liver will break down anything it does not like the look of

An example of metaphor and anthropomorphism in popular science discourse

"And the human body is very carefully constructed so that anything we eat or drink goes first to the liver. The liver is the chemical factory, and it takes out anything that's useful and it makes something with it, that's good for the body, and it spots toxins, and if it does not like the look of what's coming it will break it down."

Prof. Ian Gilmore

Prof. Ian Gilmore (professor of hepatology, director of the Liverpool Centre for Alcohol Research) was talking on an episode ('What does alcohol do to the body and brain?') of BBC's Inside Health.

Read about anthropomorphism

Read examples of anthropomorphism in science

Many examples of anthropomorphism are listed in 'Creative comparisons: Making science familiar through language. An illustrative catalogue of figurative comparisons and analogies for science concepts'. Free Download.