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Tag: "feathers" at biology news

ASU researchers finds novel chemistry at work to provide parrot's vibrant red colors

...s, is that the pigment is found only in the bird's feathers and nowhere else in the body of the bird, indicating that parrots manufacture these molecules internally and directly at the maturing follicles of the growing, colorful plumage. In addition, these pigments may play a valuable role in maintaining the...

Transport System Smuggles Medicines Into Brain

...s, is that the pigment is found only in the bird's feathers and nowhere else in the body of the bird, indicating that parrots manufacture these molecules internally and directly at the maturing follicles of the growing, colorful plumage. In addition, these pigments may play a valuable role in maintaining the...

Love's all in the brain: fMRI study shows strong, lateralized reward, not sex, drive

...of the opposite sex, like the peacock's fancy tail feathers that attract the peahen," Fisher noted. "But no one has studied what happened in the brain of the viewer, the individual that becomes attracted to these traits. Our study indicates what happens in the brain of the viewer as he or she becomes physiolo...

Looks matter to female barn swallows

...She either painted their throats, breast and belly feathers with a red marker to enhance their feathers to match the darkest -- and most attractive -- males in the population, or left them alone or painte...

Simple explanation for complex pattern of feather development

...chanism birds use to control the growth of complex feathers found that plumed feather structures involve the c...r growth, and propose how the unique complexity of feathers may have evolved. Ornithologist Prum led a team including anatomists Matthew Harris and John Fallon ...

DNA from feathers tells tale of eagle fidelity

A trail of feathers led a team of Purdue University scientists to conf...thful of birds. By performing DNA analysis on the feathers left behind at nesting sites, the researchers were able to identify individual Eastern imperial eagl...

Molecular mechanism of feather formation found

...could not fly or attract mates. But how exactly do feathers form molecularly? Experimentally testing one curre...of more complex feathers. Termed pennaceous, these feathers occur in the duck and other birds, including adult chickens, and are not characterized as downy. The...

Wright bros. upstaged! Dinos invented biplanes

...iplane is that Microraptor had unmistakable flight feathers on its hind limbs as well as on its wings, says Ch... "The most unusual thing is that they have flight feathers not only on the hand section, but also on foot," said Chatterjee. Flight feathers differ noticeably ...

Overfishing may drive endangered seabird to rely upon lower quality food

...asons." The researchers analyzed marbled murrelet feathers from 136 birds collected in the Monterey Bay region between 1895 and 1911. The historic feathers represent a time period prior to the onset of intensive fishing, decades before the infamous sardine...

Seal rookeries could provide a reliable food source for endangered California condors, study finds

...as fun," Chamberlain recalls. "First we got modern feathers from the Ventana Wildlife Society in Big Sur, Cali...h team conducted an isotopic analysis of bones and feathers from 92 individual condors--22 modern birds that died in the wild between 1993 and 2001; 60 historic...

USC researchers track down the stem cells that create feathers

The stem cells that produce bird feathers have been visualized and analyzed for the first ti...n nature molts twice a year. With more than 20,000 feathers on the average bird, Chuong notes, that means there are a lot of active, ongoing regenerative events...

Newly discovered killer cell fights cancer

...posed to be hallmarks of NK cells, akin to finding feathers on a dog. "We thought we were looking at dendritic cells, but we were wrong - they were some type of NK-dendritic cell blend," says Housseau. The blended cell turned out to be a newly identified actor on the immune system stage that retains all the...

A human taste for rarity spells disaster for endangered species

... life for top their list. Overhunting for food and feathers pushed the great auk (Pinguinus impennis)--a flightless, now-extinct bird that laid only one egg a year--to the brink of extinction. But it was likely scientists and museum collectors anxious to nab an increasingly rare specimen, the authors suggest,...

Ancient birds flew on all-fours

...aur-like bird Archaeopteryx soared using wing-like feathers on all of its limbs. "The discussions about the o...hat birds evolved from dinosaurs since it had both feathers and a bird-like wishbone, along with classic reptilian features of a long bony tail, claws and teeth...

Embryonic patterning makes the feathers fly

How the chicken got its feathers in the right place is not a Rudyard Kipling “Just ... For a chicken, it’s the difference between having feathers arranged in spots or stripes. For biologists at the University of Southern California and mathematic...

Researcher examines polymers created with poultry feathers

Biodegradable polymers created from poultry feathers may add value to the poultry industry and help sol...stics from agricultural byproducts such as poultry feathers and eggs that would be comparable to petroleum-based plastics. He presented the research on March 29...

UF scientists discover new genus of frogmouth bird in Solomon Islands

..., curtail its lift potential, and its much coarser feathers reduce maneuverability. "These are island adap...econd, it has distinct barring on the primary wing feathers and tail feathers, where other frogmouths are more uniform. Its speckles are larger, and the white s...

Bats prey on nocturnally migrating songbirds

...f Sciences 98, 9700-9702). They had found numerous feathers in the faeces of Spanish giant noctules, with occu...rsy among bat scientists. Some claimed that eating feathers was no proof of preying upon birds: they suggested that giant noctules could simply, and accidentall...

University of Alberta researchers unravel intricate animal patterns

...ve not been reported before such as zigzag pulses, feathers and traveling breathers. This model doesn’t apply to specific species, says Eftimie. "However, we can think of those flocks of birds that fly in one direction, and then suddenly change direction 180 degrees, and compare this with the zigzagging ty...

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