Fantastic Animals and the Art of Science Communication

You mentioned model organisms – could you briefly explain what they are in lay terms?

Lewin: The animals most commonly used in biomedical experiments today are drosophila (fruit flies), worms, zebrafish, and mice. Ninety-nine per cent of biomedical research is conducted on these four model organisms. Practically all the Nobel prize winners over the last two or three decades have used them, and not without reason: they are ideally suited to genetic manipulation. You can turn off or alter almost all their genes, their development is well understood, and they are cheap to look after. But at the same time, this overlooks much of our fascinating biodiversity.

What was the fundamental communication need that you wanted to address? Why was it important to you to tell the public about this kind of animal-based research?

Hodge: Even at the original conference I was struck by how open minded the scientists were towards animals and how much they cared about the ones they researched. Animal welfare is of course an important social issue, and as we gain ever more scientific advances and new technologies, the question of whether it’s at all necessary to use animals in research is becoming more and more relevant. In some cases, we can now use artificial systems to reduce some of that work. But those who conduct research with unusual animals pose questions that go beyond those typical of biomedical science, or what the public might expect. For one thing, many illnesses which plague humans, such as cardiovascular disease, also occur among animals. And some species have already solved these problems through evolution. Giraffes, for example, do not suffer from high blood pressure, despite the enormous pressure needed to pump blood several meters up to the brain. How is this possible? And what lessons can we learn?

Lewin: These researchers – myself included – are fundamentally interested in the diversity of life. We consider the animal as a whole, not just its constituent parts. We want to understand how everything is interconnected. Creatures that live underground like the naked mole rat have completely different metabolic needs and a different sensory understanding of the world. They don’t need eyes and navigate using their sense of touch or smell instead. This is extremely relevant for research into the (non-)existence of pain. Naked mole rats can also survive on almost no oxygen, whereas we humans immediately suffer distress without it. It’s fantastic that the metabolism can function on such minimal resources when living underground. I’m motivated by the earth’s biodiversity as I believe that we can learn from animals, especially other mammals like the naked mole rat. We wanted to use the tandem to share our holistic attitude towards such remarkable adaptations and the scientific interest which motivates us with the general public.

In “Masters of Survival” you not only tell the stories of remarkable animals, but also of the people who research them and the precarious conditions in which they often find themselves, as well as the professional networks and the stroke of luck that is sometimes needed for such research. Russ Hodge, how did you go about making the science and its backstory accessible to a wide audience?

Hodge: Traditional science communication which is the ‘daily bread’ at the MDC and most other institutes usually involves publishing concrete results as soon as possible after a discovery has been made – for example, in press releases. Writing a book was an opportunity for both me and the scientists involved to step back and reflect. Researchers usually communicate in a very precise way which is predominantly directed at others within their own circles of expertise. They get few opportunities to tell their own stories, such as how their own lives have become interwoven with the fate of a particular animal. That’s why I tried to let them speak for themselves and depict them as individuals. Most people outside science don’t have much contact with that world – before I started working in science communication, for example, I didn’t really know any researchers. As an outsider, you quickly get the sense that academia is a closed shop, and so I set about making these people seem more approachable, showing them for who they are as human beings and trying to convey how they think beyond just their work.

Menschik: I can’t emphasize enough just how special Russ’ idea behind the texts is. I’ve never seen or read anything like it. The interweaving of human and animal stories and their respective contexts is what makes this book so vivid. 

Hodge: The writing process was demanding as I hoped to reach a really broad group of readers and didn’t want to presume they would have any pre-existing knowledge of biology. This meant that I had to introduce every single concept, but without repeating myself too much in each chapter. As popular science writers, you can draw on everyday analogies and images to make even very complex scientific ideas clearer to the reader, we have a pretty big toolbox to do this.

Moving on to a different topic: academic freedom is under threat across the world and securing research funding is becoming more difficult in these uncertain times. Would you say that science communication and advocacy are needed more than ever? 

Lewin: Absolutely, although the nature of this advocacy is currently inadequate – at least when it comes to politics. Research already has an enthusiastic audience: I’d even go as far as to say that this is the silent majority in society. The loud voices against us often come from very small groups which mainly exist online, and yet they are able to exert a huge amount of political pressure. Meanwhile, the German parliament overlooks organizations like patient self-advocacy groups, in my view. But these initiatives are key in highlighting the essential role played by the life sciences, without which we would not have medicines to cure disease or ease pain. Even when the journey to develop a new medicine often begins twenty or thirty years earlier with the decoding of an important mechanism upon which the translation of the basic research hinges.

Hodge: That’s why the kind of stories we tell in “Masters of Survival” are so important. Most scientific advances are long in the making. A popular science book is a good medium for us to cover more of the history of science than other types of texts, and you bring people closer to many important developments and put them into context. Few other formats allow you to tell such complex stories: you could do so with a chapter in a book, or an article in the New York Times, The Washington Post, or Scientific American. Overall, it’s incredibly important to consider how any particular discovery comes across as a whole. But very few people have the endurance for long, dry texts. That’s why we try to captivate our readers with images and text, to keep them gripped by the story. This was the motivation behind our joint efforts in the tandem project.

Now our time is nearly up, I’d like to close with a question that requires a one-word answer. What’s your favorite animal? I think we might already know Gary Lewin’s one… 

Lewin: No! (smiles) Aardvarks are my favorite!

Menschik: I’d say pangolins!

Lewin: Oh yes, they are beautiful too.

Hodge (after long deliberation): Giraffes! But as a writer, you develop an intimate relationship with all of your ‘characters’ – in this case, all the animals and the people studying them.

Dr. Nina Schmidt
 May/June 2025