An edition of Underbug (2018)

Underbug

An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology

  • 4 Want to read
Underbug
Lisa Margonelli, Lisa Margonel ...
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Last edited by ImportBot
September 15, 2020 | History
An edition of Underbug (2018)

Underbug

An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology

  • 4 Want to read

"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.

Publish Date
Language
English
Pages
320

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Edition Availability
Cover of: Underbug
Underbug: An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology
2020, Oneworld Publications
in English
Cover of: Underbug
Underbug: An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology
Sep 03, 2019, Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux
paperback
Cover of: Underbug
Underbug: An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology
2018, Oneworld Publications
in English
Cover of: Underbug
Underbug: an obsessive tale of termites and technology
2018
in English - First edition.
Cover of: Underbug
Underbug: An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology
2018, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
in English

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Book Details


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Library of Congress

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL30156877M
ISBN 13
9781786076823

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Better World Books record

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September 15, 2020 Created by ImportBot Imported from Better World Books record