An example of anthropomorphic language in medical writing:
"…at low oxygen tensions, hemoglobin has a low affinity for oxygen until the oxygen concentration is sufficient to break so-called salt bridges that would otherwise bar access of oxygen to the iron moiety within heme. This binding shifts the configuration of heme molecules within the remaining chains of the tetramer to make the breakage of those salt bridges easier. Thus, as oxygen tension rises, the hemoglobin becomes more avid for oxygen, and the amount of binding increases steeply over a relatively narrow range of oxygen tension. In other words, 'binding begets more oxygen binding'."
Benz, Edward J. (2018) Anemias, Red Cells, and the Essential Elements of Red Cell Homeostasis, in Edward J. Benz, Nancy Berliner, & Fred J. Schiffman, Anemia. Pathophysiology, Diagnosis, and Management, Cambridge University Press, 1-13.
Avis refers to a keen interest or enthusiasm, perhaps approaching greed.
Read examples of anthropomorphism in science
The positive feedback ('cooperative binding' – see 'haemoglobin is like a four-seater car or an unstable four-man boat') is described metaphorically as 'binding begets more oxygen binding' where beget is perhaps most familiar from the King James Version of the Bible where it is commonly used in the sense of to father (and is repeatedly used in the genealogy ascribed to Jesus in Matthew's gospel: "Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren; And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram…etc., etc." Metaphorically 'begat' means produced, brought forth or similar.
