Who doesn’t love animals? Beyond their adorable faces, they provide secret ways that improve human lives—from cutting‑edge medicines to innovative environmental solutions.
Scientists constantly study the quirks of the animal kingdom, discovering ways to apply those quirks to everyday human challenges. From the smartest companions to obscure marine invertebrates, the list below showcases ten secret ways animals help humans that most people never realized.
Secret Ways Animals Aid Humanity
10 Keyhole Limpet Proteins
Keyhole limpets are sea snails with wide, conical shells and a tiny hole at the top, but their real superpower lies in a protein called keyhole limpet hemocyanin (KLH). This protein is a cornerstone of a wide array of medicines, from cancer and Alzheimer’s treatments to vaccinations for both animals and humans. Its complex structure offers many binding sites, making it an excellent scaffold for attaching therapeutic agents.
Beyond limpets, other marine organisms like kelp are used to create creamy textures in products ranging from ice cream to toothpaste. However, KLH stands out because entire companies specialize in its production for serious medical applications. Since limpets are invertebrates without a true brain, using them in research sidesteps many ethical concerns that arise with higher‑order animals.
9 Cancer‑Sniffing Dogs
Dogs boast roughly 60 times more sensory nerves in their noses than humans, giving them a remarkable ability to sniff out cancer. In the early 1990s, researchers tested trained dogs with urine samples from patients with and without cancer, and the canines correctly identified cancer‑positive samples about 95 percent of the time. They could detect a range of cancers, including liver, lung, and breast cancers.
While it’s unlikely that dogs will replace doctors for routine cancer screening, scientists have leveraged their olfactory prowess to develop diagnostic machines that “smell” the same chemical signatures dogs detect. These devices still need more funding to become viable, but the underlying science is solid.
8 Diabetes Dogs
Stories of dogs predicting low blood sugar in diabetic patients have moved from charming anecdotes to proven fact. Researchers discovered that when a diabetic person’s blood sugar drops dangerously low, the amount of a volatile compound called isoprene in their breath nearly doubles. Humans can’t detect this change, but a dog’s nose can.
Trained diabetes‑alert dogs (DADs) learn to warn their owners of an impending hypoglycemic episode, giving the person time to eat and stabilize glucose levels before a seizure or blackout occurs. These dogs are expensive to train—up to $20,000 for the initial purchase and roughly $1,000 per year for food—but the life‑saving potential makes them a valuable resource for many diabetics.
7 Airport Falconry
Bird strikes can be catastrophic for aircraft. In the famous “Sully” incident, birds entered both engines shortly after takeoff, forcing an emergency water landing on the Hudson River. To prevent such events, many U.S. airports employ trained falcons to scare away smaller flocking birds during takeoff and landing.
Falcons emit specific warning calls that keep nuisance birds at bay, dramatically reducing the risk of bird‑engine collisions. Bird strikes cost the aviation industry more than $500 million annually, and a single engine failure can cost up to $2 million. Studies show that without falconry, the chance of a bird hitting a plane jumps to roughly one in four, making falconry a cost‑effective safety measure.
6 Growing Human Organs In Animals
As of January 2017, nearly 80,000 Americans were awaiting organ transplants, and many will never receive a viable organ in time. Scientists are exploring the possibility of growing human organs inside large animals, such as pigs, using a patient’s own stem cells harvested from skin.
Because these stem cells are pluripotent, they can develop into any tissue type. To coax the animal to grow a human organ, researchers genetically engineer the animal to lack that specific organ, prompting the stem cells to fill the gap. Ethical concerns dominate the debate, and a ban currently restricts this approach due to public opposition over using animals as organ factories.
5 Cancer Immunity In Sharks
Sharks—especially hammerheads and great whites—possess genes that give them a heightened resistance to cancer. Research has highlighted two genes, “legumain” and “Bag1,” which are strikingly similar to human genes involved in tumor suppression.
Bag1 plays a role in apoptosis, the programmed cell death process that eliminates defective or cancerous cells. In many cancers, apoptosis is disrupted, allowing malignant cells to proliferate. Shark versions of Bag1 appear to regulate this pathway more effectively, contributing to their cancer immunity.
Sharks also heal wounds at an astonishing rate and exhibit low infection rates despite constant exposure to oceanic bacteria. While the exact mechanisms remain under investigation, the unique genes found in sharks and rays (but not in bony fish) are likely key factors.
4 Dogs Sniffing For Science
Beyond detecting cancer and diabetes, dogs are now being trained to locate invasive plant species. Conservation scientists have discovered that a pack of eight to ten dogs can locate roughly twice as many invasive plants as a human survey team, making the method both effective and inexpensive.
Training a dog to recognize a specific plant scent involves intensive conditioning, but many labs train their own dogs rather than purchasing the costly $20,000‑plus specimens used for medical detection. This low‑cost approach helps protect ecosystems by swiftly identifying and eradicating harmful weeds.
3 Algae Used In Biofuels
Algae—though not technically animals—are proving to be powerhouses for renewable energy. From microscopic single‑cell organisms to towering kelp, their photosynthetic ability can be harnessed to produce biofuels that may replace fossil fuels.
The process involves extracting lipids from algal cells and subjecting them to high‑intensity heat and pressure in a method called hydrothermal liquefaction. The resulting fuel can be refined into jet fuel, gasoline, or ethanol. Major oil corporations such as ExxonMobil are already investing in algal biofuel research, underscoring the commercial potential of these tiny, yet mighty, organisms.
2 Oysters Removing Nitrogen
Since 2014, ExxonMobil’s “Billion Oyster Project” aims to restore New York Harbor by adding one billion oysters by 2030. To date, roughly 20 million oysters have been placed, helping to cleanse the water by removing excess nitrogen.
Oysters retain nitrogen in their bodies to maintain homeostasis, converting toxic ammonia into less harmful waste forms. By filtering nitrogen‑rich water and converting the nitrogen into safer compounds, oysters improve water quality and support a healthier marine ecosystem, mitigating harmful algal blooms caused by nitrogen overload.
1 Plastic‑Devouring Worms
One of the planet’s biggest pollution challenges is plastic waste, which accumulates on beaches and in oceans worldwide. Remarkably, the larvae of wax moths—tiny worms often used as fishing bait—can eat plastic without harm.
Scientists are studying these larvae to determine whether they could be scaled up to meaningfully reduce plastic waste. While the worms are only a few centimeters long and it’s uncertain whether they could survive on a plastic‑only diet, they represent a promising biological tool that might one day be deployed en masse to combat plastic pollution.