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Title details for The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman - Available

The Genius of Birds

by Jennifer Ackerman
Margaret Strom
Audiobook
2 of 3 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
2 of 3 copies available
In The Genius of Birds, acclaimed author Jennifer Ackerman explores the newly discovered brilliance of birds and how it came about. As she travels around the world to the most cutting-edge frontiers of research- the distant laboratories of Barbados, the bowerbird habitats of Australia, and the ravaged mid-Atlantic coast after Hurricane Sandy-Ackerman not only tells the story of the recently uncovered genius of birds but also delves deeply into the latest findings about the bird brain itself that are revolutionizing our view of what it means to be intelligent. Beyond highlighting how birds use their unique genius in technical ways, Ackerman points out the impressive social smarts of birds. They deceive and manipulate. They display a strong sense of fairness. They play tug-of-war. They cultivate social networks. They teach their young. They alert one another to danger. They may even grieve. Ackerman delivers an extraordinary story that will both give readers a new appreciation for the exceptional talents of birds and let them discover what birds can reveal about our changing world. The Genius of Birds richly celebrates the triumphs of these surprising and fiercely intelligent creatures.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 12, 2016

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781681681290
      • File size: 343029 KB
      • Duration: 11:54:38

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Birds are really smart. Jennifer Ackerman cites recent research and lots of fascinating anecdotes to illustrate avian intelligence. Narrator Margaret Strom's voice is clear and engaging. Her energy and pacing easily hold the listener's attention. It's an around-the-world tour of Australian bowerbirds stealing blue plastic items for their bowers and dancing to attract a mate, New Caledonian crows making tools to access food, and New Zealand sparrows triggering automatic doors to a cafeteria. Ackerman delves into how mockingbirds learn to mimic the songs of other birds and how migrating birds navigate and find their way again after being knocked off course by a hurricane. Strom sounds suitably amazed by it all, too--a fine match of material and voice. In the future, you will only call somebody a "birdbrain" as praise. A.B. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 2, 2016
      Popular science writer Ackerman (Ah-Choo!: The Uncommon Life of Your Common Cold) puts paid to the notion of being birdbrained with this survey of the observational and experimental evidence for impressive bird cognition. She explores birds' capacities for tool use, socialization, navigation, mimicry, discrimination, and possibly even theory of mind. Ackerman interviews specialists without overindulging in research travelogue, keeping centered on her feathered subjects rather than on the human interactions, and urges against anthropomorphizing bird behavior, correlating specific behaviors to generalized intelligence, or benchmarking the value of avian mental skills to that of humans. But her most interesting bits of trivia play to that urge: undergraduates who fail at mental simulations at which some birds succeed, bowerbirds trained to distinguish good human art from bad, Thomas Jefferson's mockingbird singing "popular songs of the day," and pigeons learning to open automatic cafeteria doors. Though Ackerman's focus is mainly ethological, she also speculates on the possible relationships between complex task completion and evolutionary fitness. This light popular science read doesn't present much new framing or insight; Ackerman seeks out current research to discover a few surprises, such as a possible role for olfactory cues in navigation, but doesn't point to or create any big conceptual shifts.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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