reference book) but I will remember some of the highlights that stuck out to me and the overall way Yong helped me to reimagine life from these radically different perspectives.

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Robotswithpersonality
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Pickpick

Lots of nifty animal facts to know and tell!
I appreciate the emphasis on the alien nature of looking at another creature's senses and the mistake of attempting an anthropocentric value judgement or analogy. We're often just figuring out how they work, and the idea that we can comprehend them and rank them is...unwise. 1/?

Robotswithpersonality 2/? The lesson about always discovering something new, never can be certain of what we know, is strong, one sees how often earlier shoddy evidence or presumptions are disproven.
The Rurple, Grurple And Yurple (Color) chapter was probably my favourite.
4mo
Robotswithpersonality 3/? The chapter on Pain was...upsetting. There's a fair amount of experiments new and old recounted in this book, and historically the ethics of scientists towards animal subjects is unpredictable, while what is considered just fine today regularly makes me wince. Just, be aware. Similarly there are definitely sections I would not recommend eating during. Once certain animal functions are introduced, you'll know when to put the sandwich down. 4mo
Robotswithpersonality 4/5 Concluding with sensory impacts of the anthropocene, how sound and light pollution are impacting ecosystems and how they're easier to correct, than other forms of pollution; it's a classic of the genre, but I still love that most nature books end with ways to make things better. 🥹 4mo
Robotswithpersonality 5/5 A note for the listeners:
I'll be honest, the audiobook may not have been the best option for this one. I feel like the old habit of being lulled by nature documentaries came back a bit. 😅 You might need to tandem read or do this physical to get all the facts to stick.
4mo
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Robotswithpersonality

“Nature documentaries get this wrong when they try to show what rattlesnakes see by filming the world with thermal cameras. Those images .... always unrealistically detailed. Predator, the 1987 movie in which Arnold Schwarzenegger encounters a trophy hunting alien did a better job of depicting the blurriness of infrared vision. This is perhaps the only time that anyone has accused Predator of being realistic.“ 😆

Suet624 😂 😂 😂 4mo
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Robotswithpersonality

“... the animal in the tank has a reputation and I'm nervous about testing it. “How hard is the hit?“ I ask.
“It's enough to surprise you,“ Street says.
Do it.
I stick my pinky into the water, almost instantly there is a flash of green, as a two inch long animal darts out and attacks me. There's a loud click, and a sharp, but tolerable pain in my finger. I feel strangely proud to have taken a punch from a purple spot mantis shrimp.“

Robotswithpersonality I love science nerds 4mo
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JenReadsAlot
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Pickpick

Very interesting and a bit too detailed for my brain at times.

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Messiejessie
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Pickpick

Freaking fascinating. I loved every moment of this book. Highly recommend

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rwmg
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Pickpick

Different animals perceive and experience the world differently due to their different senses. It is difficult and necessary to overcome the biases from how WE perceive the world if we want to really understand other animals. For example, a zebra's stripes are not camouflage because from a distance all a lion can see is a zebra-shaped object and the stripes have no effect on that.

Fascinating.

MariaW I though this was interesting too. My father is a forester, he got this book as a Christmas present. 😊 (edited) 8mo
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rwmg
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Apparently it's called a spoiler. The things you learn from books about animals. But do people worry about spoiler spoilers when waiting for a new car design to be released?

bthegood 🤣🤣 8mo
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rwmg
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vonnie862 Ooh that's interesting! 8mo
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rwmg
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monkeygirlsmama Stacking. This sounds good! 8mo
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rwmg
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I'm not sure how I feel about this

Aimeesue 😵‍💫 8mo
Ruthiella But first they insult the lady mice by telling them they are merely tolerable. (edited) 8mo
rwmg @Ruthiella but they do have a pair of fine eyes 8mo
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rwmg
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rwmg
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Tamra I started this on audio and realized I need to read it in print. So much to learn! 8mo
rwmg @Tamra Yes, I'm taking it rather slowly. So difficult to imagine (a visually-based metaphor 🙄) these other perceptual worlds. (edited) 8mo
24 likes2 comments
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AnneCecilie
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#12Booksof2023 December

This book full of fun stuff about different animals and how they see the world

I also have an honorable mention this month:
Paris the Memoir by Paris Hilton. A reminder that no one is what they seem

Megabooks Both were really good! 10mo
AnnR 👍 to An Immense World! 10mo
Deblovestoread Reading this now. It‘s fascinating 10mo
Andrew65 Thanks for playing long, a great way to review 2023. See you for #12Booksof2024 on Christmas Day. 10mo
51 likes1 stack add4 comments
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AnneCecilie
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Pickpick

Amazing 🤩

During the pandemic I started going on works in the forest and I got a appreciation for the trees, birds, butterflies and other animals.

That is what was so great about this book that in order to understand to world of other animals, Yong find research on animals we‘re already familiar with like dogs, birds, butterflies, octopus and whales and more.

And it‘s so interesting to learn more about the world of other animals and try

AnneCecilie to understand it, at least some more. I‘m definitely going to reread this some time in the future since I know I missed things. #Adventathon @BookmarkTavern #RushAThon @Andrew65 @DieAReader @GHABI4ROSES 11mo
DieAReader 🥳🥳🥳 11mo
Andrew65 Brilliant 🎄🎄🎄 11mo
Tamra I started this on audio, but it was richly dense so I knew I needed to read it in print. Thanks for the reminder! (edited) 11mo
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Caryl
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I had the good fortune to hear Ed Yong speak last week. He says, “All of my work is about curiosity and empathy. It‘s about trying to take the perspective of lives that are very different from ours on the grounds that those lives are worth understanding and knowing, and that our lives are richer for making the effort.” His work is a generous, wonderful gift to us all. (Photo credit: Friends of the Hennepin County Library.)

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zahra7

Perhaps people who experience the world in ways that are considered atypical have an intuitive feeling for the limits of typicality.

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zahra7

Our species and our culture are so driven by sight that even people who are blind from birth will describe the world using visual words and metaphors.

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zahra7

I want to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat,” Nagel wrote. “Yet if I try to imagine this, I am restricted to the resources of my own mind, and those resources are inadequate to the task.

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zahra7

How many senses are there? Around 2,370 years ago, Aristotle wrote that there are five, in both humans and other animals—sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. This tally persists today. But according to the philosopher Fiona Macpherson, there are reasons to doubt it.

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zahra7

The senses constrain an animal‘s life, restricting what it can detect and do. But they also define a species‘ future, and the evolutionary possibilities ahead of it.

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zahra7

Light is just electromagnetic radiation.Sound is just waves of pressure.Smells are just small molecules.It‘s not obvious that we should be able to detect any of those things,let alone convert them into electrical signals or derive from those signals the spectacle of a sunrise,or the sound of a voice,or the scent of baking bread.The senses transform the coursing chaos of the world into perceptions and experiences things we can react to and act upon

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zahra7

They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.

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zahra7

They move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.

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zahra7

There are animals with eyes on their genitals, ears on their knees, noses on their limbs, and tongues all over their skin.

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zahra7

There are animals that can hear sounds in what seems to us like perfect silence, see colors in what looks to us like total darkness, and sense vibrations in what feels to us like complete stillness

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zahra7

It is all that we know, and so we easily mistake it for all there is to know. This is an illusion, and one that every animal shares.

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zahra7

Trees of green, red roses too, skies of blue, and clouds of white—these are not part of its wonderful world. The tick doesn‘t willfully ignore them. It simply cannot sense them and doesn‘t know they exist.

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zahra7

Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal can only tap into a small fraction of reality‘s fullness. Each is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of an immense world

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perfectlywinged
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This is packed with facts about how different animals use the five senses. While having a lot of information the prose is very accessible and not overly scientific.

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ellarebee
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Pickpick

I am 36% into this book.

Everyone should read this. This isn't just a “pick“ this is an “I'M SHOUTING AT YOU RIGHT NOW TO READ THIS.“

Ed Yong is so passionate and his narration is so humorous and deeply thoughtful. My whole world perception has been challenged and changed without feeling overwhelmed. It's beautiful.

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currentlyreadinginCO
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Pickpick

I absolutely loved this. This book explains the umwelt concept -- which basically supposes that we can't imagine the experience of other animals because we can't know their sensory world. Essentially we would need to know everything about another animal to understand how they perceive their environment and we don't even know what organs that animals use for magnetoreception, etc. I really enjoyed learning more about some of my favorite animals ⬇️

currentlyreadinginCO We can't fully understand birdcalls bc birds perceive sound faster than us and it sounds like they're singing together when they're just talking back and forth?? Everything about octopus and whales?? Animals that can't see yellow would consider it ultra-red if they were the ones making the color charts?? Tell me more. 1y
rwmg It does sound intriguing. Wishlisted 1y
kelli7990 This book sounds interesting. I have bird feeders in my backyard and I‘m always hearing birds singing. I have songbirds and they sing more than the other birds do. They have pretty songs but I always wonder what they‘re saying to each other. Sometimes, I hear the songbirds singing in the middle of the night when I go outside with my dog and sometimes, they‘re quiet. They have a pretty song but my dog starts barking when she hears them singing. 1y
currentlyreadinginCO I learned recently that birdwatching is actually more of birdlistening because it's all about identifying and separating the calls and I am INTRIGUED! @kelli7990 1y
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Cortg
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Mehso-so

There‘s been a lot of love for this book so I‘m in the minority for this one. There were definitely interesting parts, but some parts were a bore. It‘s well researched, an interesting overall book but too long for me. I am looking forward to discussing it at book club and I‘m pretty sure I know the readers of the group who will have enjoyed the book and those who DNF 😂

SamAnne I was a so-so,on this as well, but maybe because the subjects are well known to me. I much preferred his earlier book We Contain Multitudes. (edited) 2y
Cortg @SamAnne I‘ve heard good things about We Contain Multitudes! Thanks 😊 2y
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rabbitprincess

On the difficulties of providing numbers for comparing humans‘ and dogs‘ olfactory systems: “It is easy to find estimates, and vey hard to find primary sources for them; after an hours-long search that included a university paper that sourced a factoid to a book in the For Dummies series, I fell into an existential void and questioned the very nature of knowledge.” 🤣

Karisa 🤣🤣🤣 2y
22 likes1 comment
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DrexEdit
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Chapter One: Leaking Sacks of Chemicals
“I don't think he's been in here before, “ Alexandra Horowitz tells me, “So it should be very smelly.“

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl
#WeekendReading

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BookBelle84
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Pickpick

This was fantastic! I cannot recommend it strongly enough. I learned so much, and I'd like to get a physical copy now to read because there's so much fascinating information. The final chapter alone should be required reading. #highlyrecommend #mustread

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actualdisneyprincess
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A patron recommended this to me - I don‘t think I have the attention span, even though it‘s really kind of cool. This is probably going to be a “read a chapter, then read something else, then read another chapter” kind of thing for me. #animmenseworld #edyong #animals #biology #science

actualdisneyprincess I couldn‘t do it. It was too much for me; I felt like I was reading a science textbook. 😬 2y
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Christine
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Pickpick

Such a fantastic book! Been meaning to get to it since well before it came out bc I love Ed Yong (his previous book I Contain Multitudes, plus his Atlantic writing in general and his pandemic pieces in particular). Endless cool facts about how animals sense the world (as best we can tell!). And a wonderful reminder that humans' perceptions of the world are limited by our own senses and perspectives...but learning can expand both of these. 💚

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mjtwo
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Pickpick

3-9 Feb 22 (audiobook)
Thought-provoking book about ‘umwelt‘ how the world of each living creature is shaped by their differing senses and capabilities. Fascinating to consider how different creatures experience the world, although as the author concedes it is quite impossible for humans to really step out of their umwelt.
My return to a pescatarian diet was short-lived. There is always an element with these books of preaching to the converted.

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nikirtehsuxlol
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Check out this footnote to text ratio

readingjedi That's giving me flashbacks to Infinite Jest - not good ones either! 2y
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RamsFan1963
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Playing catch up since I forgot to post yesterday. For August, it's definitely Ed Yong's amazing book An Immense World. I recommend it to everyone who's interested in nature, animals or ecology. September choice is Douglas Wolk's All The Marvels. It is a detail dissection of the story Marvel Comics has been producing since the 1960s. The mere idea of reading every Marvel Comic ever published boggles the mind.
#12Booksof2022 @Andrew65

Andrew65 More great choices. 2y
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Eyelit
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Another year of great reads in the books! Here are my top ten nonfiction reads of this year. I wasn‘t able to get my nonfiction/fiction ratio exactly 50/50 like I wanted (it ended up being 47% nonfic which isn‘t too shabby) - but I‘ll work on that next year for sure. 😄

Will also try to read more broadly in topic/type of nonfiction in 2023 (as there tends to be some themes in my current nonfic selections).

If you‘ve got any recs send my way!

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Sarahreadstoomuch
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Pickpick

I found this fascinating. It‘s all about how different animals sense the world…. while I probably couldn‘t pass a quiz on the vast amount of material and recent research & discovery I just listened to.. I was was constantly thinking “wow that‘s cool”

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Chelsea.Poole
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Pickpick

Utterly amazing what animals are capable of, how we‘ve figured out a small bit of it, and how much more we have to learn! I already love animals and this epic work of science writing gave me a much deeper appreciation and understanding of the way animals interact with our world. Completely eye-opening, life-changing. A top pick for me and deserving of the many “best of 2022” lists it appears on. Also, fabulous audio narration! #NYTTopTen2022

Texreader Awesome review! 2y
psalva I heard about this on one of my favorite podcasts, A Way with Words. They were talking about oripulation which manatees use, from what I understand, when they meet an unfamiliar creature/object or for finding food. Great review. Stacked! 2y
Hooked_on_books This will be on my personal best of the year list. I LOVED it! 2y
See All 7 Comments
Megabooks 💯 agree! 2y
TheKidUpstairs I'm SO excited for this one. I've got a gift certificate from my local that I'm going to use for this. 2y
Chelsea.Poole @TheKidUpstairs I believe @monalyisha is ok with adding to #auldlangspine lists and this 💯 would have made my list had I read it sooner!! So you could consider this a part of my list! Hope you enjoy. Fascinating stuff here. 2y
monalyisha @Chelsea.Poole I‘m definitely cool with that! I‘m also definitely adding this to my list of audio TBRs. Great review, Chelsea! 2y
86 likes6 stack adds7 comments
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wanderinglynn
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It‘s hard to pick a fave when there are so many amazing animals.

This is Doldol, the tiniest elephant newborn Sheldrick Wildlife Trust has ever rescued. The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust is focused on the conservation of these amazing creatures. https://sheldrickwildlifetrust.org

And the tagged book is a wonderful read on seeing the world through the lens of the amazing creatures we share this planet with

#winterreadathondailychallenge

Andrew65 This is a sweet picture. 🐘🐘🐘 2y
DieAReader ♥️♥️♥️ 2y
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TheKidUpstairs
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❄️ Getting out after a snowfall and seeing the trees all dressed in white

☃️ All I want for Christmas is the first female director for Encouragement.

📚 the tagged, and Shakespeare and Co by Sylvia Beach

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Floresj
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Pickpick

Excellent, interesting, well researched, cheeky, readable and informative- this book by Yong explores a wide variety of animals and how they sense the world. Each chapter explores a different sense like hearing, echolocation, electric fields, UV rays, touch, seismic waves, etc. It changed how I‘ll teach the electromagnetic spectrum to my high school class. Great book!