Feathers: Now With Education!

(2019) - 14 min

AnimalsDocumentaryEducationalScience

Ornithologist Richard Prum shares his knowledge of the natural math of feather patterning. Simple feather patterns can be predicted using mathematical models called Turing reaction-diffusion equations. As a feather grows, each new cell must decide whether it will receive pigment or not, depending on overlapping chemical gradients and the pigmentation of neighboring cells.