The human experience of the real world is mediated through the five senses, which for humans includes a narrow band of hearing, a tiny fraction of the “visible” light spectrum and a puny smell system that most dogs would deem pathetic.

Animals experience the world very differently. For instance, bats navigate by sound, cows have magnetic compasses that help them feel the Earth’s magnetic field, and star-nosed moles have a 20-fingered nose with thousands of touch receptors that allows them to feel their way through dark, subterranean tunnels, Eagleman said.

Now many scientists, banking on brain similarities between these animals and humans, are developing technologies to give humans an expanded repertoire of supersenses. …

Cochlear implants allow the deaf to hear by replacing the sensory organs in the ear with electrical devices.