|
Home / News / Tags / birds
|
|
30
A new scientific idea proposes that the main reason why dinosaurs were so able to endure for millions of years was the fact that most of them were warm-blooded, rather than cold-blooded, as average lizards are. Scientists propose that this trait allowed for them to evolve into the myriad of shapes and sizes that the ... |
11 November 2009
16:31 GMT |
 |
|
Scientists from the Lund University Vision Group recently discovered that birds require between 5 and 20 times as much light as the human eye does in order to perceive colors. As a direct result, their color vision decays much earlier in the day than our own, for example. More precisely, the experts determined that, ... |
4 November 2009
08:50 GMT |
|
|
In a new scientific study that may improve conservation efforts for migratory birds, scientists demonstrate that, in European robins, a visual center in the brain and a special type of light-sensing cells in the eyes play a much more important part in guiding the bird on its migratory path than magnetic-sensing cells... |
29 October 2009
15:51 GMT |
|
|
The fact that butterflies had ears remained a mystery to science until 1912, when the first such structures were ever identified. Since then, researchers have analyzed them on all sides, and have discovered that the organs, far from being similar in all butterfly species, were in fact extremely diverse and different.... |
26 October 2009
19:41 GMT |
|
|
Accord to leading paleontologists, a new, exceptionally preserved dinosaur fossil discovered in north-eastern China represents the earliest known feathered animal at this point. Estimated to have lived about 150 million years ago, the animal was petrified in mint condition, thus providing experts with the ability to ... |
25 September 2009
14:31 GMT |
|
|
Scientists have recently discovered a previously unknown type of structure in birds' wings that is apparently responsible for creating a silver sheen in some species' wings. The weird thing is that, otherwise, these feathers would be completely black, the investigators say. They add that the new phenomenon ... |
21 September 2009
06:52 GMT |
|
|
According to a new scientific study, pigeons are perfectly able to protect themselves from harm, and to alert others around them of impending doom as well, by producing a sharp, whistling sound with their wings. While they may not look like too intelligent animals, they have sufficient instinct to keep their groups a... |
2 September 2009
09:59 GMT |
|
|
One of the main questions people ask themselves or others around them whenever they see a flamingo is why exactly this bird stands on only one foot, when it has two perfectly good ones. Despite efforts made to understand this behavior, biologists have thus far came up short. Now, a new scientific study seems to have ... |
14 August 2009
03:02 GMT |
|
|
While roadrunners are a fairly common appearance in the southwestern parts of North America, naturalists know surprisingly little about them, mostly because the creatures are very difficult to capture. In a new scientific paper, accompanying a four-year study of wild roadrunners, scientists finally shed some light on... |
12 August 2009
02:56 GMT |
|
|
Humans, as a race, have lost the ability to tell apart the subtle differences in the length of the day when winter turns into spring. Despite the fact that each day is several minutes longer than the previous one, we no longer can tell the difference, except by looking at watches and calendars. But researchers have k... |
10 August 2009
04:12 GMT |
|
|
Since the dawn of mankind, we have admired the wonderful colors of birds' plumages, and watched in awe how the peacock, for example, shows its beautiful feathers to attract mates. But a new scientific study comes to show that a large percentage of birds everywhere deals with a very serious problem – infect... |
3 August 2009
13:01 GMT |
|
|
In a new study they have conducted in the central regions of Laos, scientists have discovered a rare species of songbirds, which appears to be completely bald. Its head is completely feather-free, and the bird represents, according to researchers, the only type of bald songbird in Asia, and the first one to be report... |
31 July 2009
01:57 GMT |
|
|
Scientists studying toucans came across a wondrous revelation recently, when they discovered that the birds sporting some of the most beautiful beaks in the world actually used them to regulate their bodily temperatures. Using infrared cameras and time-lapse videos of a sleeping toucan, the team comprised of Brazilia... |
24 July 2009
16:31 GMT |
|
|
According to a new report released on Thursday by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, some 869 species of plants and animals have gone extinct in the past 500 years, with an additional 17,000 more now at risk of disappearing as well. Additionally, the paper underlines the fact that the world's go... |
2 July 2009
06:40 GMT |
|
|
New found archaeological proof seems to indicate the fact that music was an integrated part of the human culture as early as the time when the first modern humans colonized Europe, some 35,000 years ago. Recent finds placed the oldest known instruments less than 30,000 years ago, but the bird-bone and ivory flutes th... |
25 June 2009
02:37 GMT |
|
|
Since the dawn of mankind, people have always looked upwards in admiration of the flocks of birds heading towards their summer or winter places, stretching wide across the sky, and flying purposefully in a single direction each year. How the animals managed to keep their direction and not get lost was a question few ... |
24 June 2009
03:35 GMT |
|
|
Anthropologists and biologists have long hypothesized that birds are the modern descendants of dinosaurs, which evolved and developed flight capabilities as an adaptation to their surrounding, or as a form of defense. However, a major gap in the theory was, until now, the fact that archaeological digs failed to uncov... |
18 June 2009
04:11 GMT |
|
|
New insight into how birds develop seems to point at the fact that the size of the flying creatures is not directly determined by the amount of effort they need to make in order to remain aloft, but rather by the necessity to be able to keep their feathers clean at all times. Apparently, this fact is more important t... |
16 June 2009
04:06 GMT |
|
|
In measures spurred by the January incident, when an airplane hit a flock of large birds and was forced to land on the Hudson River, authorities in New York City decided to kill at least 2,000 geese this year, all of them living in close proximity to the LaGuardia and JFK international airports. City Hall is collabor... |
13 June 2009
05:09 GMT |
|
|
At the beginning of this year, an airplane was forced to make an emergency landing in the waters of the Hudson river in New York. The pilot managed to land the plane safely on the water, after a flock of birds hit one of its engines, forcing it to shut down. Now, using a sophisticated chemical analysis, experts have ... |
9 June 2009
01:42 GMT |
|
|
The respected scientific journal The American Naturalist recently published a new research, which brought forth a very peculiar trait of the bird world. It would appear, the paper says, that the winged creatures change their usual songs according to the environment they occupy at a certain point, and that the songs m... |
21 May 2009
09:33 GMT |
|
|
Naturalists have been finally able to understand one of the most puzzling aspects of species' evolution, namely why rare traits seem to persist in the general population over a long time. According to recent investigations, this happens because the natural predators of those species have the tendency to avoid ca... |
13 May 2009
09:52 GMT |
|
|
While this is obvious, birds and humans took a very different evolutionary path a few million years ago. But what's weird is that studying bird genetics can even now yield insight into our very own genetic traits. This is exactly what a group of researchers from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, the... |
4 May 2009
16:01 GMT |
|
|
Over millions of years of evolution, birds have managed to develop a highly efficient flight system, in which they use two types of feathers to fly. The longer, more stiff flight feathers help generate lift, while the second ones, coverts, are used to minimize drag while moving through the air. A team of Italian scie... |
13 April 2009
05:06 GMT |
|
|
A first-of-its-kind governmental survey in the US shows that over the last 40 years bird populations have declined dramatically, on account of a variety of causes, including global warming, increasing urban sprawl, and the appearance of new predator species in closed ecosystems. But regardless of the cause, in each a... |
20 March 2009
20:01 GMT |
|
|
Airstrips from all over Antarctica seem to be currently dealing with a bit of an odd situation – many south polar skua birds, which, truth be told, are fairly large and aggressive, have taken a keen interest in runways across the freezing continent, attracted by their warmth and the fact that they are snow-free... |
20 January 2009
15:01 GMT |
|
|
Comparing the dimensions of an intercontinental airliner against those of a small bird may not yield results that will back up the conclusions that several commissions investigating plane crashes came to, namely that stray birds or flocks managed to destroy propellers and cause significant damage to the engines, forc... |
16 January 2009
05:15 GMT |
|
|
When it comes to caring for their pets, some owners simply never seem to get enough. And for those of you who own parrots or other indoor living winged creatures, and like to let them fly around all day, a start-up company decided to invent bird diapers. The problem of feces is widely spread in all major cities in th... |
13 January 2009
05:10 GMT |
|
|
Every year, in autumn, the Italian capital city of Rome looks like it’s under siege. But ancient Barbarian hordes have been replaced by tens of thousands of starlings, birds weighing no more than 80 grams (3 ounces) each, which cover priceless historic monuments with guano and other droppings. There is little a... |
27 November 2008
09:56 GMT |
|
|
Medical records show that cases of West Nile Virus (WNV) infections are far less likely to occur in settled areas that have a wide variety of bird species living inside. Scientists believe that this happens because birds are poor viral carriers altogether. In other words, mosquitoes are far less likely to bite birds,... |
9 October 2008
06:53 GMT |
|
|
New researches conducted on the impact wind turbines have on biodiversity proved that the European Commission has nothing to worry about. Farm birds are not about to be decimated by the turbines, as doom-sayers “foretold.” The findings are actually quite important, as the Commission has plans of supp... |
1 October 2008
07:05 GMT |
|
|
With the help of data regarding the fossils of as much as 4,000 known species of mammals that lived on Earth up to 60 million years ago, Aaron Clauset of the Santa Fe Institute and Douglas Erwin of the National Museum of Natural History created one of the most accurate computer models that estimates how the body size... |
18 July 2008
10:43 GMT |
|
|
The way birds are able to distinguish between their own eggs and those of parasitic layers such as cuckoos has kept scientists mystified for a long period. At the same time, everybody seemed to have forgotten that birds are able to see much more differently than us and that their eyes are, in fact, capable of observi... |
15 July 2008
11:22 GMT |
|
|
Man's desire to fly is known to have existed ever since the earliest recorded history. To fulfill his dream, man turned to nature and tried to copy the winged creatures, most of the times such attempts ending in disasters. We only have to look at today's flying machines to understand to that we have never r... |
7 July 2008
06:47 GMT |
|
|
According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, climate change is now severely affecting the population of birds around the world. The IUCN meeting taking place this week in Bonn, Germany, has updated the catalogue of 1226 species of threatened birds in the Red List of endangered bird species rel... |
20 May 2008
09:01 GMT |
|
|
Man has always been fascinated by the mysteries of flight and dreamed of conquering the skies and achieving the grace of birds. Icarus from the Greek legends flied with wings of wax, but got too close to the Sun, his wings melted, and he fell to the ground. The great Leonardo da Vinci, artist and Renascence inventor ... |
15 January 2008
08:22 GMT |
|
|
Early this month, a storm raging in the waters of the Black Sea led to a catastrophic oil spill, as the oil tanker seeking refuge wrecked in the Kerch Strait, and leaked over 2,000 tons of petrol. As a result of the havoc, the WWF inspectors evaluating the situation came to the conclusion that it would take at least ... |
30 November 2007
10:53 GMT |
|
|
|
|
