Death on Earth Adventures in Evolution and Mortality

Popular Science

By: Jules Howard(Author)

288 pages, 8 plates with colour photos (hardback only); b/w illustrations

Publisher: Bloomsbury Sigma (Bloomsbury imprint)

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ISBN: 9781472915092 Paperback (no colour plates included) May 2017 Out of stock with supplier: order now to get this when available
£18.99
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ISBN: 9781472915078 Hardback Mar 2016 Out of Print #226303

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About this book Contents Customer reviews Biography Recommended titles

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About this book

Please note that the paperback does not include the colour plate section found in the hardback.

As you read these words Planet Earth teems with trillions of life-forms, each going about their own business; eating, reproducing, thriving … Yet the life of almost every single entity draws nearer and nearer to certain death. Why? Why is death such a universal companion to life on Earth? Why haven't animals evolved to break free of its shackles?

In this ground-breaking exploration of death, Jules Howard attempts to shed evolutionary light on this, one of our biggest and most unshakeable taboos. Encountering some of the world's oldest animals, and meeting the scientists attempting to unravel their mysteries, Jules also comes face-to-face with evolution's outliers; the animals that may one day avoid death altogether.

Written in his familiar engaging and humorous style, Jules's journey inevitably ends with our own fate: can we ever become immortal? And even if we could, would we really want to?

1. Entering the chambers of death
2. Ode to the dearly departed
3. Cancer's curse – are any animals immortal?
4. The mayfly and the marsupial mouse
5. The clam of God
6. Menopause for thought
7. Death becomes err
8. Mourning has broken
9. The death-eaters
10. Facing up to death

Customer Reviews

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Biography

Jules Howard is a zoologist, writer, blogger and broadcaster. He writes on a host of topics relating to zoology and wildlife conservation, and appears regularly in BBC Wildlife Magazine and on radio and TV, including on BBC's The One Show, Nature and The Living World as well as BBC Breakfast and Radio 4's Today programme. Jules also runs a social enterprise that has brought almost 100,000 young people closer to the natural world. Death on Earth is his second book, following Sex on Earth (Bloomsbury, 2014).

Popular Science

By: Jules Howard(Author)

288 pages, 8 plates with colour photos (hardback only); b/w illustrations

Publisher: Bloomsbury Sigma (Bloomsbury imprint)

Media reviews

"An altogether eye-opening, engaging, and enjoyably humorous (but never distasteful) guided tour through the world of death."
– Science

"What becomes clear in this impossibly bouncy, Tiggerish work is that living things have more ways of dying than we could ever imagine."
– Daily Mail

"[...] funny, clever, but also chock full of science [...] a book that's a genuine pleasure to read."
– Discover Magazine

"A fascinating read that offers incredible snippets about how life is never wasted, and provides a fresh, less gloomy outlook on our ultimate fate."
– BBC Wildlife

"Genuinely funny and busy with intriguing detail [...] Howard shares with science writers like Ed Yong an aptitude for teaming attention-grabbing zoology with astute and well-researched analysis."
– New Humanist

"Death on Earth fizzes with with life. Howard, whether dressed in waterproof trousers to protect him from rotting pig flesh, or clutching a dead magpie to his chest while looking for a suitable place to watch it decay, makes for the most extraordinary psychopomp. I cried with laughter as he tackled this most persistent of taboos, and yet at the same time was strangely moved by the intensity of his care. It has been oddly reassuring to walk alongside Jules on his exploration of the last great frontier."
– Katharine Norbury, author of The Fish Ladder

"Jules Howard celebrates wonderful, vibrant life in the face of death. Drawing on what we can learn from the living, from the cells in your body to geriatric clams and naked mole rats, he allows us to approach and even appreciate why lives, like all good stories, have endings."
– Brian Switek, author of My Beloved Brontosaurus

"Hidden in a breezy overview of death in the animal kingdom rages a life-and-death war that puts into perspective our human struggles with mortality. Death on Earth gives us insight into who we are and why we are special – and not so special – when compared to our animal brethren."
– Megan Rosenbloom, director of Death Salon