[TriLUG] What happens to console codes in pipes?

[Nathan Yinger via TriLUG]

Hello,

While doing some grepping, I noticed something: grep returns colored
output, but if it is piped through something like sort or sed the colors
are stripped out.

I am wondering what is stripping the color codes. Is this something the
shell does to anything that is piped?

Thanks,
~Nathan