Scatter, Adapt and Remember

Climate change. Pandemics. Catastrophic volcanoes. Should we just give up and accept our doom? Absolutely not. Homo sapiens will survive the next mass extinction.

Annalee Newitz’s brilliantly speculative and hopeful work of popular science focuses our attention on humanity’s long history of dodging the bullet of extinction – and suggests practical ways to keep doing it. From bacteria labs in St. Louis to ancient underground cities in central Turkey, we discover the keys to long-term survival. This book leads us away from apocalyptic thinking, into a future where we live to build a better world.

‘This book is not a survivalist guide but rather a grand historical overview that puts humanity in the middle of its evolution, with fascinating looks both back and forward in time. An enormous amount of knowledge is gathered here, and the book accomplishes something almost impossible, being extremely interesting on every single page. A real pleasure to read and think about.’ —Kim Stanley Robinson, author of the Mars Trilogy

‘An animated and absorbing account into how life has survived mass extinctions so far … and what we need to do to make sure humans don’t perish in the next one … Humans may be experts at destroying the planet, but we are no slouches at preserving it, either, and Newitz’s shrewd speculations are heartening.’ —Kirkus Reviews

‘One of the best popular science books I've read in a long, long time—and perhaps the only one that takes such a clear-eyed view of the future.’ —Seth Mnookin, author of The Panic Virus

‘An exhilarating ride’ —Summit Sun

Annalee Newitz is the founding editor of the science website io9.com and a journalist with a decade’s experience in writing about science, culture and the future for such publications as Wired, Popular Science and the Washington Post. She is the editor of the anthology She’s Such a Geek: Women Write About Science, Technology, and Other Geeky Stuff (2006), and was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT. She lives in San Francisco.