From one of the world’s most renowned cave divers, a firsthand account of exploring the earth’s final frontier: the hidden depths of our oceans and the sunken caves inside our planet More people have died exploring underwater caves than climbing Mount Everest, and we know more about deep space than we do about the depths of our oceans. From one of the top cave divers working today—and one of the very few women in her field—Into the Planet blends science, adventure, and memoir to bring readers face-to-face with the terror and beauty of earth’s remaining unknowns and the extremes of human capability. Jill Heinerth—the first person in history to dive deep into an Antarctic iceberg and leader of a team that discovered the ancient watery remains of Mayan civilizations—has descended farther into the inner depths of our planet than any other woman. She takes us into the harrowing split-second decisions that determine whether a diver makes it back to safety, the prejudices that prevent women from pursuing careers underwater, and her endeavor to recover a fallen friend’s body from the confines of a cave. But there’s beauty beyond the danger of diving, and while Heinerth swims beneath our feet in the lifeblood of our planet, she works with biologists discovering new species, physicists tracking climate change, and hydrogeologists examining our finite freshwater reserves. Written with hair-raising intensity, Into the Planet is the first book to deliver an intimate account of cave diving, transporting readers deep into inner space, where fear must be reconciled and a mission’s success balances between knowing one’s limits and pushing the envelope of human endurance.

If you could live forever, would you want to? Both a fascinating look at the history of our strive for immortality and an investigation into whether living forever is really all it’s cracked up to be. A fascinating work of popular philosophy and history that both enlightens and entertains, Stephen Cave investigates whether it just might be possible to live forever and whether we should want to. He also makes a powerful argument that it’s our very preoccupation with defying mortality that drives civilization. Central to this book is the metaphor of a mountaintop where one can find the Immortals. Since the dawn of humanity, everyone – whether they know it or not—has been trying to climb that mountain. But there are only four paths up its treacherous slope, and there have only ever been four paths. Throughout history, people have wagered everything on their choice of the correct path, and fought wars against those who’ve chosen differently. In drawing back the curtain on what compels humans to “keep on keeping on,” Cave engages the reader in a number of mind-bending thought experiments. He teases out the implications of each immortality gambit, asking, for example, how long a person would live if they did manage to acquire a perfectly disease-free body. Or what would happen if a super-being tried to round up the atomic constituents of all who’ve died in order to resurrect them. Or what our loved ones would really be doing in heaven if it does exist. We’re confronted with a series of brain-rattling questions: What would happen if tomorrow humanity discovered that there is no life but this one? Would people continue to please their boss, vie for the title of Year’s Best Salesman? Would three-hundred-year projects still get started? If the four paths up the Mount of the Immortals lead nowhere—if there is no getting up to the summit—is there still reason to live? And can civilization survive? Immortality is a deeply satisfying book, as optimistic about the human condition as it is insightful about the true arc of history.

DISCOVER JUST HOW LONG IT REALLY TAKES FOR A CAVE TO FORM

Grand Prize Winner of the 2015 Green Book Festival Mark Sundeen's new book, The Unsettlers, is coming in January 2017 from Riverhead Books In 2000, Daniel Suelo left his life savings-all thirty dollars of it-in a phone booth. He has lived without money-and with a newfound sense of freedom and security-ever since. The Man Who Quit Money is an account of how one man learned to live, sanely and happily, without earning, receiving, or spending a single cent. Suelo doesn't pay taxes, or accept food stamps or welfare. He lives in caves in the Utah canyonlands, forages wild foods and gourmet discards. He no longer even carries an I.D. Yet he manages to amply fulfill not only the basic human needs-for shelter, food, and warmth-but, to an enviable degree, the universal desires for companionship, purpose, and spiritual engagement. In retracing the surprising path and guiding philosophy that led Suelo into this way of life, Sundeen raises provocative and riveting questions about the decisions we all make, by default or by design, about how we live-and how we might live better.

What was it like to be a caveman? What sort of house would you live in? What sort of clothes would you wear? Paul Jordan takes us back in time to see what it was really like to live in prehistoric times, what kind of animals we would have shared the land with, and what our daily life would involve. How would you have managed in this strange and difficult world?

"The project whose research led to the publication of 'Cave Life of Oklahoma and Arkansas' began in the 1970s as a study of Ozark cavefish and expanded to encompass two states and involve a number of research topics and collaborators. The authors and their team donned snorkeling gear, cave suits, and climbing harnesses and descended into caves in Oklahoma and Arkansas to study, inventory, and photograph this hidden world. The result is a comprehensive checklist of the region's cave fauna, complete with descriptions of these rare animals' distribution and ecological niches. The cast of characters ranges from familiar and charismatic species, such as cave crayfish and gray bats, to rare and bizarre fauna, such as blind salamanders and cave dung beetles. More than 175 full-color illustrations include stunning, never-before-seen photographs (from the cameras of Dave Bunnel, Tim Ernst, and Danté B. Fenolio, among others) of cave animals--even some newly discovered species. The authors also address conservation of subterranean biodiversity, discussing not only threats to cave life such as invasive species, resource extraction, and habitat loss, but also current methods of preservation and protection, including legislation, land acquisition, people management, and cave gates. The book's appendices provide a comprehensive cave bibliography and checklists of subterranean animals for each cave."--Provided by publisher.