Carl Zimmer is a science writer, journalist and an author who specialises in evolution, parasites, and heredity.

Life is the thing which illuminates our corner of the universe. It gives colour to an otherwise cold, brutal void. But what is life? How is it defined? Despite seeming obvious at first glance, this question is one of the most contested in science.

Expect to learn what are the most extreme forms of life which can live in the vacuum of space, how life might have begun in rock pools, why aliens might be so different to us that we don't even recognise them, how a slimemould that looks like dog vomit can learn its way through a maze and much more...