Where We Meet the World: The Story of the Senses

The thrilling story of how our senses evolved and how they shape our encounters with the world

Our senses are what make life worth living. They allow us to appreciate a sip of an ice-cold drink, the sound of laughter, the touch of a lover. But only recently have incredible advances in sensory biology given us the ability to understand how and why our senses evolved as they have.

In Where We Meet the World, biologist Ashley Ward takes readers on a breathtaking tour of how our senses function. Ward looks at not only the five major senses--vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch--but also a host of other senses, such as balance and interoception, the sense of the body's internal state. Drawing on new research, he explores how our senses interact with and regulate each other, and he uncovers what we can learn from how other animals--and even bacteria--encounter the world.

Full of warmth and humor, Where We Meet the World shows how new insights in biology transform our understanding of the relationship between ourselves and our environment, revealing the vibrancy--and strangeness--of both.

Ashley Ward is a professor and director of the Animal Behaviour Lab at the University of Sydney, where he researches social behavior, learning, and communication in animals. His work has been published in top journals including PNAS, Biological Reviews, and Current Biology. The author of The Social Lives of Animals, he lives in Sydney.