The COVID-19 pandemic won't be our last&md ash\;because what makes us vulnerable to pandemics also makes us human. Th at is the uncomfortable but all-too-timely message of \;The Human Disease: How We Create Pandemics\, From Our Bodies to Our Beliefs\, w hich travels through history and around the globe to examine how and why p andemics are an inescapable threat of our own making. Drawing on dozens of disciplines&mdash\;from medicine\, epidemiology\, and microbiology to ant hropology\, sociology\, ecology\, and neuroscience&mdash\;as well as a uni que expertise in public education about emerging infectious diseases\, bio logical anthropologist Sabrina Sholts identifies the human traits and tend encies that double as pandemic liabilities\, from the anatomy that defines us to the misperceptions that divide us.
\n\;Weaving together a wealth of personal experiences\, scientific findings\, and historical st ories\, Sholts brings dramatic and much-needed clarity to one of the most profound challenges we face as a species. Though the COVID-19 pandemic loo ms large in Sholts's account\, it is\, in fact\, just one of the many infe ctious disease events explored in \;The Human Disease. With i ts expansive\, evolutionary perspective\, the book explains how humanity w ill continue to face new pandemics because \;humans cause them\, by th e ways that we are and the things that we do. By recognizing our risks\, S holts suggests\, we can take actions to reduce them. When the next pandemi c happens\, and how bad it becomes\, are largely within our highly capable human hands&mdash\;and will be determined by what we do with our extraord inary human brains. A presentation you don&rsquo\;t want to miss\, registe r now!
\nAbout the Author:
\nSabrina Sholts i s a biological anthropologist and Curator of Biological Anthropology at th e Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). Her research ex plores intersections of human\, animal\, and environmental health in the p ast and present. She received her PhD in Anthropology at UC Santa Barbara and was a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley in Integrative Biology an d at Stockholm University in Biophysics and Biochemistry. Sholts has publi shed widely in academic journals including \;American Journal of B iological Anthropology\, \;Environmental Health Perspectives< /em>\, \;JAMA\, PNAS\, \;Scientific Reports\, \;Proceeding s of the Royal Society B\, and \;Nature Ecology &\; Evolution\, and written for popular audiences in \;Scientific American& nbsp\;and \;Smithsonian Magazine. She was named as a World Ec onomic Forum Young Scientist in 2019. In addition\, she was Lead Curator o f the exhibition "Outbreak: Epidemics in a Connected World" at the NMNH&nb sp\;(2018-2022) and a scientific advisor for the related exhibition "&Eacu te\;pidé\;mies: \;Prendre soin du vivant \;at the musé \;e des Confluences" in Lyon\, France \;(2024-2025).
\nD isclaimer:
\nThe views expressed by presenters are their ow n and their appearance in a program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by Indianapolis Publi c Library.
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