Zoobiquity: What Animals Can Teach Us About Being Human

Description

Dr House meets Dr Doolitte in this 'big ideas book' that reminds us of the real biological connection between human and animals Concerns about the recent explosions of diseases like HIV, the West Nile Virus, and other avian and swine flus that originate in animals have encouraged new efforts on a global scale to bridge the gap between animal and human medicine for the benefit of both. Zoobiquity is the first book to explore many of the human and animal health issues that overlap and provides new insight into the treatment of many diseases including diabetes, cancer, heart disease and mental illness. But Zoobiquity is even bigger than health and academic medicine, and encompasses much more than our diseases and how to cure them. It sheds light on the evolution of hierarchies and similarities between a tribe of apes and a Fortune 500 company. It suggests that the ways we run our political and justice systems may overlap with how animals protect and defend their territories - and that examining this possibility in a scientifically credible way could help strengthen our institutions. It dangles the possibility that human parenting could be informed by a greater knowledge and respect for how our animal cousins solve issues of childcare, sibling rivalry and infertility.

For twenty years, cardiologist Barbara Natterson Horowitz has treated human patients at the UCLA Medical Centre. Currently she is cardiac consultant for the Los Angeles Zoo and a member of the Zoo's Medical Advisory Board as well as the Director of Imaging for the UCLA Cardiac Arrhythmia Centre. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, two children and two dogs. Kathryn Bowers has written and edited fiction and non-fiction books, articles, and websites for numerous individuals and institutions including The Atlantic Monthly, CNN-International in London and the United States Embassy in Moscow. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband. They have one child and one dog.

Fascinating reading about the similarities in both physiology and behaviour of people and animals * Temple Grandin * Zoobiquity is full of fascinating stories of intersection between human and nonhuman medicine - fish that faint; dinosaur cancers; human treatments that cure dogs of melanoma; lessons from adolescent elephant behaviour that explain human teenagers. I was beguiled * Atul Gawande, M.D. * Zoobiquity will alter our view of the human condition ... an amazing new book * The Sunday Times *