What The Birds Know

Birds have long had a very special place in my heart — as in most human hearts. Birds are magic, myth, fairy tale and the subject of intense scientific scrutiny. One of the startling ways in which birds have interacted with humans, of course, was the “canary in the coal mine” — the caged bird that accompanied a miner as he headed deep underground; the canary served as a sentinel, an early warning system of dangerous gases, like carbon monoxide or methane, leaking into the shaft. The bird died so the human could live.

Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2012/01/24/what-the-birds-know/#ixzz1kUJovk4B