Some critters will go a long way for a little privacy. Ten years after the Chernobyl nuclear accident, thirty-seven forms of fungi were found growing inside the abandoned reactor, some of them thriving; this led microbiologist Nelli Zhdanova and colleagues to the radical hypothesis that the fungi are using radiation for energy. British science journalist Alex Riley’s Super Natural is filled with such cases. Wood frogs in Alaska, for example, freeze solid, “the heart, brain, lungs, and digestive system are no longer part of a large whole. The frog, it can be said, has ceased to exist.” Extremophiles like this remind us life is tenacious and opportunistic—and the frontiers of science lie in places most of us can’t, or won’t, go.
Super Natural: How Life Thrives in Impossible Places