UID:
kobvindex_ZLB35222669
Edition:
Unabridged
ISBN:
9780063073890
Content:
" NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A masterpiece of science writing. 8211 Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding SweetgrassMesmerizing, world-expanding, and achingly beautiful. 8211 Ed Yong, author of An Immense WorldRich, vital, and full of surprises. Read it! 8211 Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky and The Sixth Extinction A brilliant must-read. This book shook and changed me. 8211 David George Haskell, author of Sounds Wild and Broken, The Songs of Trees, and The Forest UnseenAward-winning Atlantic staff writer Zoë Schlanger delivers a groundbreaking work of popular science that probes the hidden world of the plant kingdom and reveals the astonishing capabilities of the green life all around us. It takes tremendous biological creativity to be a plant. To survive and thrive while rooted in a single spot, plants have adapted ingenious methods of survival. In recent years, scientists have learned about their ability to communicate, recognize their kin and behave socially, hear sounds, morph their bodies to blend into their surroundings, store useful memories that inform their life cycle, and trick animals into behaving to their benefit, to name just a few remarkable talents. The Light Eaters is a deep immersion into the drama of green life and the complexity of this wild and awe-inspiring world that challenges our very understanding of agency, consciousness, and intelligence. In looking closely, we see that plants, rather than imitate human intelligence, have perhaps formed a parallel system. What is intelligent life if not a vine that grows leaves to blend into the shrub on which it climbs, a flower that shapes its bloom to fit exactly the beak of its pollinator, a pea seedling that can hear water flowing and make its way toward it? Zoë Schlanger takes us across the globe, digging into her own memories and into the soil with the scientists who have spent their waking days studying these amazing entities up close. What can we learn about life on Earth from the living things that thrive, adapt, consume, and accommodate simultaneously? More important, what do we owe these life forms once we come to understand their rich and varied abilities? Examining the latest epiphanies in botanical research, Schlanger spotlights the intellectual struggles among the researchers conceiving a wholly new view of their subject, offering a glimpse of a field in turmoil as plant scientists debate the tenets of ongoing discoveries and how they influence our understanding of what a plant is. We need plants to survive. But what do they need us for8212 if at all? An eye-opening and informative look at the ecosystem we live in, this book challenges us to rethink the role of plants8212 and our own place8212 in the natural world. "
Content:
Biographisches: " Zoë Schlanger is a staff writer at the Atlantic , where she covers climate change. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, Time, Newsweek, The Nation, Quartz, and on NPR among other major outlets, and in the 2022 Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology. A recipient of a 2017 National Association of Science Writers' reporting award, she is often a guest speaker in schools and universities. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. " Biographisches: " Zoë Schlanger is a staff writer at the Atlantic , where she covers climate change. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, Time, Newsweek, The Nation, Quartz, and on NPR among other major outlets, and in the 2022 Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology. A recipient of a 2017 National Association of Science Writers' reporting award, she is often a guest speaker in schools and universities. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. " Rezension(3): "〈a href=http://www.publishersweekly.com target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/pw_logo.png alt=Publisher's Weekly border=0 /〉〈/a〉: Starred review from March 18, 2024 Schlanger, a staff writer at the Atlantic , debuts with an astounding exploration of the remarkable abilities of plants and fungi. Highlighting recent research suggesting many plants are “composites of interpenetrating forms of life,” Schlanger details Peruvian ecologist Ernesto Gianoli’s theory that the Chilean boquila vine, which changes the appearance of its leaves to mimic nearby plants, receives shape-shifting direction from microorganisms “hijacking and redirecting” the vine’s genes. Other plants appear capable of communication, Schlanger contends, explaining that the Sitka willow can “alter the contents of its leaves to be less nutritious” when threatened by hungry caterpillars and transmit airborne chemical signals prompting other trees to take similar defensive action before they’re attacked. Investigating whether plants can be said to have personalities, Schlanger describes ecologist Richard Karban’s ongoing research into whether differences in how strongly individual sagebrush plants respond to internal and external distress signals are consistent over time (“Natural-born scaredy-cats” might respond “wildly at the slightest disturbance”). There are mind-bending revelations on every page, and Schlanger combines robust intellectual curiosity with delicate lyricism (“Pearlescent wetness clings to everything like spider silk,” she writes of the Hawaiian cliffs where a botanist rappels to pollinate an endangered hibiscus). Science writing doesn’t get better than this."
Language:
English
Keywords:
Hörbuch
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