A Brand New Bird: How Two Amateur Scientists Created The First Genetically Engineered Animal [Hardcover]

Tim Birkhead (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0465006655 | ISBN-13: 978-0465006656 | Publication Date: August 20, 2003 | Edition: First Printing

Long before Dolly the Sheep or bioengineered corn, there was the Red Canary-the first organism to be manipulated by genetic technology, back in the 1920s. The effort to produce a red canary invoked all of the deep issues that troubled genetic engineering decades later: the nature of genes and how they work, the specter of eugenics, and the relative roles of nature and nurture in determining what an organism is. Behavioral ecologist Tim Birkhead describes how a sweet-voiced green bird discovered by Spanish explorers in the 1300s became a craze in Renaissance Europe, how breeders gradually turned its green plumage to yellow, and how a pair of German scientists used the first bit of gene technology in the 1920s to produce an almost-red canary. But the true red canary would not come until the 1960s, when British scientists successfully bred one, and genes alone would not be sufficient to create one. A Brand New Bird is a compelling tale of a fascinating episode in the history of genetics.

Editorial Reviews

From Scientific American

The brand-new bird is the red canary. It was the object of a quest that two Germans--Hans Duncker, a high school teacher interested in genetics, and Karl Reich, a bird keeper--carried on in Bremen for many years, beginning in 1921. Duncker's idea was to pluck the genes from a red siskin (a relative of the canary) and insert them into the yellow canary. His method was cross-breeding. The effort fell short of the goal, producing canaries of a reddish coppery hue. But it led to success years later by others who recognized the subtle connection between genes and the environment, in this case a diet containing carotenoids. Birkhead, professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Sheffield in England, makes a grand story by weaving in lore about genetics, bird keeping and the people involved in the quest.

Editors of Scientific American

From Booklist

The phrase "genetic engineering" conjures up images of test tubes, in vitro fertilization, and scientific laboratories. However, attempts at genetic engineering have been made since animals and plants were domesticated, only then it was simply called "breeding." Farmers and fanciers bred the best with the best, and occasionally crossed different species, in order to get offspring that might improve on their parents. When Spanish explorers discovered a little green bird with a lovely song, it set the stage for the formation of a new domestic animal, the canary. By the 1920s the familiar yellow canaries were common, but a pair of German bird enthusiasts wanted a red canary. The exciting story of how a scientist and an amateur bird breeder created an almost red one makes for fascinating reading. Birkhead, a behavioral ecologist and author, places this achievement in the context of scientific knowledge of the day. Birkhead's treatise on the canary as an example of the interaction between genes and environment is a terrific example of popular-science writing. Nancy Bent
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; First Printing edition (August 20, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465006655
• ISBN-13: 978-0465006656
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,158,676 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tim Birkhead (2003): A Brand-New Bird, December 15, 2003

By 

F D Steinheimer (Berlin, Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Brand New Bird: How Two Amateur Scientists Created The First Genetically Engineered Animal (Hardcover)

"A Brand-new Bird" is the entertaining story of how two German bird lovers spent most of their spare and life time experimenting to create a red canary. Hans Duncker (1881-1961) and Karl Reich (1885-1970) had in common a keen interest in bird breeding. Duncker, however, had been the more academic of both and is considered as one of the first avian geneticists. Reich on the other hand had highly praised skills in rearing and cross-breeding captive birds. He had been one of the very few breeders holding a strain of canaries singing Nightingale songs. Both conducted many experiments to hybridize Red Siskins and canaries for getting the formers "red-plumage-genes" into a canary brood. In the end they actually never succeeded beyond an orange plumage of their canaries, and it was later up to the Englishman Jack Swift to breed a truly crimson red canary. Nevertheless, Duncker and Reich did some amazing pioneer work towards the understanding of inheritance in birds.
Besides the main story Tim Birkhead skilfully draws a historical overview on bird catching and bird song contests, explains the etymology of bird trappers' jargon, gives many details on the early domestication of canaries, illustrates pre-war Germany, but also analyses well Duncker's involvement in Nazi thoughts and Eugenics. The book is well and thrillingly written. One actually wonders how so many facts and different aspects were possible to be included without loosing the red line towards the climax at the end of the book. This is a truly entertaining and informative book not only for bird breeders, ornithologists, geneticists and academics, but also for anybody with an interest in human culture and time history. It also remains the only modern book so far to stress bird keeping and its major influence on the understanding of ornithology and general biology, respectively.

Frank Steinheimer, Ornithology - Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Book Review, October 24, 2005

By 

Richard L. Renshaw (Ventura, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Brand New Bird: How Two Amateur Scientists Created The First Genetically Engineered Animal (Hardcover)

Sometimes more is less. That is how I felt about this book. Mr. Birkhead's entertaining story on how two German bird lovers attempt to create a red Canary would have made a perfect long (maybe two part) magazine article. But instead he chose to write this book.
Birkhead tells the story of how, back in the 1920's, Hans Duncker and Karl Reich conducted experiments with Red Siskin and Canary hybrids with the goal of transferring the Siskins red plumage genes into the Canary.
In addition to telling the details of the creation of today's Red-factor Canary, Birkhead gives the reader much insight into the history of bird keeping and breeding in general. For example, the reader learns the importance of German aviculture in creating different cage bird varieties; The history and evolution of other Canary breeds; Insight into how mutations occur and are perpetuated by animal breeders.
I am recommending this book to all bird breeders of different mutations. The book would be an appropriate addition to a Red-factor Canary breeder's library. The book should be interesting to anybody interested in how different breeds occur and are perpetuated by animal breeders.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A FASCINATING ACCOUNT OF CANARY BREEDING!, September 27, 2004

By 

Nicole Boar (Vermont USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Brand New Bird: How Two Amateur Scientists Created The First Genetically Engineered Animal (Hardcover)

This book is fantastic!! I couldn't put it down. It's not just about developing the red factor canary as one might think from the title. It is a history from the beginnings of canary keeping, Victorian times, and before, and up to the present in Germany, England, France, all over the world. You can read a thousand books on canaries and not have a fraction of the information here with truth and clarity. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in bird history, cage bird breeding and keeping of canaries and finches. Tim Birkhead does an excellent job of telling the story and did a tremendous amount of research to present this fascinating true history.