Underbug: An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology - Rilegato

Margonelli, Lisa

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0374282072 ISBN 13: 9780374282073

Casa editrice: Scientific Amer Books, 2018

Riassunto

<p><b>The award-winning journalist Lisa Margonelli, national bestselling author of <i>Oil on the Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank</i>, investigates the environmental and economic impact termites inflict on human societies in this fascinating examination of one of nature’s most misunderstood insects.</b><br><br>Are we more like termites than we ever imagined? In <i>Underbug</i>, the award-winning journalist Lisa Margonelli introduces us to the enigmatic creatures that collectively outweigh human beings ten to one and consume $40 billion worth of valuable stuff annually—and yet, in Margonelli’s telling, seem weirdly familiar. Over the course of a decade-long obsession with the little bugs, Margonelli pokes around termite mounds and high-tech research facilities, closely watching biologists, roboticists, and geneticists. Her globe-trotting journey veers into uncharted territory, from evolutionary theory to Edwardian science literature to the military industrial complex. What begins as a natural history of the termite becomes a personal exploration of the unnatural future we’re building, with darker observations on power, technology, historical trauma, and the limits of human cognition.<br><br>Whether in Namibia or Cambridge, Arizona or Australia, Margonelli turns up astounding facts and raises provocative questions. Is a termite an individual or a unit of a superorganism? Can we harness the termite’s properties to change the world? If we build termite-like swarming robots, will they inevitably destroy us? Is it possible to think without having a mind? <i>Underbug</i> burrows into these questions and many others—unearthing disquieting answers about the world’s most underrated insect and what it means to be human.</p>

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Informazioni sull?autore

<b>Lisa Margonelli</b> is the author of the national bestseller <i>Oil on the</i><i> Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank </i>and writes the Small Science column for <i>Zócalo Public Square</i>, where she is a senior editor. From 2006 to 2012, she was a fellow at the New America Foundation. She has written for <i>The Atlantic</i>, <i>Wired</i>, <i>Scientific</i><i> American</i>, <i>The New York Times</i>, and other publications. She lives in Maine.

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Scientific Amer Books
• Data di pubblicazione: 2018
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0374282072
• ISBN 13: 9780374282073
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Disegnatore: Shahan Thomas
• Numero di pagine: 303
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile