Remember running your hand along a feather’s barbs and watching as the feather unzips and zips, seeming to pull itself back together miraculously?
That “magical” zipping mechanism of feathers provides a model for new adhesives and new aerospace materials, according to engineers at the University of California San Diego.
Findings are in the Jan. 16 issue of Science Advances – “Scaling of bird wings and feathers for efficient flight.”
![Feathers have a “magical” zipping mechanism that pulls itself back together](https://intobirds.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/MeyersLab_Feathers.jpg)
Properties of Feathers
Researcher Tarah Sullivan, who earned a Ph.D. in materials science from the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego.
She takes a detailed look at the general structure of bird feathers (without focusing on a specific species).
Sullivan 3D-printed structures that mimic the feathers’ vanes, barbs and barbules to better understand their properties.
!["Magical” zipping mechanism in feathers can provide a model for new adhesives and new aerospace materials (Red-tailed Hawk Feather)](https://intobirds.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/rt_hawk_feather_web.jpg)
Feather’s Spacing Essential for Flight
And how the underside of a feather can capture air for lift, while the top of the feather can block air out when gravity needs to take over.
Sullivan’s findings show that barbules, the smaller, hook-like structures that connect feather barbs, are spaced within 8 to 16 micrometers of one another in all birds.
Suggesting the spacing is an essential property for flight.
“The first time I saw feather barbules under the microscope I was in awe of their design. Intricate, beautiful and functional,” Sullivan says.
![Feathers are intricate, beautiful and functional (Woodcock Feather)](https://intobirds.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/wood_cock_feather_web.jpg)
“As we studied feathers across many species it was amazing to find that despite the enormous differences in size of birds, barbules spacing was constant,” she adds.
READ: Art Light as a Feather
Feather’s Properties Model for Adhesives
Sullivan believes studying the vane-barb-barbule structure further could lead to the development of new materials for aerospace applications, and to new adhesives.
![The structures zipping together the barbs in bird feathers could provide a model for new adhesives and new aerospace materials (Downy Woodpecker Feather)](https://intobirds.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/downy_wp_feather_web.jpg)
Think Velcro and its barbs.
She built prototypes to prove her point, which she will be discussing in a follow-up paper.
“We believe that these structures could serve as inspiration for an interlocking one-directional adhesive or a material with directionally tailored permeability,” she adds.
So next time you find a feather on the ground, think about the scientific implications this .0082-gram object provides.
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