Charles Darwin bred pigeons, and used them to learn more about the inheritance of different characteristics. For pigeons, beak size is one of those characteristics. There are 350 pigeon breeds or more ...

The rock pigeon's funky hairdos have been pinned to a single gene mutation that signals head and neck feathers to grow up rather than down in a tamer fashion, report researchers who have just decoded ...

Humans have shaped the domestic pigeon into hundreds of breeds of various shapes, colors and attributes — a diversity that captivated Charles Darwin, who even conducted breeding experiments on his own ...

in 1855, Charles Darwin took up a new hobby. He started raising pigeons. "The diversity of the breeds is something astonishing," he wrote in "On the Origin of Species." Pigeon breeding, he argued, was ...

A change in a single gene ruffles the feathers of all pigeons with collars and crests, a new study shows. Many breeds of rock pigeons have these crests, even though they come from different branches ...

SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- Mutations in key genes determine feather color in domestic pigeons, and the same genes control pigmentation of human skin, U.S. researchers say. "Mutations in these ...

Biologists discovered that a mutation in the ROR2 gene is linked to beak size reduction in numerous breeds of domestic pigeons. Surprisingly, different mutations in ROR2 also underlie a human disorder ...

Scientists have identified mutations in three key genes that determine feather color in domestic rock pigeons. The same genes control pigmentation of human skin and can be responsible for melanoma and ...