Underbug an obsessive tale of termites and technology
"Are we more like termites than we ever imagined? In Underbug, 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. Over the course of a decade-long obsession...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Books Print Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York :
Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
2018.
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| Edition: | First edition. |
| Subjects: | |
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| Summary: | "Are we more like termites than we ever imagined? In Underbug, 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. Over the course of a decade-long obsession with one of nature's most influential but least understood bugs, Margonelli pokes around termite mounds and high-tech research facilities, closely watching biologists, roboticists, and geneticists. 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. Her globe-trotting journey veers into uncharted territory, from evolutionary theory to Edwardian science literature to the military-industrial complex. 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? Underbug burrows into these questions and many others--unearthing disquieting answers about the world's most underrated insect and what it means to be human."--Dust jacket. |
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| Physical Description: | 303 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-287) and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780374282073 0374282072 |
| Author Notes: |
