Sentient
How Animals Illuminate the Wonder of Our Human Senses
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4.1 • 7 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Perfect for fans of The Soul of an Octopus and The Genius of Birds, this “masterpiece of science and nature writing” (The Washington Post) explores how we process the world around us through the lens of the incredible sensory capabilities of thirteen animals, revealing that we are not limited to merely five senses.
There is a scientific revolution stirring in the field of human perception. Research has shown that the extraordinary sensory powers of our animal friends can help us better understand the same powers that lie dormant within us.
From the harlequin mantis shrimp with its ability to see a vast range of colors, to the bloodhound and its hundreds of millions of scent receptors; from the orb-weaving spider whose eyes recognize not only space but time, to the cheetah whose ears are responsible for its perfect agility, these astonishing animals hold the key to better understanding how we make sense of the world around us.
“An appealingly written, enlightening, and sometimes eerie journey into the extraordinary possibilities for the human senses” (Kirkus Reviews, starred), Sentient will change the way you look at humanity.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wildlife filmmaker Higgins (David Bailey: Look) uses discoveries about animal perception to explore human senses in this eminently entertaining look at the natural world. Adopting the simplest definition of sentience as "our ability to sense the world around us," Higgins "reflects on how each of the sentient beings with whom we share the planet offers a different perspective on how we sense" things. She covers a mind-boggling array of creatures with confounding abilities: there's the peacock mantis shrimp, which has an unusually large number of photoreceptors and can detect colors that humans cannot, but is less able to distinguish subtle changes in shading; the goliath catfish, whose entire skin functions as a tongue and shows "that our sense of taste is more diverse than we could have imagined, and its reach extends beyond that of our tongue"; and the star-nosed mole, who teaches "much about our sense of touch through an organ we normally associate with our sense of smell." Higgins does a great job at describing scientific studies and their results, and at connecting them to humans, making for a moving and perspective-shifting examination of "the everyday miracle of being sentient." Fans of David Attenborough's documentaries or the works of Helen Scales will savor this delightful study.
