Skip to content

Tyler Volk

Author and Professor of Biology at New York University
Tyler Volk is a Science Director of Environmental Studies and Professor of Biology at New York University. He is the author of "Death & Sex" (with co-author Dorion Sagan), "CO2 Rising: The World' Greatest Environmental Challenge," "Gaia's Body: Toward a Physiology of the Earth," and "Metapatterns: Across Space, Time, and Mind." Professor Volk is also lead guitarist for The Amygdaloids, a "heavy mental" band comprised of NYU scientists. He lives in New York.

The interplay between the dead and the living—the miraculous “webbing of nature in which death becomes life and life becomes death…around and around”—not only stands as the basis of our […]
5 min
with
From our tiniest cells performing constant “suicide programs,” to the adaptive measures behind the grand sweep of evolutionary history, death is what truly drives life.
6 min
with
Humans have developed elaborate rituals, institutions and even theories of immortality to lessen the life-long shock that is knowledge of death. What’s behind this primal urge and how does an […]
4 min
with
Our atoms are formed from particles with seemingly infinite lifespans, so why do organisms die? The NYU professor explains the biology of death.
2 min
with