The Sensory Perceptions Of Animals

Fresh Air

NPR

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.4 • 34.4K Ratings

🗓️ 13 October 2022

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There's a vast world around us that animals can perceive — but humans can't. Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Ed Yong talks about some of the sights, smells, sounds and vibrations that other living creatures experience. His book is An Immense World.

John Powers reviews the new Masterpiece Mystery! series on PBS, The Magpie Murders.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for this podcast comes from the New Bower Family Foundation, supporting
0:04.7	WHY Wise Fresh Air and its commitment to sharing ideas and encouraging meaningful conversation.
0:11.4	This is Fresh Air.
0:12.8	I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross.
0:15.5	After reporting on the first year of the pandemic for the Atlantic, for which you want to pull
0:19.8	its her prize, science writer Ed Young decided he needed to take a break.
0:24.5	He wanted to shift his focus from the catastrophes and tragedies caused by COVID to a
0:29.6	facet of the natural world he hoped would bring some joy to his life and to his readers.
0:34.8	The result is his book and immense world, how animal senses reveal the hidden realms around us.
0:41.0	It's almost like science fiction or the supernatural, and that it describes the worlds
0:45.6	that animals, birds and insects perceive which humans can't.
0:50.1	The sounds, smells, colors, vibrations, echoes and magnetic fields that exist beyond
0:55.4	the limits of our own senses.
0:57.0	He writes about animals with eyes on their genitals, ears on their knees, noses on their
1:02.4	limbs and tongues all over their skin.
1:05.5	As he puts it, every animal, including humans, can only tap into a small fraction of reality's
1:11.2	fullness.
1:12.5	The book is about the diversity of perception in the animal world and the limitations of human
1:17.4	perception.
1:18.6	Ed Young spoke with Terry Gross.
1:21.5	Ed Young, welcome back to Fresh Air.
1:23.6	Hi, thanks for having me.
	...

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