Feathers

Product Description

Now in paperback this is Thor Hansons critically-acclaimed natural & cultural history of natures finest invention. Feathers are an evolutionary marvel: aerodynamic insulating & beguiling. Their story begins in the Jurassic period & leads through the development of flight to high fashion
- from leaping dinosaurs to da Vinci sketches to showgirls on the Las Vegas Strip they date back to the dawn of time. Yet their story has never been fully told. In Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle" biologist Thor Hanson tells a sweeping natural history of feathers as theyve been used to fly protect attract & adorn through time & place. Applying the research of palaeontologists ornithologists biologists engineers & 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. Theyve inspired legends & literature from Icarus to Shakespeare. Theyve inked documents from the Constitution to the novels of Jane Austen. Theyve decorated queens jesters plague doctors Aztec priests & the fabled birds of paradise. They silence the flight of owls give shimmer to hummingbirds & keep penguins dry below the ice. They are at the root of biologys most enduring debate. It goes without saying the importance & intrigue of feathers is patent. Informed by Hansons own field experiences form Africa to Antarctica " Feathers" deftly traces a history of evolution fluff flight fancy & function. A captivating & beautifully-written exploration of the human fascination with a most enchanting object " Feathers" transports readers from mythical associations with the divine to the height of modern-day science & technology."