Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Elizabeth Graver

Quote by Elizabeth Graver

Work

The End of the Point

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Elizabeth Graver
Elizabeth Graver

Elizabeth Graver is an American writer born on July 2, 1964. Her works are known for their delicate emotional descriptions and profound thematic explorations, mainly involving family, identity, and memory. more

You May Also Like

“In order to avoid the deafening of conspecifics, some bats employ a jamming avoidance response, rapidly shifting frequencies or flying silent when foraging near conspecifics. Because jamming is a problem facing any active emission sensory system, it is perhaps not surprising (though no less amazing) that similar jamming avoidance responses are deployed by weakly electric fish. The speed of sound is so fast in water that it makes it difficult for echolocating whales to exploit similar Doppler effects. However, the fact that acoustic emissions propagate much farther and faster in the water medium means that there is less attenuation of ultrasound in water, and thus that echolocation can be used for broader-scale 'visual' sweeping of the undersea environment. These constraints and trade-offs must be resolved by all acoustic ISMs, on Earth and beyond. There are equally universal anatomical and metabolic constraints on the evolvability of echolocation that explain why it is 'harder' to evolve than vision. First, as noted earlier, a powerful sound-production capacity, such as the lungs of tetrapods, is required to produce high-frequency emissions capable of supporting high-resolution acoustic imaging. Second, the costs of echolocation are high, which may limit acoustic imaging to organisms with high-metabolisms, such as mammals and birds. The metabolic rates of bats during echolocation, for instance, are up to five times greater than they are at rest. These costs have been offset in bats through the evolutionarily ingenious coupling of sound emission to wing-beat cycle, which functions as a single unit of biomechanical and metabolic efficiency. Sound emission is coupled with the upstroke phase of the wing-beat cycle, coinciding with contraction of abdominal muscles and pressure on the diaphragm. This significantly reduces the price of high-intensity pulse emission, making it nearly costless. It is also why, as any careful crepuscular observer may have noticed, bats spend hardly any time gliding (which is otherwise a more efficient means of flight).”

BatsMetabolismEcholocationWing Beat Cycle
Book:Contingency and Convergence: Toward a Cosmic Biology of Body and Mind
Create image

“Ah, but it is an interesting thing, that these things can so seldom be proved. If I were to perform some piece of, hrmf, magic for you, here in this room, you would claim a thousand ways it could have been done. Indeed, those ways might be exceedingly unlikely, but you would cling to them rather than accept the, mmn, the chance that magic, the eternal inexplicable, might be the true agent, and if you were strong enough in yourself, unafraid, unthreatened, here in your own chambers, well perhaps there would be no magic worked at all. It is a subjective force, you see, whereas the physical laws of the artificers are objective. A gear-train will turn without faith, but magic may not. And so, when your people demand, mmn, proof, there is none, but when you have forgotten and dismissed it, then magic creeps back into the gaps where you do not look for it.”

FaithMagicProofGjegeveyInaptThe Inexplicable EternalWoodlouse Kinden
Book:Dragonfly Falling
Create image

“I can read your thoughts. The amusement was soft and caressing, wrapping her up in strong arms. I was perfectly sane and sensible until I met you. Now look at me. I’m crawling around inside a mountain. Suddenly she stopped and held herself perfectly still. I’m hearing something. Tell me you are not taking me into a cave full of bats. Say it right now, Jacques, or I’m out of here. I am not taking you into cave filled with bats. Shea relaxed visibly. She was not squeamish about very many things, but bats were creatures that were on the earth to remain a safe distance away from her. Miles away. Bats were one of those things she could stare up at in the night sky and think how interesting and wonderful they were, as long as they stayed high above her and nowhere close. Her nose wrinkled. The sounds she was trying to ignore were getting louder. Her heart began to pound in alarm. The walls of the passageway were so narrow, she had no way to move fast. All at once she felt trapped, as if she was suffocating. I’m going back, Jacques. I’m not a cave person. She did her best to sound firm and matter-of-fact, not at all as if she were seconds from screaming her head off. She turned her head cautiously to keep from scraping her face on the jutting surfaces. His fingers circled her wrist like a vise. There must be no disturbance. If any creatures exit the cave or warn others of our existence here, we could be found. A piece of paper couldn’t fit in here, certainly not a person. No one is going to look for us here. A vampire would know the moment bats flew from the cave. Bats can’t fly out of here if there aren’t any in here, now, can they? She was sweetly reasonable.”

BatsCaveJacques And Shea
Book:Dark Desire
Create image

“Caves are cool in warm weather. Beware of bats, however. Bat urine will give you, as well as animals such as dogs, the rabies. Photograph supposedly shows an early man drawing on the walls of a cave. Such cave drawings are nearly all faked but are great tourist attractions. Cave drawings are invariably "discovered" in remote parts of a cave. If they were allegedly found in readily accessible areas of caves, they would be quickly declared to be fakes.”

BatsCavesCave ArtPrehistoric Art
Book:How to Get out of the Rat Race and Live on $10 a Month
Create image