The new book An Immense World:How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us (Bookshop|Amazon) delightfully combines scientific writing with a literary sensibility and a gift for vivid similes. It’s by Ed Yong, who won a Pulitzer for his reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic. The book’s title is derived from lines by poet William Blake: How do you know but every bird / that cuts the airy way / Is an immense world of delight, / closed by your senses five?This is part of a complete episode.
After an international team of scientists and staffers spent six months at a research station in Antarctica, their accents changed ever so slightly, according to an acoustic analysis by German researchers. The slang terms they shared include dingle...
Is the booty as in shake your booty related to a pirate’s booty? The booty that means “derriere” is an alteration of botty, which is itself an alteration of bottom. The booty that means “loot” or “plunder”...
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