WEBVTT - Special Episode: Ed Yong & An Immense World 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:46.919 Hi, I'm Aaron Welsh and this is this podcast will 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:52.040 Kill You. Welcome everyone to the final episode in the 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:57.400 tp w k Y Book Club miniseries. Over the past months, 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:02.800 we have read some wonderfully fashining and impactful books and 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:05.520 covered a whole lot of ground when it comes to 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:11.399 public health and medicine and biology and history. So much ground, 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:14.280 in fact, that I'm going to skip the usual shpiel 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:16.880 I give where I attempt to list or describe all 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:19.720 the books we've read. Whether this is your first time 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:22.360 tuning in to one of these episodes, or whether you've 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:25.400 been here from the beginning. Thank you so very much 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:28.319 for joining me, and to all the authors who have 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:31.360 been so amazing to come onto the podcast and answer 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:36.560 my many questions, a tremendous thank you. I'd love to 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:40.119 bring this miniseriies back next season, so please reach out 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:44.000 with your book recommendations for future episodes and your thoughts 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:47.640 on past episodes. While I'm sad that this marks the 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:51.040 end of the book Club for now, I am so 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:54.760 incredibly excited for this episode because I got to chat 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:58.960 with another of my heroes of science communication, Ed Young, 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:03.520 about his latest book, An Immense World. How animal senses 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:07.760 reveal the hidden realms around us. Yong, who was awarded 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:10.880 a Pulitzer Prize in twenty twenty one for his reporting 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:14.760 on the COVID pandemic and whose previous book on Microbiomes, 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:19.399 I Contain Multitudes was a New York Times bestseller, transforms 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:22.800 and expands reader's perception of the world around us with 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:27.400 his latest work, to describe an immense world as simply 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:31.560 a tour of the senses, though accurate, would, I think, 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:36.320 fail to capture the wonder and magic found on every page. 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:41.480 Through Yong's immersive and poetic writing, each chapter focuses on 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:44.920 a different sense and the many ways that animals experience 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:48.360 that sense, though, as Yong points out early on, the 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:52.760 borders among senses are often fluid. Starting out with the 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:56.240 senses that most humans are familiar with, things like taste 0:02:56.320 --> 0:03:00.280 and touch and smell and sound, Yong reveals that while 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:02.400 we may be able to imagine what it's like for 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:05.600 us humans to taste a bar of chocolate, or smell 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:09.840 freshly brewed coffee, or feel a soft piece of velvet, 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:13.760 we can only begin to try to conceive the vast 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:17.000 array of smells our dog can detect. When he sniffs 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:20.000 the telephone pole that all the neighborhood dogs like to 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:23.720 pee on, or what a catfish experiences through the taste 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:28.040 buds all over its skin, or how the world feels 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:32.040 through the tentacled nose of a star nosed mole. And 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:34.760 those are the senses for which we at least have 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:38.640 somewhat of a reference point. Our imagination skills get put 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:42.200 to the true test in later chapters, detailing senses such 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:47.440 as electro reception and magneto reception Throughout. Yong is an 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:52.680 incredible guide, writing with such skill and delight, accomplishing the 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:56.280 tremendous feet of bringing to life the world around us, 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:00.360 not as it is experienced by human senses, but by 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:04.760 a myriad of animal species. He encourages readers to resist 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:07.960 the temptation to rank species or make lists of the 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:11.520 top ten best smellers or those with the best color vision, 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:16.640 and instead appreciate the unique sensory world of each species, 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:20.919 how these senses evolved, and why they are important to 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:25.240 each animal. Just as fascinating as these sensory worlds that 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:28.960 Yong beautifully describes is the research done to try to 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:33.320 understand them. How do you measure the range of colors 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:38.120 a peacock, mantis shrimp seas, or the pain or lack thereof, 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:42.360 experienced by the thirteen lined ground squirrel as it hibernates 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:47.200 through winters with temperatures that we'd find unbearable, Or the 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:51.480 way a European robin or loggerhead turtle uses the Earth's 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:56.960 magnetic field to navigate incredibly long distances. Yong's interviews with 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:02.320 a frankly mind boggling number of research demonstrate the constantly 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:06.520 evolving and innovative field of sensory ecology and reveal some 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:10.880 of the most pressing challenges, including the current and future 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:14.520 impact of sensory pollution, a topic which she explores in 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:18.440 the book's riveting final chapter. It's not often that a 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:22.560 book like An Immense World comes along, one that truly 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:26.320 changes the way you perceive the world and leaves you 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:31.240 with a profound sense of wonder and appreciation. If you 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:35.360 can't already tell, I absolutely loved this book, and not 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:38.600 just because I devoured the Anamorph's book series as a kid, 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:41.880 which has a ton of fun animal sense thought experiments, 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:47.560 but because of the endless revelations hidden within and the 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:53.039 deep sense of curiosity that shines through each page. I 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:56.039 am so delighted to get to chat with Ed Young 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:59.559 about an immense world. So let's just take a quick 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:26.960 break here and get right to it. Ed, thank you 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:30.200 so very much for being here today. I am such 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:33.200 a huge fan of your work, and I especially loved 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:37.160 your most recent book, and Immense World. It really has 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:39.720 stuck with me and changed the way that I think 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:42.960 about how we perceive the world. I'm constantly thinking like, Okay, 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:47.080 what am I seeing or smelling or hearing? That is 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:50.960 you know what am I missing? Especially And I will 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:54.000 also say that my dog is a huge fan of 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:56.840 your book also, because now on our walks I'm much 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:58.960 more patient and I'm like, you know what you smell? 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:02.960 That dog poop as long long as you want. There 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:06.400 must be more there that I can't tear you away. 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:09.120 So I love this for them. 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:14.080 Yeah, he's very appreciative. So tell me how did this 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:14.920 book come to be? 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:15.240 Like? 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.000 Where did you get the idea to tackle such an 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:19.000 enormous topic? 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:23.160 You know? The short answer is from my wife. The 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:27.640 longer answer is that I've been writing about interesting animal 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:31.120 behavior for as long as I've been writing about science, 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:34.800 and this topic about how animals sense the world around 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:37.120 them has always been one of the things that I've 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:39.720 one of the threads that I've picked at over those years. 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:42.960 It's also thread that my wife picked at in her 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:47.080 graduate work she did. She started a PhD studies on 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:52.000 the vision of coral reef fish, like how they see color. 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:55.440 She has this very strong aesthetic sense, so she's always 0:07:55.440 --> 0:08:00.040 been interested in the senses in color, in vision in 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:05.320 the marine world. And we were talking in late twenty 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:07.880 eighteen about what I would do as a second book. 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:09.760 And I say talking, I really mean that I was 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:15.960 sort of complaining and self flagellating, and she very patiently 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:18.080 listened to me and then suggested that this was a 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:21.720 topic that was worthy of like book length exploration. And 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:25.600 she was completely right, because, you know, I hope this 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:27.880 comes across in the book. I think it's not just 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:32.720 rich in terms of science. It's not just a series 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:36.800 of fascinating discoveries, although it certainly offers that. I think 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:42.000 it's also very, very philosophically rich. You know, it just 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:47.040 provides so much food for thought, and I really wanted 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:50.000 to bring that to the page and to literally every page, 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:53.240 you know, I really wanted to give readers a pause 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:56.360 almost every page for them to really sit back and 0:08:56.400 --> 0:09:00.520 think about the experiences of other creatures around them. 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:04.440 One of the kind of both philosophical I suppose and 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:09.280 biologically useful terms that you revisit throughout the book and 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:13.880 introduce early on is umveldt, which I hope I'm saying right. 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:17.120 So who guess is as good as mine? Okay, excellent 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:20.280 apologies to German listeners, Yeah, boy, I will. 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:25.679 Probably Can you explain what umveldt means and where this 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:26.760 term originated? 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:31.560 Yeah, So the term is quite simple in that it 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:36.280 is just German for environment, but in this context, in 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.760 the context of which we're speaking. It was popularized by 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:44.840 a German zoologist named Jakovan Uskel in the early twentieth century, 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:47.240 and he used it in a very particular way, not 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:51.040 to refer to the physical environment around us, but to 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:56.000 the sensory environment. And that's the kinds of information the sights, 0:09:56.120 --> 0:10:01.120 the sounds, the textures, the smells that each creature or 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:05.560 even each individual can perceive. In Nux school's key idea 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:09.520 was that the umvelt is unique to every animal, and 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.720 that every animal has a different way of experiencing the world. 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:15.079 So one example that gave was it was a tick, 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:20.000 a bloodsucking arachnid whose unveldt is very limited. It might 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:23.520 consist of the feel of body hair of the mammal 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:27.440 hosts that it sucks blood from. It includes the body 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:31.160 heat of those hosts, It includes the smell of their skin, 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:34.480 but it doesn't include like most of the things that 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:37.080 we can see, it doesn't include color, it doesn't include 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:40.320 a lot of things we can hear. It's a very 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:45.440 thin sliver of our unveldt. But Uxkill's key realization was 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:49.800 that our unveldt, what humans can perceive, is also limited. 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:53.600 There's so much about the world around us that we 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:57.520 are not privy to and that many other animals, sometimes 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:01.200 most other animals can sense. And that includes things like 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:05.160 the magnetic field of the earth itself, which sea turtles 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:09.319 and songbirds can detect, the electric fields of other living things, 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:15.080 which sharks and platypuses can sent, the ultra violet light 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:18.800 that's all around us that actually most other living things 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:23.280 that can see can detect. There is so much around us, 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:27.080 even in the senses that we have enough familiar with, 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:34.240 that is inaccessible to us except through tools or through technology, 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:38.719 and even then not really. So this was I think 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:42.120 this is a I'm really glad that this concept exists 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:45.160 because it really does anchor the entire book. It tells 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:51.520 us that even though our experience of the world feels complete, 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:55.280 that is an illusion, and it is one that all 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:58.480 animals share. We are each only perceiving just a thin 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:01.400 slice of the allness of reality. 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.920 The term is so useful, and I really want to 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:08.280 kind of get into like, Okay, how are these senses 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:12.559 being integrated together? But maybe I should take a step 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:16.200 back and start at the beginning by saying what is 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:20.040 a sense? Like what constitutes a sense? And how flexible 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:23.800 is that definition? How rigid are the barriers around what 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:25.200 we perceive to be a sense? 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:30.240 Yeah, so the senses really are just about taking information 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:34.520 that exists in the world around us and drawing meaning 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:36.760 from them. And that's how I see it, right, And 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:40.840 that information can take different forms. It could be electromagnetic 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:44.400 radiation like light, that's how we see. It could be 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:48.160 waves of pressure moving through the air that sound it's 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:51.640 what we hear. It could be the textures that we feel. 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:54.920 It could be electric and magnetic fields like I've talked 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:59.120 about it could be molecules drifting through the air. That's 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:03.600 what we smell. So the senses are ways of taking 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:10.160 these actually quite abstract things and from them deriving knowledge 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:14.560 about the world around us. You know. So light is 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:18.640 not worth detecting just for its own sake. We detect light, 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:24.320 we see because light gives us information about shelter, about 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:27.960 the seasons, about where we are in the world, how 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:31.000 deep we are in water, were the presence of predators 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:34.840 and prey, and mates and rivals. You know, if you 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:37.719 really think hard about it, like it's kind of miraculous 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:40.160 that we can detect the stuff at all. You know, 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:44.800 this is light really is just well it's either particles 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:47.120 or ways, depending on which physicists you asked or but 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:51.240 you know, it's kind of abstract stuff out in the world. 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:55.120 Like the ability to actually turn that into an electrical 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:59.040 signal that our brains can make sense of is sort 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.000 of wondrous, just a base of it. You know. I 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:04.480 say that in the book that in a way, the 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:11.200 sensers are ways of biology, taming at taming physics, and 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:14.440 that is very much how I how I see them. 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:16.920 And you know, to your question of how how you 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:20.520 define them and how porous the definition is. I would 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:24.120 argue that they are very porous. You know, there's always 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:26.240 there's this long standing thing in signs about whether you're 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:28.840 a lump whether people are lumpers or splitters, like whether 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:32.400 you're prone to put things together in categories or you know, 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:35.160 actually focus on the differences between them. And you could 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:38.840 take two those different approaches with the sensors, like how 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:42.600 many sensors are there? Most people would say five. We 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:45.640 say five because that's what Aristotle said and everyone has 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:49.000 sort of accepted that sense. But even with humans there 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:53.160 are more than that. There are things like propriception, which 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:56.040 is the sense of where what my body is doing, 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:59.400 Like if I'm sitting here and I know that where 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:01.960 my arm is, even if I close my eyes, I 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:05.840 know that because of appropriateception. And then when you go 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:09.440 into other animals the number increases even more. But then 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:13.440 you could start to combine the sensors together. You know, 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:18.120 in many ways, hearing and touch are actually kind of 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:21.800 the same. They have a shared evolutionary history. They're really 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:26.080 about detecting mechanical disturbances in the world, whether that's you know, 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:30.200 something pressing against your skin, or a sound wave deflecting 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:34.400 your structures inside your ear. So you know, in the book, 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:38.040 I noted that if you really wanted to be lumpy 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:40.520 about this, you could argue that there are two sensors 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:43.280 there's like chemical and mechanical, and then if you wanted 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:47.160 to be super splitter about it, you could do maybe dozens. 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:50.960 And I think that sort of speaks to what the 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:55.440 sensors are doing, right, They are weaving something interesting out 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:58.240 of things that are actually quite abstract. And how they 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:00.880 do that you could kind of categorize in lots of 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:01.560 different ways. 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:07.080 If we talk about a sense in the traditional definition 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:08.800 or in the traditional way that we think of it, 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:12.920 there are tradeoffs in some of these senses, Like in vision, 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:16.200 you discuss some of these trade offs, and so this 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:19.400 is kind of a two parter. Number one, what are 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:23.120 these trade offs within some of these senses? And the 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:26.640 second question is are there also trade offs between different 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:27.640 types of senses? 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:33.800 Yeah, that's a great question. So yes, and this is crucial. 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:36.480 I think this question is crucial because it actually gets 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:40.240 at a really fundamental question, which is why do umbeldts 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:43.440 exist in the first place. Why is it that each 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:46.400 animal only perceives a small sliver of reality, like why 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:49.560 don't we just perceive it all? And partly the answer 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:52.200 is that we don't need to. So the senses have 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:54.760 been tuned by evolution to give us what we need 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:58.120 about the world around us. And no animal needs to 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:02.480 sense everything. A staff has no need for eyes as 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:04.800 sharp as an eagle, because the starfish isn't trying to 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:09.440 spot prey from miles away. But there's also the fact 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:13.639 that all of this stuff, all of the messy biology 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:18.199 that allows us to detect things in the world, cost energy. 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:24.960 Vision costs energy, Smell costs energy, and they don't cost 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:29.040 energy just in the act of sensing. Like even if 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:30.920 I close my eyes and my eyes don't seem to 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:34.560 be doing anything, they are soaking up a large amount 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:39.160 of my daily calorie budget just in the act of existing. 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:43.320 And that's because the neurons in my eyes that allow 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:49.040 me to see need to constantly maintain electrical gradients across 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:52.600 themselves in order to be ready to fire when I 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:56.080 actually use them. So the analogy I put in the 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:58.240 given the book is that it's a bit like having 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:02.119 to draw a bow and keep the string really taught, 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:04.840 so that when the moment comes to fire, you can 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:08.040 loose the arrow, but if you do that all the time, 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:10.360 your arm is going to get really tired and it's 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:11.919 going to take a lot of effort to keep that 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:15.399 string Taught that, it's what it's like to own any 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:19.440 kind of sense organ and it means that animals often 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.959 hit a ceiling of like what kinds of senses they 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:25.720 can invest in? Not all of them? How can they 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:29.200 invest in those senses? They don't have infinite energy supplies 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:33.359 to put to the task, and that means that the 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:36.879 senses have limits. But they also the sensors also do 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:41.280 have trade offs that go beyond the energy thing. So 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:45.080 with vision, for example, you can either have an eye 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:49.840 that has extremely high resolution so imagine lots of pixels 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:53.720 in the image, really sharp eyesight, or you can have 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:57.639 an eye that works that is incredibly sensitive and that 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:02.400 works really well in the dark. And you absolutely cannot 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:05.880 have both because the kinds of eye that are really 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:09.959 good for resolution suck its sensitivity and vice versa. So 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:13.840 there's just an inevitable trade off there that always happens, 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:18.359 and it means that for example, an animal like us 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:21.320 humans have some of the most acute eyes in the 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:25.920 animal kingdom, but the minute the lights go off, we're helpless. 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:28.919 We can't see very well at all, whereas something like 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:32.560 a lion can see really well in the dark, but 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:36.720 its eyesight isn't actually very sharp, and that's why to 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:39.639 a hunting lion in the dark that line will be 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:41.640 able to see a zebra, but will not be able 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:43.480 to make out the zebra stripes. 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:47.000 As you talk about also in the book, most of 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:51.840 these senses aren't being used independently or in isolation ever, 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:56.600 It's all part of this massive information gathering process. So 0:19:56.760 --> 0:20:00.160 how do different senses interact? Which is a very big, 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:04.560 open ended question, but I guess maybe more specifically, are 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:08.359 there certain pairs of senses that are more likely to 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:10.960 be found in combination than others? 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:16.639 Oh, that's a really interesting question. So to begin with, Yes, 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:20.880 you're right that the senses always interact, and I think 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:24.800 there's no animal that only uses one sense, and pretty 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:28.800 confident in saying that like every animal is multisensory. They're 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:31.600 trying to get as much information from the world as possible, 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:36.240 and when you see how they do that, you get 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:39.560 the sense. You get sense for the strengths and weaknesses 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:43.200 of the different senses. Distance is a really important thing. 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:46.640 So think about a shark that's hunting. As it's trying 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:49.639 to track its prey. The first clues that it gets 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:54.360 come from smell, which travel over very very long distances. 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:58.640 Once the shark gets closer to its prey, vision becomes 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:03.200 more important, and when it gets even closer still, then 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:06.360 it's electric sense kicks in. That's the sense that allows 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:09.520 it to detect the electric fields that all living things 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:13.959 can't help but produce, especially in water. Now, the electric 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:17.960 sense is amazing. It allows a shark to detect even 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:21.760 buried prey, prey that it can't see, let alone smel. 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:26.840 But the electric sense is very very short range, so 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:29.960 it can't work over the kinds of distances over which 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:34.199 things like light and scent can travel. So you know, 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:38.800 different sensors work at different ranges. They might vary depending 0:21:38.800 --> 0:21:43.280 on how whether they are obscured by barriers, whether they 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:46.560 can travel round, whether they work around corners, whether they 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:50.400 work in the dark. And because each sense has its 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:52.840 own strengths and weaknesses, that's why one of the reasons 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:57.520 why animals rely on lots of them. You asked about 0:21:57.560 --> 0:22:01.800 censers in combination and some humans have this right, like 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:06.240 a lot of people have synesthesia, where their perceptions from 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:12.000 different senses are fused together. So certain concepts or textures 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:14.960 might have a smell associated with them. You know, a 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:18.720 smell might have a color associated with it. Those kinds 0:22:19.000 --> 0:22:23.480 of examples where the lines between the senses blur even more, 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:25.960 I think are actually quite common in the animal world. 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:30.600 So you know, an ant with its antennae is both 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:35.240 smelling and touching at the same time, and I'm not 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:38.920 sure that those things will feel very different to the ant. 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:42.240 I think that it has a kind of chemical mechanical 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:45.159 sense that fuses together. The same is likely true for 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:49.960 an octopus. The octopus's suckers has receptors that taste and 0:22:50.080 --> 0:22:53.000 receptors that touch, and just because of the way those 0:22:53.000 --> 0:22:57.280 are wired together, I think it's likely that the octopus 0:22:57.359 --> 0:23:01.160 has a sense of taste touch. You know, perhaps when 0:23:01.840 --> 0:23:06.199 the arm makes contact with the surface, the octopus is 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:10.840 tasting a shape or getting a feel of a flavor. 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:15.840 And you know, again, those are just two examples, but 0:23:15.920 --> 0:23:18.159 I think that sort of thing is actually probably quite 0:23:18.240 --> 0:23:20.280 common in the animal kingdom. 0:23:21.000 --> 0:23:24.639 It's so interesting to talk about these, you know, just 0:23:24.880 --> 0:23:28.000 in the example that you gave there about taste, touch, 0:23:28.280 --> 0:23:30.760 and I think it kind of reveals in a way 0:23:30.960 --> 0:23:36.240 our limited vocabulary as humans for talking about other types 0:23:36.280 --> 0:23:40.200 of senses. And we also, I feel like, in general 0:23:40.280 --> 0:23:43.600 as humans use so many visual words or metaphors, and 0:23:43.680 --> 0:23:46.080 you talk about this in your book it's plain to 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:50.120 see or from my point of view, and I mean, 0:23:50.160 --> 0:23:52.760 and that reveals in part how reliant we are as 0:23:52.800 --> 0:23:57.560 a species on vision. After writing this book, have you 0:23:57.600 --> 0:24:00.800 found yourself thinking more or being more aware of the 0:24:00.920 --> 0:24:04.760 vocabulary that you use and how it relates to certain senses. 0:24:05.560 --> 0:24:09.359 Yeah, I you know, I mean this is this was 0:24:09.400 --> 0:24:12.679 one of the biggest struggles with writing this book, that 0:24:13.359 --> 0:24:17.840 so much of our vocabulary for perception at all is 0:24:18.040 --> 0:24:21.919 visual in nature, and you know to the extent that 0:24:21.960 --> 0:24:24.879 it's not. There are only a few words that really 0:24:24.960 --> 0:24:28.800 capture what we're trying to do. Like feel is obviously 0:24:28.960 --> 0:24:30.960 touch based, but we use it in a kind of 0:24:30.960 --> 0:24:33.840 a nebulous way to you know, people talking about talk 0:24:33.960 --> 0:24:37.280 but also about feeling love or feeling hunger, which is 0:24:37.280 --> 0:24:40.080 actually quite different to the kind of sensing I'm describing 0:24:40.119 --> 0:24:43.520 in the book. So there's there are definitely sensors with 0:24:44.640 --> 0:24:49.840 much more limited vocabularies, including some of the more familiar 0:24:49.840 --> 0:24:53.720 ones to us, like smell. Smell greatly suffers from a 0:24:53.800 --> 0:24:56.800 lack of very specific words. Now you might be something 0:24:56.880 --> 0:24:59.280 there thinking like, oh, plenty of words to describe things 0:24:59.359 --> 0:25:02.960 I smell. Actually think about those words. Most of those 0:25:03.040 --> 0:25:07.160 are loan words from other senses, or they are like nouns, 0:25:07.200 --> 0:25:10.960 so like lemons, smell of lemon, right, Like, that's very 0:25:11.000 --> 0:25:14.920 different to the rich vocabulary we have to describe visual things. 0:25:15.640 --> 0:25:18.600 And then it gets even harder when you talk about 0:25:18.600 --> 0:25:22.840 things like electric fields or magnetic fields, where we really 0:25:22.880 --> 0:25:26.600 don't have any good vocabulary, where the vocabulary we do 0:25:26.680 --> 0:25:32.400 have fails opaque and jargony. And you know when when 0:25:32.560 --> 0:25:35.159 in the chapter in electric fields, I'm writing about concepts 0:25:35.240 --> 0:25:39.560 like voltage and capacitance, you know, there's nothing that that 0:25:39.880 --> 0:25:44.399 captures the the the very vivid sensations that words like 0:25:45.080 --> 0:25:50.520 bright or loud or rough can convey. So that was 0:25:50.560 --> 0:25:53.440 a challenge with the book. And you know, since since 0:25:53.560 --> 0:25:57.159 writing it, I have thought about this a lot, and 0:25:57.359 --> 0:26:02.359 if anything, it just it makes the the lack of 0:26:02.359 --> 0:26:05.080 the relevant vocabery just that much harder. You know, I'm 0:26:05.280 --> 0:26:07.760 I'm a writer. My job is to find words, and 0:26:08.560 --> 0:26:11.520 it really it kind of sucks. It gnaws on my 0:26:11.600 --> 0:26:13.720 soul when I when I can't do that. I'll give 0:26:13.720 --> 0:26:16.320