The Sounds of Life

How Digital Technology Is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants An amazing journey into the hidden realm of nature’s sounds The natural world teems with remarkable conversations, many beyond human hearing range. Scientists are using groundbreaking digital technologies to uncover these astonishing sounds, revealing vibrant communication among our fellow creatures across the Tree of Life. At once meditative and scientific, The Sounds of Life shares fascinating and surprising stories of nonhuman sound, interweaving insights from technological innovation and traditional knowledge. We meet scientists using sound to protect and regenerate endangered species from the Great Barrier Reef to the Arctic and the Amazon. We discover the shocking impacts of noise pollution on both animals and plants. We learn how artificial intelligence can decode nonhuman sounds, and meet the researchers building dictionaries in East African Elephant and Sperm Whalish. At the frontiers of innovation, we explore digitally mediated dialogues with bats and honeybees. Technology often distracts us from nature, but what if it could reconnect us instead? The Sounds of Life offers hope for environmental conservation and affirms humanity’s relationship with nature in the digital age. After learning about the unsuspected wonders of nature’s sounds, we will never see walks outdoors in the same way again. Look inside Listening to the tree of life Karen Bakker is a professor at the University of British Columbia, and earned her PhD from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including an Annenberg Fellowship (Stanford University), a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Radcliffe Fellowship (Harvard University). An avid gardener and the mother of two daughters, she lives in Vancouver.