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scotchneat's review
3.0
Wise dives into the many contradictions that our minds and bodies manifest when we have extreme fear - sometimes with live research.
We all know about fight or flight, but as per usual, the human brain is more screwed up than that - with a complex dance of several areas of the brain involved in what might happen in a given situation.
Wise brings some humour and a good dollop of "I'll try that" to the research (he writes the "I'll Try Anything" column for Popular Mechanics). For example, he dives out of a plane with sensors... for science!
I found the research and the human interest parts to be a little bit uneasy with each other (Mary Roach does it better), but I did learn a bit about cognitive processing and fear.
We all know about fight or flight, but as per usual, the human brain is more screwed up than that - with a complex dance of several areas of the brain involved in what might happen in a given situation.
Wise brings some humour and a good dollop of "I'll try that" to the research (he writes the "I'll Try Anything" column for Popular Mechanics). For example, he dives out of a plane with sensors... for science!
I found the research and the human interest parts to be a little bit uneasy with each other (Mary Roach does it better), but I did learn a bit about cognitive processing and fear.
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