INSIDE THE BOOK

The following is a summary of each chapter in the book.
Click here to view a sample chapter.

Chapter One: Sickness from Motion
Planes, trains, and automobiles–but particularly boats, camels, and space shuttles–are known to cause motion sickness. Though not a true malady, motion sickness has its root in the body’s balance system. Here’s the lowdown on how and why motion sickness occurs.

Chapter Two: Van Gogh’s Ear
The stories of people who suffer from disorders of the balance system, including, perhaps, the famous Dutch artist. What goes wrong, how people adapt to their shortcomings, and the runaround many of them get from doctors.

Chapter Three: The Spin Doctors and the Discovery of “Multimodality”
The history of what we know about the human balance system, including why it took so long for it to be recognized as a sense (in many medical circles, it still isn’t).

Chapter Four: How Balance Contributes to Survival
Our balance system may have helped our species emerge as the only surviving bipedal ape. Here I compare the balance systems of Neanderthal versus Homo sapiens, and look at how one of the components of balance contributed to our distant mammalian ancestor’s ability to find their way home without visual landmarks.

Chapter Five: Ear Deaths and Graveyard Spirals
How John F. Kennedy Jr.’s errant balance system caused him to crash his plane near Martha’s Vineyard, and why “spatial disorientation” has always been and continues to be a deadly threat to pilots.

Chapter Six: Tonic and Stimulant
The mechanism by which young babies are soothed by gently rocking motions. Why kids enjoy stimulating their balance systems, and the myriad of ways to do this. The cognitive deficits that may occur when the balance system hasn’t been sufficiently stimulated.

Chapter Seven: Extreme Equilibrium
The cultivation and training of balance in the circus.

Chapter Eight: The Wallenda Within
The national epidemic of falling in America. How to achieve better balance to prevent falls and improve agility and grace.

Chapter Nine: The Cognitive Connection
A look at the hypothesis that there’s a correlation between the balance system and cognitive function. Improving your balance, some say, may lead to enhanced cognitive ability in tasks like reading and spatial reasoning.

Chapter Ten: New Balance
High-tech solutions to balance impairment, including a device that transmits balance information to the brain via the tongue, vibrating heel inserts, and using birds to study how to regrow hairs in human ears.