1970's Science and Technology | "Pesticides and the Reproduction of Birds"

Magazine article

By: David B. Peakall

Date: April 1970

Source: Peakall, David B. "Pesticides and the Reproduction of Birds." Scientific American, April 1970, 72–78.

About the Author: David B. Peakall (1931–2001) was born in Purley, England, and received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of London in 1956. In 1960, he immigrated to the U.S., where he taught pharmacology at Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, New York. Two years later, he became assistant professor of pharmacology at the State University of New York. In 1968, he became senior research associate at Cornell University's Laboratory of Ornithology.

Introduction

In 1939, a Swiss chemical company, J.R. Geigy, developed dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), a new type of insecticide. Older insecticides, many of them arsenic compounds, killed insects only if the bugs ate the toxin. By...