What We Are Reading Today: ‘Deep Life’ by Tullis C. Onstott

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Updated 03 September 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Deep Life’ by Tullis C. Onstott

“Deep Life” takes readers to uncharted regions deep beneath Earth’s crust in search of life in extreme environments, and reveals how astonishing new discoveries by geomicrobiologists are aiding the quest to find life in the solar system.

Tullis Onstott provides an insider’s look at the pioneering fieldwork that is shining new light on Earth’s hidden biology, a subterranean biosphere thriving with rare and exotic life forms.


What We Are Reading Today: The Power of Hope by Carol Graham

Updated 25 February 2026
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What We Are Reading Today: The Power of Hope by Carol Graham

In a society marked by extreme inequality of income and opportunity, why should economists care about how people feel? The truth is that feelings of well-being are critical metrics that predict future life outcomes.

In this timely and innovative account, economist Carol Graham argues for the importance of hope—little studied in economics at present—as an independent dimension of well-being.

Given America’s current mental health crisis, thrown into stark relief by COVID, hope may be the most important measure of well-being, and researchers are tracking trends in hope as a key factor in understanding the rising numbers of “deaths of despair” and premature mortality.

Graham, an authority on the study of well-being, points to empirical evidence demonstrating that hope can improve people’s life outcomes and that despair can destroy them. These findings, she argues, merit deeper exploration.