Below the Edge of Darkness
A Memoir of Exploring Light and Life in the Deep Sea
(Sprache: Englisch)
A pioneering marine biologist takes us down into the deep ocean to understand bioluminescence the language of light that helps life communicate in the darkness and what it tells us about the future of life on Earth ...
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A pioneering marine biologist takes us down into the deep ocean to understand bioluminescence the language of light that helps life communicate in the darkness and what it tells us about the future of life on Earth in this thrilling blend of hard science and high adventure (The New York Times Book Review). NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BOOKLIST Edith Widder s story is one of hardscrabble optimism, two-fisted exploration, and groundbreaking research. She s done things I dream of doing. James Cameron
Edith Widder s childhood dream of becoming a marine biologist was almost derailed in college, when complications from a surgery gone wrong caused temporary blindness. A new reality of shifting shadows drew her fascination to the power of light as well as the importance of optimism.
As her vision cleared, Widder found the intersection of her two passions in oceanic bioluminescence, a little-explored scientific field within Earth s last great unknown frontier: the deep ocean. With little promise of funding or employment, she leaped at the first opportunity to train as a submersible pilot and dove into the darkness.
Widder s first journey into the deep ocean, in a diving suit that resembled a suit of armor, took her to a depth of eight hundred feet. She turned off the lights and witnessed breathtaking underwater fireworks: explosions of bioluminescent activity. Concerns about her future career vanished. She only wanted to know one thing: Why was there so much light down there?
Below the Edge of Darkness takes readers deep into our planet s oceans as Widder pursues her questions about one of the most important and widely used forms of communication in nature. In the process, she reveals hidden worlds and a dazzling menagerie of behaviors and animals, from microbes to leviathans, many never before seen or, like the legendary giant squid, never before filmed in their deep-sea lairs. Alongside
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Widder, we experience life-and-death equipment malfunctions and witness breakthroughs in technology and understanding, all set against a growing awareness of the deteriorating health of our largest and least understood ecosystem.
A thrilling adventure story as well as a scientific revelation, Below the Edge of Darkness reckons with the complicated and sometimes dangerous realities of exploration. Widder shows us how when we push our boundaries and expand our worlds, discovery and wonder follow. These are the ultimate keys to the ocean s salvation and thus to our future on this planet.
A thrilling adventure story as well as a scientific revelation, Below the Edge of Darkness reckons with the complicated and sometimes dangerous realities of exploration. Widder shows us how when we push our boundaries and expand our worlds, discovery and wonder follow. These are the ultimate keys to the ocean s salvation and thus to our future on this planet.
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Chapter 1Seeing
Light is what, exactly? For something that has no mass, it sure carries a lot of existential weight. It is both an energy source and an information carrier. It can be injurious and it can be healing. It is one thing that can manifest as two things a wave in the future and a particle in the past. In a vacuum, it travels at the maximum speed allowed by the universe, and it does so without ever decaying. It gives up its energy only when it interacts with other particles, like those that make up the visual pigments in our eyes, and it is through these interactions that we interpret the world around us.
For most life-forms on Earth, light is the paramount stimulus that makes life as we know it possible. Green plants harness energy from light to synthesize sugar from carbon dioxide and water. In the process, oxygen is generated as a by-product. As magic tricks go, forming food and breathable air from what seems like nothing is hard to beat. Still, it s not especially flashy. Creating dazzling light from food and air, however, is very flashy. That s the magic of bioluminescence. Of course, to appreciate that particular alchemy, you need something equally miraculous: vision.
Being able to see provides a huge advantage in the game of life; it is for this evolutionary reason that 95 percent of all animal species on Earth have eyes. These range from microscopic, such as some single-celled algae that have an eye no bigger than one-tenth the diameter of a human hair, to giant squid with an eye the size of your head. The different ways that such disparate eyes see the world reveal much about the biological needs of their owners. In fact, figuring out what different eyes are best adapted to see is such a valuable tool for probing the nature of life that it has become a whole field of study called visual ecology.
If you compare the life of a giant squid inhabiting the deep sea with that of microscopic plankton living in sunlit surface
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waters, the difference in eye size makes sense: a giant eye collects many more photons than a tiny one and is therefore better adapted for living in a dim light environment. But what about another deep-sea inhabitant, the cockeyed squid? Its name derives from its mismatched eyes: the left eye is giant and bulging and directed upward toward the sunlight, while the right eye is smaller, recessed, and aimed downward into the inky depths. This seemingly makes no sense until you learn that bioluminescent light organs encircle the small eye. While the large eye hunts overhead for dim, distant silhouettes of prey against a dark, lead-gray background, the bottom eye can use its built-in flashlights to illuminate more proximate prey. Clearly, to understand the visual ecology of the largest living space on Earth, one needs to appreciate the nature and function of bioluminescence alongside the nature and function of eyes.
It is inevitable that when we try to figure out what different animals see, we relate it to what we can see. That is a major challenge in the deep ocean, though, where our very presence alters the visual environment. It s difficult to envision a place you are unable to observe in its natural state. Our eyes are adapted for a much brighter existence, which means that when we explore darkness, we must bring artificial lights so intense that to visual systems adapted to the deep sea, they are probably as bright as looking directly into the sun. Since it is such a challenge to observe animals in this realm without disturbing them, sometimes the best way to gain insight into their lives is to learn as much as possible about their eyes.
The most important questions to ask about eyes are: What information do they accept, and what do they exclude? All eyes act as filters, allowing in only data streams about the outside world that optimize their owner s chances for survival. Anything that doesn&rsquo
It is inevitable that when we try to figure out what different animals see, we relate it to what we can see. That is a major challenge in the deep ocean, though, where our very presence alters the visual environment. It s difficult to envision a place you are unable to observe in its natural state. Our eyes are adapted for a much brighter existence, which means that when we explore darkness, we must bring artificial lights so intense that to visual systems adapted to the deep sea, they are probably as bright as looking directly into the sun. Since it is such a challenge to observe animals in this realm without disturbing them, sometimes the best way to gain insight into their lives is to learn as much as possible about their eyes.
The most important questions to ask about eyes are: What information do they accept, and what do they exclude? All eyes act as filters, allowing in only data streams about the outside world that optimize their owner s chances for survival. Anything that doesn&rsquo
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Autoren-Porträt von Edith, Ph.D. Widder
Edith Widder, Ph.D., is an oceanographer, a marine biologist, and the co-founder, CEO, and senior scientist at the Ocean Research & Conservation Association, a nonprofit organization where she is focusing her passion for saving the ocean into developing innovative technologies to preserve and protect the ocean s most precious real estate: its estuaries. She has given three TED talks; has been awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, as well as the Explorer s Club Citation of Merit; and is the first recipient of the Captain Don Walsh Award for Ocean Exploration established by the Marine Technology Society and the Society of Underwater Technology.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Edith, Ph.D. Widder
- 2021, 352 Seiten, 2 farbige Abbildungen, Maße: 16,3 x 24 cm, Gebunden, Englisch
- Verlag: Random House
- ISBN-10: 0525509240
- ISBN-13: 9780525509240
- Erscheinungsdatum: 04.08.2021
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
Gripping . . . Widder s voice is in turns jaunty, precise and nerdily quippy. . . . The prose glints. . . . Widder [has] worked hard to bring the abyss to light. It is our duty, as clumsy land-bound dwellers of a water planet, to look, and to remember. The New York Times Book ReviewEdith Widder s story is one of hardscrabble optimism, two-fisted exploration, and groundbreaking research. She s done things I dream of doing. I d have wrapped my submersible, the Deepsea Challenger, in bacon if it would have lured the elusive giant squid from the depths. In Below the Edge of Darkness, Widder tells you how she did it. James Cameron
My experience of exploring the deep ocean and its alien life with Edie Widder was fabulous. She enthralls us with many such stories in her book. I recommend it. Ray Dalio
To shed light on a subject is what any scientific book should do. To go into it in depth without losing the reader is a harder task. Edith Widder s subject is light itself the manufacture of light by strange and eerie denizens of the deep sea and her scintillating style is worthy of the topic. This is a book to delight the general reader while simultaneously informing the professional: a book of marvels, marvelously written. Richard Dawkins, New York Times bestselling author of The God Delusion
Personal and page-turning, adventurous and awe-inspiring, Below the Edge of Darkness sparkles with the thrill of exploration and glows with an urgent plea for the future of our precious seas. Comparisons to Jacques Cousteau spring to mind as Edith Widder shares the profound journey of her life one as unique and important as the unexplored realms of our very own planet. Juli Berwald, author of Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone
Luminous the topic, the heroic journey, and the author herself. Dive in with Edith Widder, trailblazing scientist and explorer, as she reveals the galaxy of light
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and life in the universe below the surface of the sea, out-shining skeptical male colleagues with dignity, grace and a robust sense of humor. Sylvia Earle, National Geographic explorer in residence, founder of Mission Blue
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