Latest David Burnham Stories

The scientists argue that flight originated above, in the trees; such animals would have been glidersA joint team from the University of Kansas and Northeastern University in China says that it has settled the long-standing question of how bird flight began.In the Jan. 25 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the KU-China researchers push their research into the origins of bird flight and the early evolution of birds with decisive flight tests of a model of the four-winged...

This is the first report of venom in the lineage that leads to modern birdsA group of University of Kansas researchers working with Chinese colleagues have discovered a venomous, birdlike raptor that thrived some 128 million years ago in China. This is the first report of venom in the lineage that leads to modern birds."This thing is a venomous bird for all intents and purposes," said Larry Martin, KU professor and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Natural History Museum and...