快猫短视频

WE ARE animals. Like it or not, we have more in common with our four-legged, furry, amphibian and feathered friends than most of us realise. That we share 70 per cent of our DNA with a sea sponge, let alone around 95 per cent of it with a chimpanzee, is now well known. How does this genetic similarity translate into everyday life? When it comes to health and healthy behaviour, we share much more with other species than you might think. Cougars get cancer, promiscuous koalas get the clap, and wallabies get high on opium. Cardiologist Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and science writer Kathryn Bowers have researched similarities between human and animal sickness, drawing unexpected conclusions.

The authors argue that human medicine 鈥� far from being superior to veterinary medicine, as tradition dictates 鈥� could advance in leaps and bounds by learning from discoveries in animal disease research. They are not talking about traditional animal research: infecting healthy animals and studying their response. Rather, they argue that as we all share common ancestors, diseases that arise in one species are likely to resemble those in another, or even be the same. Treat one and you may be able to treat the other with comparable techniques.

鈥淗uman medicine could advance in leaps and bounds by learning from animal disease research鈥�

In support of this thesis, the authors demonstrate how animals are ill in remarkably similar ways to people. Common diseases include cancer, heart disease, obesity, bulimia nervosa and even drug addiction. They make a convincing case, pointing out that some researchers have even organised a few conferences attended by both vets and medics to tentatively build bridges and explore the pan-species approach.

At times, the book becomes list-like, with several paragraphs describing all the different species that suffer from the same health problems as humans. But skip these and you will find the argument hard to resist. Plus you will have some killer dinner party gems. Who could resist the story of lemurs with erectile dysfunction, or the iguanas that ejaculate prematurely?