The Reality Bubble : How Science Reveals the Hidden Truths That Shape Our World

The open jar -- Mind bomb -- I to eye -- Recipe for disaster -- Black gold -- Trash & treasure -- Time lords -- Space invaders -- Human robots -- The empire wears no clothes -- Revolution.;"From one of Canada's most engaging and socially engaged science journalists, a wide-ranging and wonder filled look at the hidden things that shape our world. A groundbreaking, fascinating book for our times. Ziya Tong brings to bear her scientific worldview and formidable understanding of the urgent problems that confront our world. The Reality Bubble provides a vivid picture of what stalks our blind spots and reveals how the way we look at the world has the power to shake civilization. With all of the curiosity and flair that drives her broadcasting, Tong takes us on a journey from the smallest nanoparticle to the very ideas of time and space, pausing along the way to consider the implications of research as diverse as the nature of animal languages, and the consequences of artificial fertilizers on your DNA. She'll explain fascinating science applications, such as the way police linked American nuclear testing to a murder mystery in Vienna. Throughout, what she discovers is that much of what we don't see is deliberately hidden from us. Although we live in a culture of increasingly intrusive surveillance, significant parts of the global system that sustains us are closely guarded secrets: where our food comes from, where our energy comes from, and where our waste goes. This vitally important new book shows how science, and the curiosity that drives it, can help civilization flourish not by providing us with new technology, but by shedding light on the world we inhabit, which is increasingly of our own creation. Fast-paced, utterly fascinating, and deeply humane, The Reality Bubble gives voice to the sense we've all had that there is more to the world than meets the eye."-- WINNER OF THE 2020 LANE ANDERSON AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 RBC TAYLOR PRIZE From one of the world's most engaging science journalists, a groundbreaking and wonder-filled look at the hidden things that shape our lives in unexpected and sometimes dangerous ways. Our naked eyes see only a thin sliver of reality. We are blind in comparison to the X-rays that peer through skin, the mass spectrometers that detect the dead inside the living, or the high-tech surveillance systems that see with artificial intelligence. And we are blind compared to the animals that can see in infrared, or ultraviolet, or in 360-degree vision. These animals live in the same world we do, but they see something quite different when they look around. With all of the curiosity and flair that drives her broadcasting, Ziya Tong illuminates this hidden world, and takes us on a journey to examine ten of humanity's biggest blind spots. First, we are introduced to the blind spots we are all born with, to see how technology reveals an astonishing world that exists beyond our human senses. It is with these new ways of seeing that today's scientists can image everything from an atom to a black hole. In Section Two, our collective blind spots are exposed. It's not that we can't see, Tong reminds us. It's that we don't. In the 21st century, there are cameras everywhere, except where our food comes from, where our energy comes from, and where our waste goes. Being in the dark when it comes to how we survive makes it impossible to navigate our future. Lastly, the scope widens to our civilizational blind spots. Here, the blurred lens of history reveals how we inherit ways of thinking about the world that seem natural or inevitable but are in fact little more than traditions, ways of seeing the world that have come to harm it. This vitally important new book shows how science, and the curiosity that drives it, can help civilization flourish by opening our eyes to the landscape laid out before us. Fast-paced, utterly fascinating, and deeply humane, The Reality Bubble gives voice to the sense we've all had — that there is more to the world than meets the eye. "From one of Canada's most engaging and socially engaged science journalists, a wide-ranging and wonder filled look at the hidden things that shape our world. A groundbreaking, fascinating book for our times. Ziya Tong brings to bear her scientific worldview and formidable understanding of the urgent problems that confront our world. The Reality Bubble provides a vivid picture of what stalks our blind spots and reveals how the way we look at the world has the power to shake civilization. With all of the curiosity and flair that drives her broadcasting, Tong takes us on a journey from the smallest nanoparticle to the very ideas of time and space, pausing along the way to consider the implications of research as diverse as the nature of animal languages, and the consequences of artificial fertilizers on your DNA. She'll explain fascinating science applications, such as the way police linked American nuclear testing to a murder mystery in Vienna. Throughout, what she discovers is that much of what we don't see is deliberately hidden from us. Although we live in a culture of increasingly intrusive surveillance, significant parts of the global system that sustains us are closely guarded secrets: where our food comes from, where our energy comes from, and where our waste goes. This vitally important new book shows how science, and the curiosity that drives it, can help civilization flourish not by providing us with new technology, but by shedding light on the world we inhabit, which is increasingly of our own creation. Fast-paced, utterly fascinating, and deeply humane, The Reality Bubble gives voice to the sense we've all had that there is more to the world than meets the eye."-- Provided by publisher