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If you looked at Earth from far off in the solar system, would it look like it's run by humans — or chickens? There are about three times as many chickens as people on this planet. And while horses and dogs are often celebrated as humankind's partner in spreading civilization, a new book argues it's really the chicken.

Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?

The Epic Saga of the Bird That Powers Civilization

by Andrew Lawler

Hardcover, 324 pages | purchase

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TitleWhy Did the Chicken Cross the World?SubtitleThe Epic Saga of the Bird That Powers CivilizationAuthorAndrew Lawler

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Read an excerpt

Andrew Lawler, author of Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?, tells NPR's Scott Simon about the chicken's malleability, its religious symbolism and the most disturbing thing he learned while researching his book.

Interview Highlights

On why he calls the chicken nature's Mr. Potato Head

You can turn the chicken into almost anything. You can have a tiny little bantam, or you can have a giant Rhode Island red. The chicken is incredibly malleable, which is probably a good reason why we decided to domesticate it and use it for so many purposes. ... Some archaeologists believe that the chicken was domesticated for ... cockfighting and for religious purposes. And it's only later — really, in the past century — that the chicken has been used to eat on a regular basis.

On the chicken as a religious symbol

I can't think of a creature that has more religious significance than the chicken. ... If you look at most Christian churches, they have a chicken on top — that is, a rooster — as a weather vane. Actually, there's a pope, about 1,500 years ago, who declared that the chicken should be placed on top of every steeple in Christendom. And even on the top of Old St. Peter's [Basilica], there was a rooster that crowed people into church to awake them spiritually. But this is actually an old idea that goes back to the Zoroastrians in ancient Persia.

On how African-Americans became so central in the poultry industry

This is one thing that I think surprised me more than anything else I discovered about the chicken industry. And that is that, in the Colonial South, chickens were just about the only thing that American slaves were allowed to raise, because livestock like cows or sheep or pigs were considered too important, and those were reserved for the masters, or slaves took care of them. And so, over time, over a century and a half, African-Americans became kind of the general chicken merchants in the South. And in part [that was] because they knew the chicken well: They came largely from West Africa, where the chicken was an essential part of daily life ... for food as well as for religious ritual.

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The Salt

The FDA Doesn't Want Chickens To Explore The Great Outdoors

The Salt

Why The U.S. Chills Its Eggs And Most Of The World Doesn't

On the Chicken of Tomorrow project

It's sort of like the Manhattan Project for poultry. So, after World War II, the people who [raised] chickens got together. And they were really afraid that at the end of the war, people were going to go back to eating beef and pork, which had been largely reserved for the troops during the war. So they decided that they needed to draw on the latest science and engineering in order to make the chicken more profitable. And they had a vast national contest, and at the end of this contest, in 1951, they chose one chicken that seemed to fit the bill. And that was a chicken that could grow really fast with a minimal amount of feed, and would have a large breast that Americans like to eat. And ultimately it proved incredibly successful.

On the most unsettling thing he learned about the poultry industry

It was particularly disturbing to discover that under U.S. law, chickens are not even considered animals if they're grown for food. So, in other words, there are no regulations that say how chickens should be treated. Now, this is very different, say, from pigs or from cattle, where there are some very strict guidelines that people have to follow. But the chicken is almost considered not even alive, which, after spending time talking to people about chickens around the world — I discovered that's crazy.

Read an excerpt of Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?

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The monsters of repression are what terrorize a single mom and her little boy in The Babadook. The small, independent, Australian, feminist horror movie was one of the buzziest films coming out of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. As of this writing, The Babadook enjoys an impressive 97 percent positive score on Rotten Tomatoes.

The film centers on 6-year-old Samuel, one of those kids you dread having to spend time with in real life. He's aggressive, demanding and prone to meltdowns. He's obsessed with magic tricks and is convinced an imaginary monster is hiding under the bed.

"He's obviously suffering a high level of anxiety," observes the therapist he's taken to after getting kicked out of school. "Very committed to the monster theory."

The monster Samuel fears is, of course, the Babadook. That's a sinister, smudgy figure with a top hat, menacing feathery black fingers and a hungry, toothy mouth. He shows up first in a children's book that seems to have come from nowhere and later in a grainy silent movie on late night TV that's influenced by the "magic" films of Georges Mlis.

"I wanted it to look more low-fi and more handmade," says director Jennifer Kent. "And I think it's more savage that way."

The Babadook is Kent's first feature film. (Here you can see a short that's an early version of The Babadook). Georgetown University professor Caetlin Benson-Allott studies horror movies. She says The Babadook brings something fresh and unexpected to the genre: "To acknowledge that being a mother is hard," she says. "That sometimes you hate your child and don't know how to cope. That was something I don't think we've seen in horror before."

Of course we've seen other mothers in horror movies, but few facing this kind of emotional verisimilitude. Samuel's mom has been depressed since the child's father died. Because Samuel is so difficult to be around, the two are despised by their relatives. But for all his neediness and lack of self-control, Samuel is also a plucky and forthright little kid, deeply protective of his fragile mother. Their next-door neighbor recognizes and admires the strength hiding in this little family.

"For me, this story was a myth in a domestic setting," says the director, who completely invented the Babadook. (He's not — as some have wondered — based on an actual Australian folktale.) She wants viewers to be uncertain if they're seeing a supernatural monster or one that's erupted from repressed feelings.

"This is a film about making your own monsters," agrees Benson-Allott. "And the damage we do to our families, and within our families."

It's a theme that makes The Babadook not only one of the most talked about horror movies of the year, but perhaps perversely, one for the holidays.

Every year, Hollywood tries to go out with a bang — the question this year is, which bang will be biggest? For sheer moviemaking grandeur, you'd think it would be hard to top the subduing of the dragon Smaug in The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies. But Peter Jackson's only got Gandalf and armies. In Exodus: Gods And Kings, Ridley Scott's got Moses, 400,000 slaves, and an effects budget Pharaoh would envy, not to mention the parting of the Red Sea.

Shall we call that a draw?

Actually, the action this holiday season, as in most holiday seasons, is in based-on-a-true-story stories, because Oscar voters are as fond of biopics as they are short of memory. Among the notable ones this season:

Mr. Turner — Mike Leigh's painterly portrait of British landscape painter J.M.W. Turner, in which Tim Spall courts an Oscar nomination by grunting and snorting as he paints his masterpieces

The Imitation Game — Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing, the gay British math genius who cracked Germany's Enigma Code in World War II

American Sniper — Clint Eastwood's look at an Iraq war veteran (Bradley Cooper) who was the deadliest sharpshooter in U.S. history

Unbroken — Based on the non-fiction book about a former Olympic track star who got shot down over the Pacific in World War II. The American spent 47 days clinging to a raft, only to be plucked from it by the Japanese, who tried to use him for propaganda.

Unbroken was directed by Angelina Jolie, and unlike previous years when it was startling to see even one woman director leading a prestige project during awards season, this year there are two. The other is Ava DuVernay's measured, majestic Selma, which chronicles Martin Luther King's 1965 campaign for voting rights, and the opposition of Alabama Gov. George Wallace.

And while women directed those stories of struggle and resistance, they're also out in front of the camera in other potential award contenders: Julianne Moore suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's in Still Alice; Reese Witherspoon as Cheryl Strayed, trekking more than a thousand miles to put her life in order in Wild; and Amy Adams, playing 1950s artist Margaret Keane as she struggles against a husband who claims credit for her hugely popular paintings in Big Eyes.

Art-house audiences will have a wealth of foreign films to choose from, including Two Days One Night, the Dardenne brothers' wrenching (and timely) story of workplace downsizing, and Leviathan, which looks at a vodka-soaked landscape of Russian corruption.

Chris Rock wrote, directed and stars in Top Five, about a comedian who's frustrated that he can't get the entertainment industry to take him seriously, while Seth Rogen co-wrote, co-directed and co-stars in The Interview, a less-serious look at someone anxious to be taken seriously. Rogen plays James Franco's producer on a tabloid-TV show that scores a face-to-face sitdown with Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a fact that attracts attention from the CIA.

And all of that's before you even get to the musicals Annie and Into The Woods, the latter a comparatively dark look at what happens after "happily ever after," the former a show for those convinced the sun'll come out, um, you know when (if I type it, I won't be able to get it out of my head).

Good luck resisting if you're a parent ... or even if you're not.

Movies

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Iraq war movies

Around this time every year, retailers gird their loins and prepare to slash prices for the holiday shopping season. For many stores, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are opportunities to clear old stock (at a mild loss) and trigger a surge of spending that carries on well into December. Deals on toys, televisions and tablets are meant to pull you into stores, where you're likely to splurge on other things like towels ... or perhaps a new cellphone.

Depending on when and where you look this week you'll be able to snag a new flagship class phone for as little as a penny if you're willing to sign a 2-year contract. There are a few contract-free devices being discounted this weekend, but the bulk of them aren't exactly the amazing "doorbusters" they're being advertised as. They're throwaway phones meant for short-term use. That's not a knock against the cheap phone market, however. In fact, some of the most interesting developments in cellphone tech are focused on the so-called "low end."

Once upon a time when you walked into a store looking to buy a new cell phone, you were presented with three options. High-end devices like Apple's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy line were cutting edge, but expensive. Mid-range phones like HTC's Desire series were cheaper, but not nearly as powerful. Low-end phones were the most affordable, but also the most technologically limited of the bunch. Their processors were slower, their screens were less crisp, and their build quality often left much to be, well, desired.

Looking at the market today, many things are the same. High-end phones are still pricey and aspirational while the midrange is still middling. Cheap smartphones, however, are in a state of disruption. Bargain-basement gadgets are giving way to bigger, better devices that are just as affordable. Manufacturers like Microsoft, Motorola and OnePlus are redefining what an affordable cellphone can do, and demanding that we put the term "low end" to rest.

Microsoft/Nokia

The New Low End

Before it was officially acquired by Microsoft, Nokia released the Lumia 520, 521 and 525 handsets that quickly became the most popular Windows phones in the world. A sub-$100 price point and fairly smooth everyday use made the series ideal for first-time smartphone users. Since then, Microsoft has rolled out more cheap models that feature significant hardware upgrades, while maintaining ridiculously low price points. Entry-level Lumias demonstrated what companies could accomplish by building software meant to run on simpler, cheaper hardware.

For the most part, the low-end smartphone market is dominated by Android. With Windows Phone 8, however, Microsoft targeted one of Android's biggest weaknesses — performance. As powerful and customizable as Android is, it has a track record of poor performance on phones with lower specs. Windows Phone may not be as popular as Android, but it's a relatively standardized platform — meaning that using one Windows Phone feels like using nearly every Windows phone.

Rather than treating the low end as an afterthought, Microsoft began the trend of treating it as an opportunity to provide all consumers with a compelling experience.

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Is Amazon's Failed Phone A Cautionary Tale?

Not long after Microsoft's foray into the new "low end," Motorola followed suit with the Moto G, a $180 off-contract phone meant to perform like a flagship. Similar to the Lumias, the Moto G became a record success for Motorola and challenged what low-cost Android phones could be.

The rising quality of smartphones priced under $200 is making them more attractive to the average consumer, but the low end is being redefined from above as well.

Redefining The Flagship

There's nothing technically low-end about the OnePlus One except for its price. At $299 off contract, OnePlus's "flagship killer" is more expensive than most of Microsoft's Lumias or the Moto G. Compared to the iPhone 6 ($649), the LG G3 ($699), and the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 ($949), however, the OnePlus One is ludicrously priced. The OnePlus One features the same high-end components as its competitors, but has opted for a different kind of business model, which OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei likens to that of a startup.

"In building our company, we wanted to challenge the status quo," Pei explained in an interview. "By selling directly to consumers and utilizing social media and our online community to create interest, we were able to put a lot more value back into the device itself."

OnePlus's One phone manages to provide a high-end experience at a relatively low price point. OnePlus hide caption

itoggle caption OnePlus

Unlike most other phones, the OnePlus One can only be bought online after receiving an invitation from the company or a friend who's purchased the phone. The system does the double duty of generating buzz around the device and allowing OnePlus to maintain a careful, cost-effective balance between supply and demand. Pei says OnePlus' focus isn't necessarily on its competition. It's on how people are purchasing their phones.

"Increasingly, people are starting to understand the true cost of signing a contract, and we want to make it easier to purchase a high-end device without having to give a large portion of money to a middleman," Pei said. "We're here to show everyone what's possible once you step outside of the traditional rules of the smartphone market."

The traditional rules of the smartphone market are what burned Amazon's ill-fated Kindle Fire Phone earlier this year and drove the company to discount the phone to a more reasonable $199 off-contract price. Today more Americans are buying smartphones under $200, and the market is responding.

ARM, the company that designs most of the world's cellphone processors, projects that by 2018 1 billion low-end smartphones will ship compared to 250 million high-end devices. What those devices will look like exactly is unclear, but it's obvious that the low-end market that we knew is evolving into something bigger, stronger and cheaper than ever.

Charles Pulliam-Moore is an intern at NPR's Code Switch who has a not-so-secret passion for mobile gadgetry. He tweets about tech, culture and the occasional pocket monster @CharlesPulliam.

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