Life Lessons from a Parasite

June 10, 2024
This underwhelming treatise from Janovy (Letter to a Child Born Today), a biology professor emeritus at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, struggles to distill wisdom from the abilities and life cycles of parasites. Research into parasites’ biology could have practical applications, Janovy contends, suggesting that scientists could hypothetically find ways to adapt the preservative functions of cysts (“capsules” that enclose worm eggs and keep them alive for up to two years) for more effectively transporting drugs and vaccines without refrigeration. Some of the book’s lessons are a bit obvious, as when Janovy cites how free-swimming Salsuginus thalkeni worms follow their plains killifish hosts into “calm backwaters during flood years” as an illustration of how species thrive best when “living in a manner consistent with natural environment,” rather than bending their surroundings to suit their desires as humans do. Elsewhere, Janovy’s “general theory of infectivity” attempts to draw parallels between how ideas and parasites spread. Unfortunately, the takeaways—that both affect their surroundings and the physiological condition of hosts and listeners (by inciting a reaction or change in behavior, in the case of ideas)—are so broad as to offer little insight. This doesn’t come together. Agent: Leslie Meredith, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.

July 1, 2024
The word parasite automatically produces negative connotations--intruder, scrounger, threatening, disgusting--and provokes intense emotional reactions. Yet parasitologist Janovy points out that parasitism is actually ""the most common way of life among animals on Earth."" In this unusual fusion of biology, memoir, and social commentary, he considers the meaning and impact of parasites beyond head lice, ticks, fleas, and tapeworms to include nonbiological entities, such as ideas, words, and cultural phenomena. Janovy marvels at the complexity of the natural world. Many different hosts (along with their parasitic inhabitants) are featured, including migratory birds, fish, toads, beetles, ants, and snakes. He depicts how the work of science is performed and passionately ponders concepts of survival, diversity, and vulnerability. The strength of his book is the distillation of larger lessons gleaned from a lifetime spent in science observing all kinds of animals and people, too. He cautions, ""Words are infective."" He notes that what appear to be simple problems may require nearly impossible solutions. Although Janovy's discussion is riddled with worms (in a weirdly affectionate way), readers' views of parasitism will undergo a surprising metamorphosis.

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August 15, 2024
An academic explores the science and relevance of parasitic invaders. Janovy, emeritus biology professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, believes these "animals that live in and on other animals" can be studied for the lessons to be learned from their biological and behavioral activity. He expounds on a "general theory of infectivity" in chapters introducing a team of parasite hunters who study the life cycles, transmission, and resilience of parasites, predominantly ones not found in humans. Among them is a microscopic fluke found in the ovaries of buffalo fish in a lake in northern Texas and southern Oklahoma that has persistently baffled and subsequently outlived generations of scientists. Elsewhere, Janovy compares the plains killifish and the free-swimming larval worms that follow it to social media platforms such as Tik Tok, all of them successfully dealing with--and seeming to thrive on--constant change. Janovy's professional research is impactful and relevant; having spent "many hours with mosquitoes and starlings," he equates their official designation as detrimentally "invasive" and predatory to the ostracizing of queer, immigrant, and ethnic communities. Other studies correlate human behavioral aberrations with infectious agents like Covid-19. Janovy introduces parasitologists who scrutinize the parasitic life cycle, and he draws correlations between the invasive activity of biological agents and the "parasitic ideas" that can infect cultural ecosystems with "perceived economic and cultural threats." Drawing on previously published resource material, a half century of biological scientific experience, and academic observational research, Janovy attempts to make "mental extensions" connecting his research to the influence of biological (and social) parasitism on everyday human life in terms of abundance, diversity, and methods of survival. Readers intrigued by the intersection of science and society will be particularly interested in this verbose but generally cohesive study connecting the biology and behavior of parasites to human nature. Dense with digressions but intermittently fascinating.

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