Their fate is our fate
Subtitle: how birds foretell threats to our health and our world
By: Peter Doherty
Published: 2013
Language: eng
Number of pages: 247
ISBN-13: 9781615190911
Copyright date: 2013
Subjects: Forecasting; Ecology; Indicators (Biology); Diseases; Quality of life; Public health; Environmental indicators; Birds; Epidemiology; Behavior; Environmental quality
Description: At the heart of this book by Nobel Prize{u2013}winning immunologist and professor Peter Doherty is this striking observation: Birds detect danger to our health and the environment before we do. Following a diverse cast of bird species around the world{u2014}from tufted puffins in Puget Sound to griffon vultures in India, pigeons in East Asia, and wedge-tailed shearwaters off the islands of Australia{u2019}s Great Barrier Reef{u2014}Doherty illuminates birds{u2019} role as an early warning system for threats to the health of our planet and our own well-being. Their Fate Is Our Fate is an impassioned call not only to attention but to action. As ?citizen scientists? we can collect data, vital to cutting-edge research, that depends on the birds that are all around us. Armed with our observations, scientists will continue to uncover new ways to glimpse our future in birds{u2014}and to affirm how, truly, their fate is our fate.
Notes: "An earlier version of this book was originally published by Melbourne University Publishing Limited, Australia, in 2012"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 217-227) and index.
Table of contents: title: Searching for puffins : an introduction; title: Distant relatives; title: Chick embryos and other developing life forms; title: Sentinel chickens; title: Falling crows; title: Ticks, sheep, grouse and the glorious twelfth; title: Flu flies; title: Bird flu : from Hong Kong to Qinghai Lake and beyond; title: Bird flu guys; title: Bug detectives; title: Hawaiian wipeout; title: The great parrot panic of 1929-30; title: Catching cancer; title: Blue bloods and chicken bugs; title: Killing the vultures; title: Heavy metal; title: Red knots and crab eggs; title: Hot birds; title: For the birds, and for us; title: Latin binomials for common bird names.