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 ...

A hummingbird gorget is a strange sounding word for shimmering feathers that catch the light. Learn more about these colorful ...

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 ...

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 ...

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Researchers at ETH Zurich have created a material traversed by a network of channels the size of micrometres in the same way as the microstructure of a bird's feather. To do so they have developed a ...

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

Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Pterosaurs ruled ...

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 ...

This book, about the natural history of feathers, begins with Archaeopteryx. This late-Jurassic (about 150-million-year-old) fossil, something between a reptile and bird, confounded and delighted ...