Talking Death on Earth with Zoologist Jules Howard

I process words for a living. A lot of those words, in peer-reviewed journals or rough first drafts, are not the liveliest of reads. I'm not complaining. It is, after all, how I justify a high-carb diet. A girl's gotta fuel her gray matter. So when a book lands on my desk that's funny and clever but also chock full of science, a book that's a genuine pleasure to read, I get excited. Such was British zoologist Jules Howard's 2014 title, Sex on Earth: A Celebration of Animal Reproduction (excerpted that year in Discover). Howard is back with a new book that tackles another big topic with his mix of insatiable curiosity, serious science and self-deprecating wit. It also happens to be a book right up Dead Things' alley. It's called Death on Earth: Adventures in Evolution and Mortality, but don't judge the book by its title. Okay, it is indeed an adventure, from hunting rare spiders to witnessing "Dracula Therapy" in a room full of people who want to live forever. But the book isn't about death so much as life: what it is, how we define it and why it ends. I caught up with Howard on the eve of the book's release to talk body farms, his scariest moment researching the book and the immortal clones likely hanging out in your birdbath right now.