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Blink 3 von 12 - Eine kurze Geschichte der Menschheit
von Yuval Noah Harari
A Grand Tour from the Cranium to the Calcaneum
Adventures in Human Being by Gavin Francis is a journey through the human body, exploring our anatomy, pathologies, and the history of medicine. The book shows the complexity and beauty of our bodies.
What could be more familiar than the shape and contours of your face? You, like most of us, probably look in the mirror every day. But what does your face look like beneath the surface?
If you were to peel back the thin layer of skin protecting your face, you would see a tangle of dainty, salmon-colored fronds – the 43 muscles that control your face. The wide range of human expression is made possible by the subtle interplay of these muscles.
The key message here is: The human face can express a uniquely wide range of emotion.
During his time as an anatomy demonstrator, the author dissected the faces of over 30 cadavers. All that dissecting taught him how to read the story of their emotional lives. How? Well, since different facial muscles are responsible for different expressions, it’s possible to see which expressions were habitual during life by looking at muscle definition.
For example, consider the zygomaticus major and zygomaticus minor, the facial muscles that exhibit the greatest variation in size. They’re responsible for spreading the sides of the mouth into a smile. Thick, well-defined zygomaticus muscles imply a life rich with laughter and happiness.
Developed orbicularis oris muscles indicate that a person had love in their life, because these muscles purse the lips for kissing. On the other hand, pronounced depressor anguli oris muscles – the collection of muscles responsible for frowning – are indicative of a life marked by sadness.
Perhaps the first person to read emotion from the muscles of the face was Leonardo da Vinci. The author argues that da Vinci’s ability to depict such vivid emotion in his paintings was directly informed by his experience dissecting the faces of corpses.
Just look at The Last Supper, which depicts the twelve disciples in paroxysms of emotion following Jesus’s announcement that one of them will betray him. This painting was quite innovative for its time. Before da Vinci, the convention was to depict faces as serene and expressionless. Emotion was considered a very human characteristic – and ill-suited to the faces of saints.
But da Vinci believed it was more holy to represent humans authentically, just as God created us. What he deemed most authentic about the human face was the range of emotion it could display.
It’s precisely this ability to express a range of emotion that makes the human face so unique compared to other species. And this is why the face is our first contender for being the most human organ.
Adventures in Human Being (2015) is a sort of anatomical travel guide. A series of philosophical reflections on each of the body’s major organs, the book combines a clinical perspective on the body with select stories from our cultural history. The result is a series of striking ruminations on the human condition from the unusual angle of human anatomy.
Ich bin begeistert. Ich liebe Bücher aber durch zwei kleine Kinder komme ich einfach nicht zum Lesen. Und ja, viele Bücher haben viel bla bla und die Quintessenz ist eigentlich ein Bruchteil.
Genau dafür ist Blinkist total genial! Es wird auf das Wesentliche reduziert, die Blinks sind gut verständlich, gut zusammengefasst und auch hörbar! Das ist super. 80 Euro für ein ganzes Jahr klingt viel, aber dafür unbegrenzt Zugriff auf 3000 Bücher. Und dieses Wissen und die Zeitersparnis ist unbezahlbar.
Extrem empfehlenswert. Statt sinnlos im Facebook zu scrollen höre ich jetzt täglich zwischen 3-4 "Bücher". Bei manchen wird schnelle klar, dass der Kauf unnötig ist, da schon das wichtigste zusammen gefasst wurde..bei anderen macht es Lust doch das Buch selbständig zu lesen. Wirklich toll
Einer der besten, bequemsten und sinnvollsten Apps die auf ein Handy gehören. Jeden morgen 15-20 Minuten für die eigene Weiterbildung/Entwicklung oder Wissen.
Viele tolle Bücher, auf deren Kernaussagen reduziert- präzise und ansprechend zusammengefasst. Endlich habe ich das Gefühl, Zeit für Bücher zu finden, für die ich sonst keine Zeit habe.
Hol dir mit Blinkist die besten Erkenntnisse aus mehr als 7.000 Sachbüchern und Podcasts. In 15 Minuten lesen oder anhören!
Jetzt kostenlos testenBlink 3 von 12 - Eine kurze Geschichte der Menschheit
von Yuval Noah Harari