Meerkats will sometimes attack each other’s pups or abandon their own, and when this happens, the zoo steps in to hand-raise the youngsters. They survive, but the keeper tells us that, for unknown reasons, they often develop heart problems when they get older. ‘That’s very interesting,’ says Knight. ‘Do you know anything about meerkat milk?’ He asks because mammalian milk contains special sugars that infants cannot digest, but that certain microbes can. When a human mother breastfeeds her child, she isn’t just feeding it; she is also feeding the child its first microbes, and ensuring that the
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