Title Wave - Author Michael Branch

Michael P. Branch is a professor of literature and environment at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he teaches creative nonfiction, American literature, environmental studies, and film studies. An award-winning writer and humorist, Michael is the author of How to Cuss in Western and lives with his wife and two daughters in the western Great Basin Desert, on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Range.

The never-before-told stories of the horned rabbit —the myths, the hoaxes, the very real scientific breakthrough it inspired—and how it became a cultural touchstone of the American West. Purported to be part jackrabbit and part antelope, the jackalope began as a local joke and quickly gained status as a folk icon across the U.S. Although the jackalope is make-believe, actual horned rabbits afflicted by a carcinogenic virus have helped oncologists make remarkable, fieldchanging advances in the development of anti-viral cancer therapies. The most important of these is the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which protects against cervical and other cancers. Today, jackalopes are literally helping us cure cancer.