Birds

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Darwin for the Birds

March 4, 2008

Here’s a flock of bird stories that have Charles Darwin on stage or in the wings, so to speak. Was Darwin wrong? Yes! Contra National Geographic (10/24/2004), the science news outlets are all saying today that Darwin was wrong – but only about the origin of chickens (see EurekAlert #1, EurekAlert #2 and Science Daily). […]

Amazing Facts

Migrating Birds Measure Longitude

February 13, 2008

Migrating birds are able to get back on course, even when released 1000 km east of their normal migration path. This shows that long-distance migrating birds are capable of true bicoordinate navigation: the ability to make course corrections both in latitude and longitude. The results of experiments, published in Current Biology,1 left the researchers baffled: […]

Amazing Facts

Did Birds Evolve Aeronautical Engineering?

February 8, 2008

Two news stories on birds may not seem to flock together. One is about their supreme aeronautical engineering. The other ponders when they evolved. A story on EurekAlert and Science Daily describes how engineers are eyeing birds, bats and insects for design ideas. The appeal is clear from the following comparisons: A Blackbird […]

Birds

Do Chicks Tell Dinosaur Tales?

January 25, 2008

For years, evolutionary biologists have battled over the origin of flight. Did dinosaurs run along the ground and take off, or did they jump from trees? The first idea is called the cursorial hypothesis; the latter, the arboreal hypothesis. In 2003, Ken Dial [U Montana] had an idea: maybe watching partridge chicks could inform the […]

Birds

Dinosaur Fossil Shows Exquisite Skin Detail

January 9, 2008

More imaginary feathers on a dinosaur have been discovered. A BBC News article shows a cartoon of a dinosaur with feathers on its arms. This is strange, because the paper it refers to makes no claim about feathers – only that certain structures had been interpreted as feathers by some. The original paper […]

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