An example of metaphor in popular science writing:
"…bones aren't static structures, they're living leviathans constantly being broken down and rebuilt by the bony equivalent of yin and yang: osteoclasts and osteoblasts."
Carver, C. (2017). Immune. How your body defends and protects you. Bloomsbury Sigma.
Read about the extensive use of figurative language in this book: Disease and immunity – a biological myth.
Read about metaphor in science
Read about examples of science metaphors
Many examples of science metaphors are listed in 'Creative comparisons: Making science familiar through language. An illustrative catalogue of figurative comparisons and analogies for science concepts'. Free Download.
Leviathans were mythical sea monsters, and I am not clear that offers a useful metaphor here. However, the philosopher Hobbes took the idea of the Leviathan as an image of the state, which can be understood to be a constant entity despite the continuous birth and death of citizens, so I assume this is what Carver had in mind.
