Avian-inspired drones feature morphing wing and tail surfaces, enhancing agility and adaptability in flight. Despite their large potential, realising their full capabilities remains challenging due to ...

Modern birds capable of flight all have a specialized wing structure called the propatagium without which they could not fly. The evolutionary origin of this structure has remained a mystery, but new ...

Engineers found a way to help airplanes avoid stall with lightweight plastic flaps that flutter with pressure changes. The flaps mimick a class of feathers that are key to birds' most daring aerial ...

There are many hypotheses explaining the diversity of colours and patterns found in nature, but they are often difficult to examine empirically. Recent studies show the dark upperside of gliding birds ...

Bird physiology is conducive to flight: small size, hollow bones, and generally symmetrical feathers on the wings and tail. It seems like a no-brainer that bird evolution was optimized for flight, but ...

Bird wing shape -- a proxy for long-distance flying ability, or dispersal -- is a trait that influences biodiversity patterns on islands around the world, according to biologists. You can know a lot ...

Even the giant wings of the albatross are not ‘optimally’ shaped for their extraordinary long-distance migrations, according to new University of Bristol research. The study, published in Nature ...

Postdoctoral researcher Girguis O. Sedky sitting inside of the wind tunnel, showing the covert feather-inspired flaps attached to the 3D-printed model airplane wing. The flaps deploy automatically in ...

Nature is full of incredible survival strategies, and some birds have developed remarkable adaptations that act as built-in weapons in their wings. These features help them defend themselves, compete ...

Airbus is moving ahead with its vision of aircraft with active wing control, following successful wind tunnel tests at its facility near Bristol, England. The company is working to mimic the behavior ...

Ahmed K. Othman, Girguis Sedky, Hannah Wiswell and Aimy Wissa (left to right) equipped the wings of an RC plane with covert-inspired flaps, and flew it at Princeton's Forrestal Campus to prove that ...