The Explorer's Gene: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map

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New York Times-bestselling author ofEndure Alex Hutchinson returns with a fresh, provocative investigation into how exploration, uncertainty, and risk shape our behavior and help us find meaning.

Off the beaten path, following unmarked trails, we are wired to explore. More than just a need to get outside, the search for the unknown is a primal urge that has shaped the history of our species and continues to mold our behavior in ways we are only beginning to understand. In fact, the latest neuroscience suggests that exploration in any formwhether its trying a new restaurant, changing careers, or deciding to run a marathonis an essential ingredient of human life. Exploration, it turns out, isnt merely a hobbyits our story.

In this much-anticipated follow-up to his New York Times bestseller Endure, Alex Hutchinson refutes the myth that, in our fully mapped digital world, the age of exploration is dead. Instead, the itch to discover new things persists in all of us, expressed not just on the slopes of Everest but in the ways we work, play, and live. From paddling the lost rivers of the northern Canadian wilderness to the ocean-spanning voyages of the Polynesians to the search for next-generation quantum computers, The Explorers Genecombines riveting stories of exploration with cutting-edge insights from behavioral psychology and neuroscience, making a powerful case that our lives are bettermore productive, more meaningful, and more funwhen we break our habits and chart a new path.

Author Bio

Alex Hutchinson combines a scientific background-he holds a doctorate in physics from Cambridge University-with athletic expertise-he was a world class runner, competing in National and World Championships for more than a decade. He is also an award-winning writer specializing in the intersection of science and athletic performance, and has written articles on Mt. Everest, New Zealand, Tasmania, the Australian Outback, and the Yukon for the New York Times Travel section.