Featured Author Talk

Life thrives in the deepest, darkest recesses of Earth’s crust—from methane seeps in the ocean floor to the highest reaches of Arctic permafrost—and it is unlike anything seen on the surface. Karen Lloyd, author of Intraterrestrials: Discovering the Strangest Life on Earth, draws on her experiences and those of her fellow scientists working in challenging and often dangerous conditions to describe subsurface life that is truly alien: microbes living in environments as extreme as boiling water, pure acid, and bleach, with some of these living cells surviving for hundreds of thousands of years or longer. Their findings are broadening our understanding of what life is, how its earliest forms may have evolved, and the prospects of finding life on other planets.

Karen G. Lloyd is the Wrigley Chair in Environmental Studies and Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Southern California. Her work has appeared in leading publications such as Nature and Science as well as two TED talks. READ MORE