An edition of Underbug (2018)

Underbug

an obsessive tale of termites and technology

First edition.
  • 4 Want to read
Underbug
Lisa Margonelli, Lisa Margonel ...
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August 7, 2021 | History
An edition of Underbug (2018)

Underbug

an obsessive tale of termites and technology

First edition.
  • 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
303

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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
in English - First edition.
Cover of: Underbug
Underbug: An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology
2018, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
in English
Cover of: Underbug
Underbug: An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology
2018, Oneworld Publications
in English

Add another edition?

Book Details


Table of Contents

Part I. A termite safari
Part II. Riddles in the dirt ; An inconvenient insect ; Into the mound ; Complexity is the essence ; Because they are so sweet ; A black box with six legs ; Waiting for Carnot
Part III. The second termite safari ; Life in the firehose ; Jazz in the metagenome ; Burning very slowly ; Restless streams
Part IV. Crossing the abstraction barrier ; Influential individuals ; The robot apocalypse
Part V. Darwin's termites ; The soul of the soil ; The math of fairy circles ; The soul of the cell ; Empathy and the drone ; White ants
Part VI. Them and us.

Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-287) and index.

Other Titles
Obsessive tale of termites and technology
Copyright Date
2018

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
595.7/36
Library of Congress
QL529 .M374 2018, QL529.M374 2018

The Physical Object

Pagination
303 pages
Number of pages
303

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL26964736M
ISBN 10
0374282072
ISBN 13
9780374282073
LCCN
2017059906
OCLC/WorldCat
1004919593

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August 7, 2021 Edited by New York Times Bestsellers Bot Add NYT review links
August 17, 2020 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
May 24, 2019 Created by MARC Bot import new book