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A review by shanaqui
Sing Like Fish: How Sound Rules Life Under Water by Amorina Kingdon
informative
medium-paced
4.0
Amorina Kingdon's Sing Like Fish is all about the world of sound underwater. At one point humans dubbed it stuff like "the silent kingdom" and stuff like that because we can't hear well underwater, but in fact lots of fish, marine invertebrates and marine mammals make noises -- a lot of them! Whalesong is well known now, but it isn't the only thing. There are fish that drum their swim bladder to attract a mate, fish who fart (literally expel air from their anuses) to communicate, and of course, use sound to navigate.
Unsurprisingly, pretty much any purpose for sound you can imagine from our lives is also served in the ocean, perhaps through some slightly different physics.
And of course the sounds we make are impacting the ocean. Sometimes that means our installations in the seabed are actually attracting creatures, and sometimes it means that the sounds are actively snapping the cilia involved in hearing and leading to deafened, unbalanced lobsters whose lives are drastically shortened by their injuries.
Kingdon discusses all of this and how we can ameliorate some of it, highlighting things we need to pay attention to for the health of the planet. Like me, you probably didn't know that sound can harm plankton, but... yep, it can.
Mostly though it's full of wonder about this world of sound we don't always understand or know how to investigate. I found it really interesting.
Unsurprisingly, pretty much any purpose for sound you can imagine from our lives is also served in the ocean, perhaps through some slightly different physics.
And of course the sounds we make are impacting the ocean. Sometimes that means our installations in the seabed are actually attracting creatures, and sometimes it means that the sounds are actively snapping the cilia involved in hearing and leading to deafened, unbalanced lobsters whose lives are drastically shortened by their injuries.
Kingdon discusses all of this and how we can ameliorate some of it, highlighting things we need to pay attention to for the health of the planet. Like me, you probably didn't know that sound can harm plankton, but... yep, it can.
Mostly though it's full of wonder about this world of sound we don't always understand or know how to investigate. I found it really interesting.