Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves - Hardcover

Nestor, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0547985525 ISBN 13: 9780547985527

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014

Synopsis

An Amazon Best Book of 2014

While on assignment in Greece, journalist James Nestor witnessed something that confounded him: a man diving 300 feet below the ocean’s surface on a single breath of air and returning four minutes later, unharmed and smiling.

This man was a freediver, and his amphibious abilities inspired Nestor to seek out the secrets of this little-known discipline. In Deep, Nestor embeds with a gang of extreme athletes and renegade researchers who are transforming not only our knowledge of the planet and its creatures, but also our understanding of the human body and mind. Along the way, he takes us from the surface to the Atlantic’s greatest depths, some 28,000 feet below sea level. He finds whales that communicate with other whales hundreds of miles away, sharks that swim in unerringly straight lines through pitch-black waters, and seals who dive to depths below 2,400 feet for up to eighty minutes—deeper and longer than scientists ever thought possible. As strange as these phenomena are, they are reflections of our own species’ remarkable, and often hidden, potential—including echolocation, directional sense, and the profound physiological changes we undergo when underwater. Most illuminating of all, Nestor unlocks his own freediving skills as he communes with the pioneers who are expanding our definition of what is possible in the natural world, and in ourselves.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"With a wow on every page, and brimming with vivid portraits, lucid scientific explanations, gripping (and funny) first-person accounts, and urgent facts about the ocean s endangerment, Nestor s Deep is galvanizing, enlightening, and invaluable." Booklist (starred review)

From the Inside Flap

While on assignment in Greece, journalist James Nestor witnessed something that confounded him: a man diving 300 feet below the ocean s surface on a single breath of air and returning four minutes later, unharmed and smiling.

This man was a freediver, and his amphibious abilities inspired Nestor to seek out the secrets of this little-known discipline. In Deep, Nestor embeds with a gang of extreme athletes and renegade researchers who are transforming not only our knowledge of the planet and its creatures, but also our understanding of the human body and mind. Along the way, he takes us from the surface to the Atlantic s greatest depths, some 28,000 feet below sea level. He finds whales that communicate with other whales hundreds of miles away, sharks that swim in unerringly straight lines through pitch-black waters, and seals who dive to depths below 2,400 feet for up to eighty minutes deeper and longer than scientists ever thought possible. As strange as these phenomena are, they are reflections of our own species remarkable, and often hidden, potential including echolocation, directional sense, and the profound physiological changes we undergo when underwater. Most illuminating of all, Nestor unlocks his own freediving skills as he communes with the pioneers who are expanding our definition of what is possible in the natural world, and in ourselves.

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0547985525
• ISBN 13: 9780547985527
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 266