Zoobiquity: What Animals Can Teach Us about Being Human

by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, Kathryn Bowers

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.

Paperback

Published January 1, 2012

About the author

Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, M.D., earned her degrees at Harvard and the University of California, San Francisco. She is a cardiology professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and serves on the medical advisory board of the Los Angeles. Zoo as a cardiovascular consultant. Her writing has appeared in many scientific and medical publications.

Reviews

[Sherrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

***Audiobook***

Because of this book I now know what animal has the largest penis to body size ratio (a type of barnacle) and can include the word ammosexual in my vocabulary. Do you really need to know anything else?

Full of factoids and quips, the author is a physician who has learned the value of her veterinary colleagues. Each chapter focuses on a different condition or body system and the various species are compared and contrasted. It's interesting for people who like to collect seemingly random facts. It was amusing hearing the author talk about zoonosis and cross-species virus transmission from a pre-Covid19 perspective. Oh, how little those of us in the public knew back then!

Anyway, it's fun and informative if not ground breaking.