Goodbye, everyone

Annalee Newitz, a science journalist and maven of the popular science and tech website io9, examines the patterns of mass extinctions through a lens that will make us pay attention: humanity's impending demise. In Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction (Doubleday; $25.95), Newitz reviews previous mass-extinction events and the ways in which humans have “dodged the bullet” at previous points when extinction might have occurred, and finally, examines some technological advances, which, when combined with prior strategies (the scatter, adapt, remember of the title), might be enough to keep our species from disappearing for good. Newitz also doesn't forget to include some purely speculative options: living without bodies or spreading out across the solar system.