We all have played with Bird Feathers and watched with amazement how the feather unzips and zips effortlessly and pulls itself back together. In a major scientific discovery, researchers for the first time in two decades looked at the detailed structure of the feather and found that regardless of the species, the barbules (structures that connect feather barbs) are spaced 8-16 micrometre apart.

This indicates that this spacing is important in flight since it is conserved across different Bird species.

The scientists also built prototype new materials based on this structure which could have aerospace applications and new adhesives like Velcro.

Read the full story: University of California San Diego
Scientific publication: Science Advances