Download This Is Your Brain on Parasites: How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society AudioBook Free
A riveting investigation of the myriad techniques parasites control how other creatures - including humans - think, feel, and function. These tiny microorganisms can live only inside another canine, and, as McAuliffe shows, they may have many evolutionary motives for manipulating their host's action. Far more often than appreciated, these puppeteers orchestrate the interplay between predator and victim. With astonishing perfection, parasites can coax rats to approach pet cats, spiders to transform the patterns of the webs, and fish to draw the interest of birds that then swoop right down to feast with them. We humans are hardly immune to the serious influence of parasites. Organisms we pick up from our own pets are strongly suspected of changing our personality traits and adding to recklessness, impulsivity - even suicide. Microbes inside our gut have an impact on our feelings and the very wiring of the brains. Germs that cause colds and flu may modify our action even before symptoms become noticeable. Parasites influence our species on the social level, too. As McAuliffe documents, a unconscious fear of contagion impacts practically every aspect of the lives, from our sexual attractions and sociable circles to your morals and political views. Pulling on a huge body of research, she argues our dread of contamination can be an evolved security against parasites - and a double-edged sword. The horror and revulsion we feel whenever we come in contact with people who show up diseased or dusty helped pave the way for civilization but can also be the foundation for major divisions in societies that persist even today. In the traditions of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Metallic and Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish, This Is Your Brain on Parasites is both a quest into cutting-edge technology and a revelatory study of what this means to be individuals.
