Spots v stripes A discovery that reveals how bird feathers get their patterns also has implications for regenerative medicine, say scientists. Feathers not only keep birds warm and protect them from ...

Shearwaters are migratory marine birds that travel in a figure-of-eight pattern between the coasts of Siberia and Japan to Tasmania. Placing one of the undistinguished grey feathers from a shearwater ...

Feathers evolved in dinosaurs and are a key characteristic of birds today. They are arranged in a precise hexagonal pattern in a bird's skin, but it has been unclear how this happens. According to a ...

At the American Society for Cell Biology's 2006 conference, scientists will describe their latest research on patterning, on the molecular and systems level. The scientists looked at how feather ...

Some feathered dinosaurs like Anchiornis huxleyi may have lost the ability to fly, revealing that the evolution of flight was ...

In a new study, a team led by University of Utah biologists has discovered that different versions of a single gene, called NDP (Norrie Disease Protein), have unexpected links between color patterns ...

Complex and vibrant bird plumage inspired Darwin’s concept of sexual selection as well as many a poem and painting. But feather patterns are not directly coded in DNA, and only now has it become clear ...

A primordial developmental toolkit shared by all vertebrates, and described by a theory of the mathematician Alan Turing, sets the growth pattern for all types of skin structures. In 1952, well before ...

According to a new study, the precise patterning of bird feathers relies on signaling through ectodysplasin (EDA) and its receptor EDAR -- the same signaling pathway known to be crucial for the ...