University of Montana researcher Ken Dial releases new theory of bird evolution

When Ken Dial http://www.cas.umt.edu/casweb/for_faculty/FacultyDetails.cfm?id=877 made one of the sweetest, most surprising discoveries of his career, he swore like a sailor.

It happened like this: The University of Montana researcher and two grad students were working in the University’s Flight Laboratory, a high-tech avian research facility at Fort Missoula. Once a U.S. Cavalry stable, the building now sports a modern interior with offices, aviaries, holding cages, a surgical suite, a wind tunnel, electrical gear and lots of different bird species.

Using high-speed cameras, the three documented how birds change the angle of their wings as they gain altitude, glide, descend or run up steep surfaces. Dial, a self-described experimental functional morphologist, has long been interested in how birds are put together – muscles, nerves and bones – and how what goes on inside them affects their behavior. Decades ago he already had made X-ray movies of birds in flight, and now – at 1,000 frames per second – he was trying to understand, down to the most minute detail, the mechanics of how they take to the air.

Full Story: http://missoulian.com/articles/2008/12/24/bnews/br44.txt