Synopses & Reviews
How do we know what's real? That's not a trick question: sensory science is increasingly finding that we don't perceive reality: we create it through perception. In
We Have the Technology, science writer Kara Platoni guides us through the latest developments in the science of sensory perception.
We Have the Technology introduces us to researchers who are changing the way we experience the world, whether creating scents that stimulate the memories of Alzheimers patients, constructing virtual limbs that approximate a sense of touch, or building augmented reality labs that prepare soldiers for the battlefield. These diverse investigations not only explain previously elusive aspects of human experience, but offer tantalizing glimpses into a future when we can expand, control, and enhance our senses as never before.
A fascinating tour of human capability and scientific ingenuity, We Have the Technology offers essential insights into the nature and possibilities of human experience.
Synopsis
An award-winning journalist investigates how scientists and citizens around the world are re-tooling our sensesand what their discoveries are teaching us about the nature and future of human perception
About the Author
Kara Platoni has a masters degree in journalism from UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, where she now teaches reporting and narrative writing. She has long reported on science from the Bay Area, both in her former capacity as staff writer for the alt-weekly East Bay Express, where she covered science, technology, medicine, Internet culture and crime; and as a freelancer who has written for Air and Space, Smithsonian, and Popular Science. Since 2011, Platoni has also co-hosted The Field Trip Podcast, which explores how science works in the real world. Among other writing awards, Platoni has won the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences Journalism Award and the Evert Clark/Seth Payne Award for Young Science Journalists.
Table of Contents
Part One: The Five Senses1. Taste
2. Smell
3. Vision
4. Hearing
5. Touch
Part Two: Metasensory Perception
6. Time
7. Pain
8. Emotion
Part Three: Hacking Perception
9. Virtual Reality
10. Augmented Reality
11. New Senses