Birds have long been nature’s masters of flight. Their ability to glide, dive, and twist through the air with ease has ...

Birds have long been our inspiration for flight, and researchers at Princeton University have found a new trick in their arsenal: covert feathers. These small feathers on top of birds’ wings lay ...

But there's more to bird flight than strong wings and hollow bones. One secret lies in their covert feathers—layers of small feathers that cover the wing’s base and shift during tricky ...

Unlike the larger contour and flight feathers that streamline a bird’s body, these covert feathers are smaller, softer, and arranged in layers, like overlapping shingles on a roof. They tend to ...

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 ...