This is your brain on parasites : how tiny creatures manipulate our behavior and shape society / Kathleen McAuliffe.

  • McAuliffe, Kathleen
Date:
2016
  • Books

About this work

Description

"Based on a wildly popular Atlantic article: an astonishing investigation into the world of microbes, and the myriad ways they control how other creatures -- including humans -- act, feel, and think As we are now discovering, parasites -- microbes that cannot thrive and reproduce without another organism as a host -- are shockingly sophisticated and extraordinarily powerful. In fact, a plethora of parasites affect our behavior in ways we have barely begun to understand. In this mind-bending book, McAuliffe reveals the eons-old war between parasites and other creatures that is playing out in our very own bodies. And more surprising still, she uncovers the decisive role that parasites may have played in the rise and demise of entire civilizations. Our obsession with cleanliness and our experience of disgust are both evolutionary tools for avoiding infection, but they evolved differently for different populations. Political, social, and religious differences among societies may be caused, in part, by the different parasites that prey on us. In the tradition of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel and Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish, This Is Your Brain on Parasites is both a journey into cutting-edge science and a revelatory examination of what it means to be human."-- Provided by publisher.

Publication/Creation

Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016.

Physical description

268 pages : color illustrations ; 24 cm

Notes

"An Eamon Dolan book."

Bibliographic information

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Before parasites were cool -- Hitching a ride -- Zombified -- Hypnotized -- Dangerous liaisons -- Gut feelings -- My microbes made me fat -- Healing instinct -- The forgotten emotion -- Parasites and prejudice -- Parasites and piety -- The geography of thought.

Languages

Where to find it

  • LocationStatus
    Medical Collection
    QX45 2016M47t
    Open shelves

Permanent link

Identifiers

ISBN

  • 9780544192225
  • 0544192222