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Super Natural: How Life Thrives in Impossible Places
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Expected 23 Sep 25Win a free print copy of this book!
3 days and 17:01:17
10 copies available
U.S. only
Journey through Earth’s most extreme, seemingly hostile environments—and marvel at the remarkable creatures that call them home.
From scorching deserts to frozen seabeds, from the highest peaks of the Himalaya to the hadal depths of the oceans, there are habitats on this Earth that appear hostile to life—yet where, nevertheless, life flourishes. In North American forests, wood frogs awaken each spring from solid blocks of ice. Under the Saharan sun, shielded by silvery hairs, desert ants sprint through the midday heat that is lethal to any other animal. At the bottom of ice-covered lakes, painted turtles pass months without breathing oxygen. Transporting readers to far-flung environments we could never call home, in Super Natural, award-winning science writer Alex Riley paints an awe-inspiring portrait of life’s remarkable resilience even under the harshest circumstances.
Riley illuminates ecosystems on every continent to tell the stories of creatures exquisitely adapted to endure unimaginable deprivations—of water, oxygen, food, sunlight—and extremes of heat and cold, of pressure and altitude. To survive half a year without food on barren islands, snakes will shrink and regrow their digestive systems—even their hearts. At the site of the Chernobyl disaster, fungi harness radiation to thrive. Evolution, we see, can and will carve out a niche just about anywhere.
Super Natural shows us how, at nature’s furthest limits, the rules of biology as we know them are rewritten—and how, in life’s astonishing ingenuity and persistence even in the face of calamity and change, we can find hope for the future of life on Earth.
From scorching deserts to frozen seabeds, from the highest peaks of the Himalaya to the hadal depths of the oceans, there are habitats on this Earth that appear hostile to life—yet where, nevertheless, life flourishes. In North American forests, wood frogs awaken each spring from solid blocks of ice. Under the Saharan sun, shielded by silvery hairs, desert ants sprint through the midday heat that is lethal to any other animal. At the bottom of ice-covered lakes, painted turtles pass months without breathing oxygen. Transporting readers to far-flung environments we could never call home, in Super Natural, award-winning science writer Alex Riley paints an awe-inspiring portrait of life’s remarkable resilience even under the harshest circumstances.
Riley illuminates ecosystems on every continent to tell the stories of creatures exquisitely adapted to endure unimaginable deprivations—of water, oxygen, food, sunlight—and extremes of heat and cold, of pressure and altitude. To survive half a year without food on barren islands, snakes will shrink and regrow their digestive systems—even their hearts. At the site of the Chernobyl disaster, fungi harness radiation to thrive. Evolution, we see, can and will carve out a niche just about anywhere.
Super Natural shows us how, at nature’s furthest limits, the rules of biology as we know them are rewritten—and how, in life’s astonishing ingenuity and persistence even in the face of calamity and change, we can find hope for the future of life on Earth.
368 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication September 23, 2025
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About the author
Alex Riley
2 books30 followersAlex Riley is an award-winning science writer and the author of Super Natural and A Cure for Darkness. A former research scientist at the Natural History Museum in London, he has coauthored peer-reviewed scientific research and published his popular science reporting in New Scientist, PBS’s NOVA Next, the BBC, Aeon, and Nautilus Magazine, among others. He lives in Devon, UK, with his family.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 3, 2025
Reading Alex Riley’s Super Natural felt like revisiting my childhood obsession with National Geographic and animal documentaries! It’s packed with mind-blowing stories e.g. tardigrades (aka “moss piglets”) that can survive in all manner of extreme conditions almost unscathed (even when being flung into space and back), horses thriving in Chernobyl exclusion zone (despite the high radioactive levels that can alter DNA), deep-sea snailfish living (and thriving being “left alone”) at depths equal to Everest, and turtles in Canada that can hibernate underwater for months without breathing, and many more. It’s strangely comforting to learn how tough and adaptable life can be, and maybe this can be a lesson for all of us too. As Riley says, “Life, once it has emerged on a planet, is very hard to destroy.”
July 12, 2025
Reading this book evoked in me a sense of wonder and curiosity that has strong echoes of the many hours I spent poring over colourful Dorling Kindersley volumes in my childhood.
Riley does a great job of making his subject-matter interesting and insightful, and as each chapter essentially stands alone as a vignette about a specific group of animals and animal behaviours, this made for ideal commute reading.
I particularly enjoy the way in which Riley draws out the applications of various discoveries about animal adaptations to various harsh environments to other scientific fields, notably medicine and technology. I also like that he doesn’t attempt to pad the book out with extraneous material: together with Riley’s enthusiastic narrative voice, the book’s succinctness and clarity make this an excellent (and highly accessible) book for a non-specialist audience.
Riley does a great job of making his subject-matter interesting and insightful, and as each chapter essentially stands alone as a vignette about a specific group of animals and animal behaviours, this made for ideal commute reading.
I particularly enjoy the way in which Riley draws out the applications of various discoveries about animal adaptations to various harsh environments to other scientific fields, notably medicine and technology. I also like that he doesn’t attempt to pad the book out with extraneous material: together with Riley’s enthusiastic narrative voice, the book’s succinctness and clarity make this an excellent (and highly accessible) book for a non-specialist audience.
June 18, 2025
An entertaining romp through life's outliers, Super Natural explores the extreme conditions under which some organisms not only survive, but often thrive. Read the full review at https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2025...
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews