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30 Animals That Made Us Smarter
30 Animals That Made Us Smarter
Oct 28, 2024 8:22 AM

Author:Patrick Aryee

30 Animals That Made Us Smarter

Did you know that mosquitoes' mouthparts are helping to develop pain-free surgical needles? Who'd have thought that the humble mussel could inspire so many useful things, from plywood production to a 'glue' that cements the crowns on teeth and saves unborn babies in the womb? How about the fact that studying the tiny kingfisher solved engineering problems with Japan's ultra-high-speed bullet train, or that the humpback whale's flipper helped design the most efficient blades for wind power turbines? For many years, humans have been using the natural world as inspiration for everything from fashion to architecture, and medicine to transport, and it may come as a surprise to learn how many inventions have been motivated by animal design and behaviour.

Dive into the depths with us as author Patrick Aryee reveals even more astonishing stories about animals' exceptional powers and the unique contributions they've made to the quality of our everyday lives. Beautiful hand-drawn illustrations accompany his revelations and bring the natural world to life.

Reviews

Game-changing. Katy Milkman shows in this book that we can all be a super human

—— Angela Duckworth, bestselling author of Grit

One of America's finest behavioural scientists has produced the ultimate guide to overcoming your worst instincts and becoming your best self. How to Change is like having the smartest friend in the world whispering in your ear, coaching you to vanquish laziness, procrastination, and impulsivity. This book is so helpful that after you read it, you'll want to send Katy Milkman a thank you note.

—— Daniel H. Pink, author of WHEN, DRIVE, and TO SELL IS HUMAN

In investing, as in so many other areas of life, developing the right habits is the key to success. Katy Milkman is a great guide into techniques to get you on and keep you on track, no matter your goals.

—— Charles R. Schwab

How to Change is a wonder. Plenty of books offer advice on how to overcome common personal barriers but none as clearly, engagingly, and compellingly as this.

—— Bob Cialdini, author of INFLUENCE and PRE-SUASION

How to Change is a must-read for anyone looking to improve their habits - or their life. Milkman is at the forefront of the scientific revolution into behaviour change and, as important, she's a captivating storyteller. How to Change perfectly combines groundbreaking scientific research with personal stories of triumph and failure to explain how anyone can change. Transformation has always been mysterious. This book tells you how to make it real.

—— Charles Duhigg, bestselling author of THE POWER OF HABIT and SMARTER FASTER BETTER

If your goal is to get better, or to make your teams or business better, READ THIS BOOK. How to Change is the first book to lay out the science of what creates and sustains change of all kinds. In captivating style, Dr. Katy Milkman lays out the scientifically-based techniques she has used to help people, teams and companies change for good.

—— Laszlo Bock, CEO of Humu, former Google SVP of People, and author of WORK RULES!

Rawlence is a fine ecologist and an excellent writer... The Treeline is timely, salutary and eminently readable. Excellent.

—— Colin Tudge , Resurgence & Ecology

Ben Rawlence... writes with accuracy, beauty and urgency.

—— Andrew Robinson , Nature

[A] moving, thoughtful, deeply reported elegy for our vanishing world and a map of the one to come.

—— Nathaniel Rich, author of LOSING EARTH

A fascinating book drawing on a brilliant, original line of thinking... A perfect combination of lyrical writing and rigorous reporting. Utterly illuminating.

—— Sophy Roberts, author of THE LOST PIANOS OF SIBERIA

What an extraordinary book this is! ... This is not just a description of a warming world but an active invitation to live differently, to participate with wisdom and humility in the cacophonous and ever-unfinished abundance of terrestrial life.

—— Ben Ehrenreich, author of DESERT NOTEBOOKS

The very treeline is on the move: a devastating image. This book is an evocative, wise and unflinching exploration of what it will mean for humanity.

—— Jay Griffiths, author of WILD

Absolutely fantastic and devastating.

—— Emma Gannon, author of DISCONNECTED

Ben Rawlence circumnavigates the very top of the globe - returning with a warning, in this enthralling and wonderfully written book, that all would do well to heed.

—— Mark Lynas, author of SIX DEGREES

Rawlence evokes the natural world in lyrical, delicate prose... A timely, urgent message delivered in graceful fashion.

—— Kirkus, starred review

Compelling, intriguing, and thoroughly engaging... A title of the utmost importance at a time of tremendous peril, The Treeline is a game-changer.

—— Booklist

A lyrical travelogue documenting the decline of the great boreal forests that encircle the north of the globe, and the cultures that depend on them... A grim and thought-provoking read.

—— Rory Dusoir , Gardens Illustrated

Beautiful and affecting.

—— Herald

A sobering account... The Treeline is a powerful reminder of the far-off impacts of global warming.

—— Kit Gillet , Geographical

[An] excellent read.

—— Stephen J Scaybrook , Architectural Technology Journal

The Treeline is wise and considered, offering both klaxon warning about the state of the earth and beautiful hymn to its interdependencies.

—— Jon Gower , Nation.Cymru

Maggie Nelson writes with a luminosity that is, upon opening any one of her books, immediately enlivening.

—— Ellen Peirson-Hagger , New Statesman

A patient and astringent analysis of what we owe each other and what we owe ourselves, and how to balance the two demands.

—— Adam Thirlwell , Times Literary Supplement, *Books of the Year*

One of the most electrifying writers at work in America today.

—— Olivia Laing , Guardian (The Argonauts)

Otherlands is one of those rare books that's both deeply informative and daringly imaginative. It will change the way you look at the history of life, and perhaps also its future

—— Elizabeth Kolbert, author of THE SIXTH EXTINCTION

This stunning biography of our venerable Earth, detailing her many ages and moods, is an essential travel guide to the changing landscapes of our living world. As we hurtle into the Anthropocene, blindly at the helm of this inconstant planet, Halliday gives us our bearings within the panorama of deep time. Aeons buckle under his pen: the world before us made vivid; the paradox of our permanence and impermanence visceral. Wonderful

—— Gaia Vince, author of TRANSCENDENCE

Stirring, surprising and beautifully written, Otherlands offers glimpses of times so different to our own they feel like parallel worlds. In its lyricism and the intimate attention it pays to nonhuman life, Thomas Halliday's book recalls Rachel Carson's Under the Sea Wind, and marks the arrival of an exciting new voice

—— Cal Flynn, author of ISLANDS OF ABANDONMENT

Imaginative

—— Andrew Robinson , Nature

This study of our prehistoric earth is "beyond cinematic", James McConnachie says. "It could well be the best book I read in 2022

—— Robbie Millen and Andrew Holgate, Books of the Year , Sunday Times

It's phenomenally difficult for human brains to grasp deep time. Even thousands of years seem unfathomable, with all human existence before the invention of writing deemed 'prehistory', a time we know very little about. Thomas Halliday's book Otherlands helps to ease our self-centred minds into these depths. Moving backwards in time, starting with the thawing plains of the Pleistocene (2.58 million - 12,000 years ago) and ending up in the marine world of the Ediacaran (635-541 mya), he devotes one chapter to each of the intervening epochs or periods and, like a thrilling nature documentary, presents a snapshot of life at that time. It's an immersive experience, told in the present tense, of these bizarre 'otherlands', populated by creatures and greenery unlike any on Earth today

—— Books of the Year , Geographical

Each chapter of this literary time machine takes us further back in prehistory, telling vivid stories about ancient creatures and their alien ecologies, ending 550 million years ago

—— The Telegraph Cultural Desk, Books of the Year , Telegraph

The largest-known asteroid impact on Earth is the one that killed the dinosaurs 65?million years ago, but that is a mere pit stop on Thomas Halliday's evocative journey into planetary history in Otherlands. Each chapter of this literary time machine takes us further back into the deep past, telling vivid stories about ancient creatures and their alien ecologies, until at last we arrive 550?million years ago in the desert of what is now Australia, where no plant life yet covers the land. Halliday notes the urgency of reducing carbon emissions in the present to protect our settled patterns of life, but adds: "The idea of a pristine Earth, unaffected by human biology and culture, is impossible." It's an epic lesson in the impermanence of all things

—— Steven Poole, Books of the Year , Telegraph

The world on which we live is "undoubtedly a human planet", Thomas Halliday writes in this extraordinary debut. But "it has not always been, and perhaps will not always be". Humanity has dominated the Earth for a tiny fraction of its history. And that History is vast. We tend to lump all dinosaurs, for example, into one period in the distant past. But more time passed between the last diplodocus and the first tyrannosaurus than has passed between the last tyrannosaurus and the present day. A mind-boggling fact. This is a glorious, mesmerising guide to the past 500 million years bought to life by this young palaeobiologist's rich and cinematic writing

—— Ben Spencer, Books of the Year , Sunday Times

A book that I really want to read but haven't yet bought - so I hope it goes into my Christmas stocking - is Otherlands: A World in the Making by Thomas Halliday. It sounds so amazing - a history of the world before history, before people. He's trying to write the history of the organisms and the plants and the creatures and everything else as the world grows from protozoic slime or whatever we emerged from. It sounds like an absolutely incredible effort of imagination. I think that Christmas presents should be books you can curl up with and get engrossed in and transported by - and Otherlands sounds like exactly that

—— Michael Wood, Books of the Year , BBC History Magazine

But, of course, not all history is human history, Otherlands, by Thomas Halliday, casts its readers further and further back, past the mammoths, past the dinosaurs, back to an alien world of shifting rock and weird plants. It is a marvel

—— Books of the Year , Prospect
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