As seen on PBS\'s American Spring Live, one of America\'s great nature-writers explores the magic and science of feathers Feathers are an evolutionary marvel: aerodynamic, insulating, beguiling.
Feathers is a captivating and beautiful exploration of this most enchanting object..
And they have inked documents from the Constitution to the novels of Jane Austen.
They have decorated queens, jesters, and priests.
They silence the flight of owls and keep penguins dry below the ice.
Applying the research of paleontologists, ornithologists, biologists, engineers, and even art historians, Hanson asks: What are feathers? How did they evolve? What do they mean to us? Engineers call feathers the most efficient insulating material ever discovered, and they are at the root of biology\'s most enduring debate.
Yet their story has never been fully told.
In Feathers , biologist Thor Hanson details a sweeping Natural history, as feathers have been used to fly, protect, attract, and adorn through time and place.
They date back more than 100 million years.
As seen on PBS\'s American Spring Live, one of America\'s great nature-writers explores the magic and science of feathers Feathers are an evolutionary marvel: aerodynamic, insulating, beguiling
