Using Animal Biology To Help Human Biology As we advance our technology, we are discovering we can learn more and more from nature. Let me give you an example. It is said there is a type of jellyfish which lives forever. There are at least two types of jellyfish which are immortal biologically and the only way they can die is from being killed, an accident or a disease. If we could unlock this secret perhaps, we could life forever. Lobsters seem to get more fertile the older they get, which is just the opposite for most other living things, including humans. This secret could be one if cracked, could help humans who have fertility problems. When we create medicines, sometimes we tap into nature for the ingredients. In one case we have found the Keyhole limpet, a type of sea snail has a protein which is very useful to us. It is keyhole limpet hemocyanin or KLH. It is used in medicine to fight diseases and is useful since it contains many sites which can bind things to it. The uses for diseases are across the board, being used to fight cancer, in vaccinations and even Alzheimer’s. Pigs were not very lucky when it was found they closely resemble humans in their biology. Because of this it has been determined they will make a good host for growing human organs. This fact along with laboratory grown organs may make it much easier in the future to get an organ when needed. In this country, about 20 people who are on the list waiting for an organ die because no organ is available. One way animals help us was with a discovery made in the dim past. Someone learned we could get milk and later others learned they could get dairy products from an animal. Today, almost everyone in the world uses some kind of dairy product. Even before this came the discovery, we could eat animals. We keep these practices up even to this day. We have learned that even though we are much like chimpanzees biologically, we have a missing gene among other things. This missing gene makes us more prone to heart attacks. Some scientists feel if we study chimps, we might find the solution to this problem. In the future we may be able to genetically remedy this problem. There is actually an animal which never gets cancer. You can imagine why scientists are studying this animal which is the naked mole rat. Scientists also believe they live much longer than then most other animals their size. It makes one wonder, do ugly animals live longer, because they certainly are ugly. Dogs have an incredible talent and that is not only being able to sniff out cancer and diabetes, but in calming us down. When a dog is led into a hospital room for a patient to see and sometimes touch, it has been known to have a soothing effect on the patients. While this is true, it is still up for debate if this contributes to their recovery. In the beginning, when humans first came on to the earth, they needed some sort of shelter and animals provided that with hides which were used to cover themselves to keep the cold out and protect from the sun. It wasn’t until later that humans learned how to create material from plants. Scientists have found out an amazing fact about honey bees. The honey bee contains a venom, one which may turn out to be very beneficial to humans if a medicine is made from it. When experiments were conducted in laboratories using this venom, it killed almost every form of cancer in 60 minutes. No other bees seem to have venom like this. By the way, the venom did not hurt the other cells. Before the advent of radios, it was hard to arrange for communications in wartime. Sometimes we employed runners, then we found out homing pigeons could be used to send messages with. The pigeon would head back to its home base which could be a military base with a pigeon coop. The animal had an incredible sense of direction. Those pesky ants we may see walking across the lawn or trying to get into our homes can be very beneficial to humans. They are very useful in farming as they eat many of the pests which eat the crops. They also aerate and turn the soil. They are also plant pollinators, and food for some other animals. We have to realize that humans are also animals and realizing this can help us find ways animal biology has solved some of the problems we have and if we can figure out how, we might be able to learn from it. There is something called Zoobiquity. It is the combination of veterinary biology and human medicine. Some believe scientist working on cures for diseases for humans might be better served if they work with veterinary scientists. They could have a point. Sometimes, we find out some strange things about animals we believe are harmful. Take the case of rats for example. A finding was made which showed rats avoid hurting other rats. This has led some scientists to see if this could be of any help in the case of sociopaths. It turns out both rats and humans have a similar enough brain structure that we might find something helpful. Some scientists are very interested in turtles, because they believe there is a lesson on ageing to be learned. Some turtles seem to be a lot better at aging than humans. Scientists found that the risk of death to turtles didn’t seem to increase with age. Over 52 species of turtles were examined in the study. It was found environment can also play an important role. Here is where AI or Artificial Intelligence can play a part. If we develop programs run by AI, we might find out a lot more about animals and how some of their desirable features can be attained by humans. Can you imagine how much we might be able to improve the human body and brain? I can’t, but I know it could be a lot. There might be many secrets locked up in animal biology which could solve the myriad of biological problems all humans have, along with the health problems many others have. Adding or subtracting a gene here and there or turning one on or off, might produce a beneficial effect for us. There is a lot we can still learn from animal biology.
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