Blue birds ain't blue (but they ARE dinosaurs)

Cool: This guy (Richard Prum) taught my evolution course at the University of Kansas. In this week's episode of The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast, he discusses the evolutionary relationship between birds and dinosaurs. Interestingly, he digresses briefly into speculations on dinosaur feather coloration. I remember several invited lectures he gave on coloration in bird feathers; specifically (if I remember correctly) there was something about there being no such thing as actual (i.e., pigmented) blue feathers. Rather, blue coloration is due to the diffraction of the light through clear feathers--pretty neat.

Anyway, here's the episode.

PS--That reminds me: I recently saw an article of his in Science on parental behavior in dinosaurs.