Why Are We Not Falling?

Svec, Carol.  Balance: A Dizzying Journey Through the Science of Our Most Delicate Sense. 
          Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2017.

Have you every wondered why you suddenly tripped over nothing as you are walking down the sidewalk?  How about finding you no longer enjoy roller-coasters like you did as a teenager?  And then there is the question of why you get nausea riding in a car or at the movies.  Well, Carol Svec has answers to these questions and even more you have not thought of yet.

In a style similar to Mary Roach (including funny footnotes), Carol Svec provides a through overview of what balance is and the central role it plays in our lives.  She starts with a look at the inner ear's part in keeping us upright and spends time looking at the causes of motion sickness.  She then points out that each of us have rocks in our heads that help us know which way is up and which way is down. And she continues with the part played by our eyes in balance.  Then proprioception problems are discussed with the case of Ian Waterman.  After these discussions of the major components of balance, the books wanders through a number of balance related issues: sound related dizziness, shaky camera movies, flight simulators, virtual reality, and outer space.  Carol Svec finishes the book with a look at how kinesiology, virtual reality and exoskeletons can aid in keeping us upright in old age.

Balance provides a quick read through the science of how we stay upright and what the future may hold for us.