Learning to evolve: With a little help from my ancestors

Learning to fly is easy, if you are a bird. But why is it that birds learn so easily how to fly" It is well known that birds learn through practice, and that they gradually refine their innate ability into a finely tuned skill. According to a new theory by Dr Stone of Sheffield University, skills such as flying are easy to refine because the innate ability of today's birds depends indirectly on the learning that their ancestors did, which leaves a genetically specified latent memory for flying.