The Wright Brothers studied bird flight before they designed the first airplane. Now modern aircraft fly higher and faster than any bird, yet no manufactured device matches the graceful movements and ...

Flight is truly remarkable, no matter which way you look at it. And while it seems easy enough for the tiniest insects to ...

Most bird wings are far from aerodynamically optimal, suggesting evolution often settles for “good enough” instead of perfect ...

Christina Harvey uses wind tunnels at the UC Davis College of Engineering to study bird flight. Harvey is the recipient of a 2023 Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering. (UC Davis photo) ...

Graduate students Huanglun Zhu and Kiran Weston set up a 3D printed model of a hawk wing for testing in the UC Davis wind tunnel. Based on motion capture imaging at Oxford University, the wind tunnel ...

Springtime in Minnesota brings a flurry of bird migration, with millions of birds like Baltimore Orioles taking flight at ...

People have been fascinated by bird flight for centuries, but exactly how birds can be so agile in the air remains mysterious. A new study uses modeling and aerodynamics to describe how gulls can ...

While it had been assumed that unstable gliding was the key to agility in bird flight, a collaboration between aerospace engineers and biologists has revealed that stability plays a role. While it had ...