Soaring birds — like osprey, eagles, falcons, even vultures — can stay aloft in the air seemingly forever, rarely flapping their wings. They glide along rising air currents in a way that has ...

Wind turbines may seem innocuous enough, but they have the potential to reshape the air birds fly through. In a recent Scientific Reports paper, researchers found that a gliding bird’s lift-to-drag ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. Engineers are finding new ways to make wind turbines more ...

Jasmin Wong records the range of motion of a gull wing using tracking markers. The study results revealed how birds use the shapes of their wings to switch quickly between stable and unstable gliding, ...

Soaring birds—like osprey, eagles, falcons, even vultures—can stay aloft in the air seemingly forever, rarely flapping their wings. They glide along rising air currents in a way that has fascinated ...

Birds, by design, tend to be small, light and streamlined. Yet there are some that push the boundaries of size. Here is the avian world’s best example of an ultra-heavyweight flyer. Birds of prey are ...

A large-eddy simulation reveals destabilized flight for birds soaring over wind farms. Wind turbines may seem innocuous enough, but they have the potential to reshape the air birds fly through. In a ...