Handle with care

SOMETIMES, SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES result from ingenious experiments. And other times, they’re serendipitous. This story is the latter.

Ornithologist Jack Dumbacher, who since 2003 has been the curator of ornithology and mammalogy at the California Academy of Sciences, has interest in molecular ecology. One morning in 1990, while on expedition in Papua New Guinea, Dumbacher caught several songbirds in a mist net. As he removed a Hooded Pitohui from the net, his finger was cut. He felt tingling and then burning. He put the finger in his mouth to ease the pain and then his tongue started to tingle and burn for hours. Later, the scientist in him took over, and he put a pitohui feather in his mouth. Yes, the pain returned. He had just