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