Coming to Our Animal Senses

Big Picture Science

Science, Technology

4.6 • 986 Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Animals experience the world differently. There are insects that can see ultraviolet light, while some snakes can hunt in the dark thanks to their ability to sense infrared. Such differences are not restricted to vision: Elephants can hear subsonic sounds, birds navigate by magnetism, and your dog lives in a world marked by odors. In this episode, we speak to science journalist Ed Yong about how other creatures sense the world. Could we ever understand what it’s like to have the hearing of a bat or the sight of a hawk? Guest: Ed Yong – Science writer for The Atlantic whose coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic earned him a Pulitzer Prize in explanatory journalism. He is the author of, “An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us.” Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake Originally aired September 5, 2022 Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.
0:04.2	I'm Matt Kaplan, the host of Safeguarding Sound Science, Evolution Edition.
0:09.6	Evolution is the unifying principle of biology, yet it still breeds controversy a century
0:15.3	and a half after Charles Darwin.
0:17.7	Join us as we meet the passionate researchers and communicators who are expanding our knowledge
0:23.0	and fighting to keep good science in our schools and politics. Subscribe to Safeguarding
0:29.0	Sound Science on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you like to listen.
0:34.2	Music you like to listen.
0:48.2	Consider the sight, sounds and smells of your typical morning.
0:53.2	Maybe it's seeing the orange hues of sunrise, or maybe hearing the melodies of birds, or taking in the aroma of freshly
0:55.1	brewed coffee. It may feel like your sensory world is full of activity, but you're missing
1:00.6	out on things. If you had infrared vision, for example, you could actually see the heat emanating
1:06.4	from the coffee pot. And imagine being an animal with heightened olfactory senses.
1:11.6	When I think about how my dog smells, I see the neighborhood around me, the streets around me
1:17.4	in a very different way. And when I think about a seabird smelling its way across the ocean,
1:23.6	the ocean doesn't seem so featureless to me anymore.
1:26.6	The world is filled with sensory messages that humans can't pick up, but some animals can.
1:31.3	What is it like to be them?
1:33.3	What is it like to have infrared vision or the ability to detect the Earth's magnetic field?
1:38.3	We'll explore the world as other animals sense it.
1:41.3	I'm Molly Bentley.
1:42.3	I'm Seth Shostak, and this is big picture science.
	...

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