LIFE LESSONS FROM A PARASITE

Preeminent parasitologist John Janovy, Jr., reveals startling skeevy facts about parasites - the most common way of life among animals on Earth - and provides insights into how their ineluctable behaviors can help us understand our own lives and risks.

Parasite Rex meets Black Swan in these absorbing tales from the field, written with an Aldo Leopold-like evocation of the natural world and the philosophical issues that face us today. Humanity's most difficult problems stem from infective agents in general, including words and ideas that go viral, enter our minds, and alter behavior. In fact, the most dangerous germs are actually wrong ideas: the Big Lie, global warming is a myth, vaccines' side effects are worse than the diseases they prevent. While reveling in an obsession with parasites and their myriad revolting means of invading and reproducing in animals, including humans, LIFE LESSONS answers two important questions: First: What can we learn from the most reviled yet misunderstood animals on Earth, parasites such as lice, tapeworms, and maggots that can eat a lizard from inside? And second: How can these lessons help us negotiate a world characterized by pandemic disease, ethnic hatred, climate change, mass migration, war, and internet-driven political chaos? The scientific take-home lessons of these parasites are clearly applicable far beyond the laboratory. John Janovy, Jr., is a parasitologist and Varner Professor Emeritus of University of Nebraska, where he taught for fifty years. For twenty years, Janovy was the Paula and D. B. Varner Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences, with a research and teaching program in parasitology. He is the author of thirteen books by major publishers, including, as co-author, five editions of Foundations of Parasitology (9th Ed., McGraw-Hill, 2013), the leading textbook in his discipline. With his students, Janovy published more than a hundred scientific papers on parasites and parasitism.