Studies in Royal Society journals include stress in birds and depletion of medieval fish stocks
...e found that the willow warblers' relatively thick feather shafts are damaged much faster than the thinner chiffchaff feather shafts when bent repeatedly. Willow warblers may have to built strong, thick shafts out of weak mate...Scientists find male finches frugal in their attempts to attract females
... fertility of females by measuring when each began feather molt." Because molt begins when fertility ends, the scientists could infer when each female had been at the peak of her fertility during the experiment when males were exposed to them. "To our great surprise, we discovered that males somehow ascertai...Bird brains show how trial and error may contribute to learning
...cted at females, accompanied by some posturing and feather plumping, and the experimental solo variations, called "undirected," akin to singing in the shower. The brain region showed greater activity and more variable signaling during the undirected song, suggesting that this area is generating the variation...ASU researchers finds novel chemistry at work to provide parrot's vibrant red colors
...e work are in a paper, "Distribution of unique red feather pigments in parrots," by McGraw and Mary Nogare, a parrot fancier from Snoqualmie, Wash., published in the Feb. 16, 2005 issue of the journal Biology Letters. Animals, like birds and fishes, commonly use biochromes like carotenoids to acquire red, or...Stegosaur plates and spikes for looks only, researchers say
... to differentiate species, akin to birds' colorful feather ornamentation. "Our studies of bone histology are telling us a lot about dinosaur social behavior and lifestyle," said Kevin Padian, professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a curator in the campus's Museum of P...Rare bird 'sings' with its feathers to attract a mate
... rub together to make the sound. Each wing has one feather with a pick, or a small blade, and an adjacent feather with ridges and enlarged and hollow shafts. While perched, the bird hits the wings together at a ver...Molecular mechanism of feather formation found
...says. "The model is a simple way of explaining how feather patterning is achieved." Theoretical biologist Han...t to model the creation and patterning of barbs in feather development. The team then tested whether such interactions truly exist in the developing feather....Simple explanation for complex pattern of feather development
...l the growth of complex feathers found that plumed feather structures involve the coordination of at least tw...it barb growth. "Understanding these mechanisms of feather growth gives a whole new perspective on the unique beauty of feathers," said Richard Prum , senior ...Looks matter to female barn swallows
...traviolet radiation from the sun, soiling and even feather degrading bacteria are known to affect the color of bird feathers once they are grown, and perhaps the best males are those who spend more time preening and protecting their plumage." The paper's other co-author is Colby Neuman, Cornell B.S. '05. In ...Did feathered dinosaurs exist?
...g the evidence supporting the current theory about feather origins and the relationships of birds and dinosau...Chinese discoverers reported finding all stages of feather evolution and ancestral birds, even though the deposits are at least 25 million years younger than t...Latest study: Scientists say no evidence exists that therapod dinosaurs evolved into birds
...n skin and the fossil evidence relating to alleged feather progenitors, also known as "protofeathers."They fo...me-wise either because it holds that all stages of feather evolution and bird ancestry occurred some 125 million years ago in the early Cretaceous fossils unea...Pillows - a hot bed of fungal spores
...e asthma in adults. The researchers dissected both feather and synthetic samples and identified several thousand spores of fungus per gram of used pillow - more than a million spores per pillow. Fungal contamination of bedding was first studied in 1936, but there have been no reports in the last seventy yea...Creeping crinoids! Sea lilies crawl to escape predators, new video shows
... moving around like their stalkless relatives, the feather stars. But videos taken from a submersible resear...of America in Salt Lake City, Utah. Sea lilies and feather stars, members of a group called crinoids, are closely related to starfish, sea cucumbers and sea ur...Seal rookeries could provide a reliable food source for endangered California condors, study finds
...d his colleagues embarked on a worldwide quest for feather and bone samples that would reveal the body chemistry of condors through the ages. "This work was fun," Chamberlain recalls. "First we got modern feathers from the Ventana Wildlife Society in Big Sur, Calif., and other groups involved in the federal ...USC researchers track down the stem cells that create feathers
...ity of Southern California. "What we found is that feather stem cells are distributed in a ring configuration around the inner wall of the vase-shaped feather follicle. This is different from hair stem cells, which are located in a bulge outside the follicle,...Overfishing may drive endangered seabird to rely upon lower quality food
...vironmental and fishing conditions at the time the feather was created. "In this paper, we're trying to tease apart climate signals from human fishing impacts," said Ben Becker, the study's lead author. Becker was a UC Berkeley Ph.D. student at the time of the study and is now director and marine ecologist a...Duck-billed dino crests not linked to sense of smell
... mate selection or species recognition, similar to feather crests in some birds.......s some things (e.g. magical stones, masks, flutes, feather headdresses) with a historical trajectory. Is it possible to reconstruct the social histories of highly valued objects? Can we write the biographies of things? How are new modern- things incorporated into native Amazonian animist and perspectivist on...Study confirms ammunition as main source of lead poisoning in condors
...ondors. They analyzed lead in tissue samples and a feather from a condor that had died of lead poisoning in Arizona. They found that the feather, sampled sequentially along its length, provided a record of the bird's history of lead exposure. "This shows that we can use feathers to look at the history of ......American Chemical Society. The study about chicken feather fabric will be presented on Wednesday, Sept. 13. Both fabrics are still in early development and may not reach the consumer market for several years, the researchers say. "We hope that the research reported here will stimulate interest in using agr...