Introduction: Are we all going to die? -- A history of mass extinctions -- The apocalypse that brought us to life -- Two ways to go extinct -- The great dying -- What really happened to the dinosaurs -- Is a mass extinction going on right now? -- We almost didn't make it -- The African bottleneck -- Meeting the neanderthals -- Great plagues -- The hungry generations -- Lessons from survivors -- Scatter: footprints of the diaspora -- Adapt: meet the toughest microbes in the world -- Remember: swim south -- Pragmatic optimism, or stories of survival -- How to build a death-proof city -- The mutating metropolis -- Disaster science -- Using math to stop a pandemic -- Cities that hide -- Every surface a farm -- The million-year view -- Terraforming Earth -- Not in our planetary backyard -- Take a ride on the space elevator -- Your body is optional -- On Titan's beach.
Summary:
In its 4.5 billion-year history, life on Earth has been almost erased at least half a dozen times: shattered bya steroid impacts, entombed in ice, smothered by methane, and torn apart by megavolcanoes. We know that another global disaster is eventually headed our way. Can we survive it? How? Scatter, Adapt, and Remember explores how scientific breakthroughs today will help us avoid disasters tomorrow, from simulating tsunamis or studying central Turkey's ancient underground cities.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.