科学美国人60秒 SSS Pigeon Pb Proxies Could Cut Kids' Blood Tests

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Pigeons. Ever since humans established permanent agricultural settlements, we’ve lived side-by-side with the birds—or, as some people call them, rats with wings. They walk on our sidewalks, roost on our buildings, and eat our leftovers¹. But soon pigeons may help us identify risks to public health.

"What we're doing here in my lab is we're assessing how we can use something that's been considered a pest that people actively² try to exterminate³: the pigeon. How can we use it to better the environment for not only ourselves but for pigeons and for other wildlife?"

U.C. Davis neurobiologist Rebecca Calisi. She looked at lead levels in blood samples from more than 800 injured pigeons brought to a New York City wildlife rehabilitation⁴ center. And she compared those to lead levels in blood samples collected from children by the New York City Department of Health in routine screening efforts. The results were published in the journal Chemosphere. [Fayme Cai and Rebecca M. Calisi. Seasons and neighborhoods of high lead toxicity⁵ in New York City: The feral pigeon as a bioindicator]

"The neighborhoods where children have high rates of lead toxicity, that's where we saw pigeons with high blood lead levels…so this is a proof of concept kind of project."

Most pigeons will live out their lives within just two kilometers of the place they hatched, so the birds may be able to help researchers develop a detailed⁷ map of the risk of toxic⁶ lead exposure.

In people, especially kids, lead exposure can affect intelligence, brain development, social skills and memory. Having demonstrated that pigeons can pinpoint⁸ areas with high lead contamination, Calisi thinks that the birds can help researchers zero in on other potential environmental hazards as well.

"The thing is, we don't know what to test for right now. We know to test for lead, but what about certain pesticides⁹? Or fire retardants are a big problem these days. We're not sure what the problems are. So instead of drawing a ton of blood from children and putting them through all these tests, why not use an animal that shares our environment, the pigeon, and test for a whole suite¹⁰ of different potential harmful pollutants¹¹?"

So rather than dismissing them as rats with wings, why not think of them as…lab rats with wings?

—Jason G. Goldman

[The above text is a transcript¹² of this podcast.]