Gene discovery may reveal how scaly dinosaurs became feathery birds

A study shows that tweaking the genes of alligators can produce feather-like structures - we could be on our way to understanding how birds became birds

It is finally becoming common knowledge to the general public that birds really are dinosaurs. What's more, an ever-increasing number of discoveries gives us incredible insight into the form and diversity of feathers in various non-avian dinosaurs and early birds. We have a growing understanding of how feathers spread and changed in various lineages, their functions, and why they might have evolved in the first place but a fundamental gap remains in our understanding - how did they evolve?

Feathers are composed of keratin, which also makes up scales (and for that matter claws and parts of skin - and, indeed, our own hair) and they are both growth of the skin, so presumably they have some kind of shared evolutionary history - but that is about as far as researchers have got. There are a number of suggested pathways to get from scale to feather, but while some are well thought of, none are especially well thought of. Complicating the process are the odd patterns that evolution has thrown up from time to time.