(PhysOrg.com) -- Some of the brightest colors in nature are created by tiny nanostructures with a structure similar to beer foam or a sponge, according to Yale University researchers. Now an ...

The color of some feathers on dinosaurs and early birds has been identified for the first time. The research found that the theropod dinosaur Sinosauropteryx had simple bristles -- precursors of ...

Feathers define birds. Other critters, like insects, fly; but no other critter wears feathers. And what amazing structures they are, these feathers. They allow birds to fly, perform mating displays, ...

Peacocks, perhaps nature's most trippy bird, shake their tail feathers when it's time to attract a new mate. Why? Shaking those feathers — called "train-rattling" — causes an illusion where the ...

A study explores how birds rearrange feathers after flights through gusts and foliage. The durability of bird feathers is evident in the ease with which birds preen and repair ruffled feathers using ...

Blackbirds, it turns out, aren’t actually all that black. Their feathers absorb most of the visible light that hits them, but still reflect between 3 and 5 percent of it. For really black plumage, you ...

New Guinea's tropical rainforests are home to one of the animal kingdom's most spectacular courtship rituals; but, as a new fossil from China indicates, such behaviour in birds may date back to the ...

Some of the brightest colors in nature are created by tiny nanostructures with a structure similar to beer foam or a sponge, according to Yale University researchers. Most colors in nature—from the ...