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An Immense World
- How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
- Narrated by: Ed Yong
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
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Summary
Brought to you by Penguin.
Humans have three or four colour-detecting cones in their retinas. Mantis shrimp have 16. In fact, their eyes seem to have more in common with satellite technology than with biological vision as we currently understand it. They have evolved to track movement with an acuity no other species can match by processing raw information; they may not 'see', in the human sense, at all.
Marine molluscs called chitons have eyes that are made of stone. Scorpions appear to see with their entire bodies. It isn't only vision that differs from species to species—some animals also have senses we lack entirely. Knifefish navigate by electrical charge.
An Immense World will take us on an insider's tour of the natural world by describing the biology, physics and chemistry animals use to perceive it. We may lack some of their senses, but our own super-sense lies in our ability to understand theirs. And in the face of the largest extinction event since the meteor that killed the dinosaurs, our only hope of saving other species is bound up with our ability to see what they see, and feel what they feel.
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What listeners say about An Immense World
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- David H
- 13-01-23
A new Classic
Thought provoking journey through other creatures Umvelt, The “way they sense their world” perfectly read by the author whose obvious excitement and awe of other species
Senses is infectious. I loved this book and I think you will too.
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- Anonymous User
- 28-02-24
Fascinating
Very easy to listen to well narrated a fascinating collection of what science knows and does not know about the sensory perceptions of other species
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- Gemma Herbertson
- 13-09-22
Extremely enlightening. Huge asset to neuroscience
I thought I knew a lot about the senses... this book increased my umwelt 10 fold (at least)! Mesmerising. Incredibly interesting. The new David Attenborough. I even cried at the end - such powerful and moving words. Thank you for writing this truly amazing book.
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- Joanna JJ
- 26-11-23
Absolutely beautiful and brilliant.
Thie is a book that you will come back to. The amount of information in it is huge but because of this you can see, hear and feel many different worlds.
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- whatisiswhat
- 18-01-24
Eye-opening…
…and totally mind-blowing. An essential listen for anyone interested in the natural world, or who enjoys learning about all the ways our perception is narrow, and could be so different.
The writing is really great: walking a line between being informative and poetic, and hitting just the right balance.
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- Rory
- 14-01-23
Absolute tour de force
This book has forever altered my understanding of the creatures that live around me. Even the senses I thought I understood become dazzling in the words or Ed Yong, I can’t recommend enough.
(The one bugbear is the odd use of non-metric units throughout - in a book about science)
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12 people found this helpful
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- Dean
- 04-07-23
Great content, idiosyncratic performance
It might just be me, but I have a real problem with authors who narrate their own books. There are some obvious exceptions, eg Neil Gaiman, but so many don't grasp the necessary skillset. Ed Yong mispronounced toward as toword so many times and he clearly ran out of enthusiasm for the task about half way through.
To give him his due, he wrote a fascinating book and structured the information well.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Rebecca P
- 22-12-22
utterly wonderful!
This book has changed my perspective on the animal world and made me look at them in a new light (of hear them in a new sound?!). I feel like I have been blind to so much of what goes on in their world, and the process of starting to understand what I've been missing is completely thrilling.
I've not stopped talking about it!
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- Filip Malinowski
- 10-05-23
Wonderful exploration...
This book reads like a collection of facts or curiosities. But each of them is absolutely fascinating and can change the way you think about everything that's around, and how other senses may perceive it.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Joe W
- 24-08-22
One of my fav audiobooks ever!
This book is amazingly well researched, and read with great clarity and passion by the author. Couldn't get enough of it and listened to it very quickly. So many fascinating insights that expanded my view of the world. Just brilliant!
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