Chickens are by far the world's most widely farmed animal, kept for both meat and egg production. They are at the center of many debates regarding housing and production systems, causing significant interest in what lies behind chicken behavior. This accessible book covers sensory biology, behavioral development, preferences and aversions, social behavior, learning and cognition, behavioral issues in different systems and solutions for behavioral problems. Authored by an authority on chicken ethology, it brings together the fields of animal behavior, neuroscience, psychology and epidemiology...

Diseases have had more influence on us than we realize. They have taken a major role in making us humans and probably determine the way we run our lives. They emerged with us from our ancestral home in Africa, to spread to the rest of the planet. History is full of the great epidemics of plague, smallpox and anthrax, with the present catastrophe of HIV that is changing the demography of the world in a similar way to its predecessors. We survived because of our genetic variation and immune system and it will be this that will save us again.

So fundamental has been the part that...