![]() In this lovely short film from TED Ed, animated by Armella Leung, Carl Zimmer - one of the finest science writers working today, and the author of the delightful Science Ink - explains how feathers evolved, a case of “an accident of physics” that took fifty million years to unfold: In his book Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle ( public library), conservation biologist Thor Hanson marvels that “nothing competes with feathers for sheer diversity of form and function” - they can be soft or barbed, can store water or repel it, can conceal or attract, and are “a near-perfect airfoil and the lightest, most efficient insulation ever discovered.” But how did feathers actually come about? ![]() ![]() Charles Darwin devoted nearly three chapters of his famed treatise The Descent of Man to feathers - one of the most miraculous products of evolution. ![]()
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