The Red Canary: The Story of the First Genetically Engineered Animal
The creation of Dolly the sheep in the 1990s was for many people the start of a new era: the age of genetically modified animals. However, the idea was not new, for in the 1920s an amateur scientist, Hans Duncker, decided to genetically engineer a red canary.

Favored originally for their voice, by the middle of the nineteenth century canaries had become so popular that millions were exported from Europe to the United States to satisfy demand. During the 1870s, English canary breeders caused a scandal by feeding their birds red peppers to turn them orange. In the 1930s, Duncker's genetics efforts caught the attention of the Nazi regime who saw him as a champion of their eugenic policies, even though his ingenious experiments were not successful.


Nonetheless, Duncker's work paved the way thirty years later for an Englishman, Anthony Gill, and an American, Charles Bennett, to succeed, after recognizing that the red canary would need to be a product of both nature and nurture. In Tim Birkhead's masterful hands, this highly original narrative reveals how the obsession of bird keepers turned the wild canary from green to red, and in the process, heralded exciting but controversial developments in genetic manipulation.

"1117011681"
The Red Canary: The Story of the First Genetically Engineered Animal
The creation of Dolly the sheep in the 1990s was for many people the start of a new era: the age of genetically modified animals. However, the idea was not new, for in the 1920s an amateur scientist, Hans Duncker, decided to genetically engineer a red canary.

Favored originally for their voice, by the middle of the nineteenth century canaries had become so popular that millions were exported from Europe to the United States to satisfy demand. During the 1870s, English canary breeders caused a scandal by feeding their birds red peppers to turn them orange. In the 1930s, Duncker's genetics efforts caught the attention of the Nazi regime who saw him as a champion of their eugenic policies, even though his ingenious experiments were not successful.


Nonetheless, Duncker's work paved the way thirty years later for an Englishman, Anthony Gill, and an American, Charles Bennett, to succeed, after recognizing that the red canary would need to be a product of both nature and nurture. In Tim Birkhead's masterful hands, this highly original narrative reveals how the obsession of bird keepers turned the wild canary from green to red, and in the process, heralded exciting but controversial developments in genetic manipulation.

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The Red Canary: The Story of the First Genetically Engineered Animal

The Red Canary: The Story of the First Genetically Engineered Animal

by Tim Birkhead
The Red Canary: The Story of the First Genetically Engineered Animal

The Red Canary: The Story of the First Genetically Engineered Animal

by Tim Birkhead

eBook

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Overview

The creation of Dolly the sheep in the 1990s was for many people the start of a new era: the age of genetically modified animals. However, the idea was not new, for in the 1920s an amateur scientist, Hans Duncker, decided to genetically engineer a red canary.

Favored originally for their voice, by the middle of the nineteenth century canaries had become so popular that millions were exported from Europe to the United States to satisfy demand. During the 1870s, English canary breeders caused a scandal by feeding their birds red peppers to turn them orange. In the 1930s, Duncker's genetics efforts caught the attention of the Nazi regime who saw him as a champion of their eugenic policies, even though his ingenious experiments were not successful.


Nonetheless, Duncker's work paved the way thirty years later for an Englishman, Anthony Gill, and an American, Charles Bennett, to succeed, after recognizing that the red canary would need to be a product of both nature and nurture. In Tim Birkhead's masterful hands, this highly original narrative reveals how the obsession of bird keepers turned the wild canary from green to red, and in the process, heralded exciting but controversial developments in genetic manipulation.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781620406496
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date: 07/18/2014
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 1
File size: 4 MB

About the Author

Tim Birkhead is a professor at the University of Sheffield where he teaches animal behaviour and the history of science. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and his research has taken him all over the world in the quest to understand the lives of birds. He has written for the Independent, New Scientist, BBC Wildlife. Among his other books are Promiscuity, Great Auk Islands, The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Birds which won the McColvin medal, and most recently, Bird Sense. He is married with three children and lives in Sheffield, England.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vi

Acknowledgements vii

Preface to the 2014 Paperback Edition xi

Preface xv

1 Igniting the Genome 1

2 Catching, Keeping and Status 9

3 The Music of Nature 26

4 Music in the Brain 50

5 The Variegation Enigma 72

6 Domestic Life and Death 101

7 Mixed Blessings 126

8 Fugitive Red 153

9 Not by Genes Alone 168

10 Honest Red? 198

Postscript 214

A Note on Sources 218

A Chronology of Canaries 219

Notes 221

Bibliography 245

Index 261

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