Charles Darwin scratched his head over the purpose of bowers, the carefully tended sex dens of the bowerbird. But few scientists had conducted studies of these ornate constructions and their earnest ...

The male bowerbird has one dazzling bachelor pad. His nest, woven around a tree and carpeted with moss, takes years to build. Each bowerbird has his own exquisite taste in decorations; some prefer ...

The male peacock is well known for its courtship displays, during which it fans its colourful tail feathers to attract a mate. But not all birds are so spectacular, and males of other species employ ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American The article I discuss below came out last ...

Disneyland's a lie. Mickey Mouse, for instance, isn’t a mouse at all, but a costume with a person inside. The architecture, too, is deceptive. That giant castle isn’t as tall as it looks, because ...

When thinking of the Australian bowerbird you might expect the feathery thieves to create a lavish collection of blue to impress its lady friends, but in the west, the bird fancies a whiter shade of ...

Gail Patricelli wasn’t so sure that courtship is really as one-sided as the ill-fated show “Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?” where contestants strutted, and a watcher of the other sex selected. So, ...

When Joyce Ramsey met Ward Freeman in the 1990s, he was a minimalist when it came to home decor. "He was Spartan," she said. He offers a different take on it: "I was streamlined." But a trip to ...

NOVA: I've heard that you have used robotic female bowerbirds. Why? Borgia: One of my students, Gail Patricelli, has just gotten a paper accepted at Nature that describes how she has used a robotic ...