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    Unavailable
    Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone
    Unavailable
    Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone
    Unavailable
    Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone
    Audiobook10 hours

    Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone

    Written by Juli Berwald

    Narrated by Juli Berwald

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A former ocean scientist goes in pursuit of the slippery story of jellyfish, rediscovering her passion for marine science and the sea's imperiled ecosystems.

    Jellyfish are an enigma. They have no centralized brain, but they see and feel and react to their environment in complex ways. They look simple, yet their propulsion systems are so advanced that engineers are just learning how to mimic them. They produce some of the deadliest toxins on the planet and still remain undeniably alluring. Long ignored by science, they may be a key to ecosystem stability.

    Juli Berwald's journey into the world of jellyfish is a personal one. More than a decade ago, she left the sea and her scientific career behind to raise a family in landlocked Austin, Texas. Increasingly dire headlines drew her back to jellies, as unprecedented jellyfish blooms toppled ecosystems and collapsed the world's most productive fisheries. What was unclear was whether these incidents were symptoms of a changing planet or part of a natural cycle.

    Berwald's desire to understand jellyfish takes her on a scientific odyssey. She travels the globe to meet the scientists who devote their careers to jellies; hitches rides on Japanese fishing boats to see giant jellyfish in the wild; raises jellyfish in her dining room; and throughout it all marvels at the complexity of these fascinating and ominous biological wonders. Gracefully blending personal memoir with crystal-clear distillations of science, Spineless reveals that jellyfish are a bellwether for the damage we're inflicting on the climate and the oceans and a call to realize our collective responsibility for the planet we share.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateNov 7, 2017
    ISBN9780525498001
    Unavailable
    Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone
    Author

    Juli Berwald

    Juli Berwald received her PhD in ocean science from the University of Southern California. A science textbook writer and editor, she has contributed to many science textbooks and written for The New York Times, Nature, National Geographic, and Slate, among other publications. She lives in Austin with her husband and their son and daughter.

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    Reviews for Spineless

    3.5/5

    28 ratings7 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I really didn't know much of anything about jellyfish, just bits and bobs. This book definitely gave me an education on this amazing animal. The only part about the book I have a complaint about is how the author kept throwing in personal details of her life, which is fine in small doses, like how the person became interested in the subject they're writing about, etc., but she writes about her relationship troubles and other irrelevant personal stories that, I think, did not add anything to the subject of jellyfish but more like a semi-biography. Not to be cold, but I really don't care about your personal life when it adds nothing to the subject, which is what I'm interested in reading about.I know I just wrote a lot about what I didn't like, but overall the book is pretty interesting and I would recommend it.
    • 3/5
      I'm not a biologist, neither a sea-level, yet I profoundly found jellyfish as an enchantment about what life was, what life is. My expectation were highly abode what I got with this audiobook. Nevertheless, the author did an amazing job presenting facts in a friendly way.
      Moreover the personal experiences the author presents, and the introduction of the science of jellyfish, the book makes us think about our influences in environmental equilibrium.
    • 4/5
      This book was a bit of a mixed bag, but mostly positive. The jellyfish science was fascinating, and some of the memoir bits really resonated (I started as a marine biology major, and while I switched majors, I did end up with two science M.S. degrees, and I often miss academia), but perhaps because it was so close, it also grated. Like, it must be nice to be able to decide to just fly to Japan because you want to see jellyfish. Maybe sour grapes? I don't know. But overall it felt like the author tried to fit her experiences to a narrative frame that didn't always work and was unsatisfying in the end.
    • 5/5
      I learned so much and it was great. I thought the structure was excellent though maybe not quite pulled off all the way through and not enough about what to do to help. But my main reason was to understand jellyfish and I loved that she had an essential question and it is going to be a great book to present at LLC.
    • 4/5
      I read about half of this a few years ago but finally checked out the audiobook and started over anew. I’m not sure if the book itself knows how it should be categorized, but I enjoyed the blend of science, travel, and memoir as the author discovers more in her jellyfish journey.
    • 4/5
      So, this book might have been a bit lighter on the science of jellyfish then I would have liked, but the author tells a good story about how she got to the place where she had an actual "well, how did I get here" moment in her life, and rediscovered her vocation for science. About 55% jellyfish and the conduct of science, 40% the author's life story and travel writing, and 5% environmental advocacy.
    • 1/5
      This is the worst narration I have ever heard. It is stilted, awkward, and embarrassing to listen to. If you are interested in the book, definitely try out a physical/ebook. Listening to 10 hours of that narration would be painful.

      1 person found this helpful