E37: Okay, but what’s up with feathers?
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Release Date: Sep 3, 2026You have pulled one out of a jacket sleeve at a bad angle, picked one up on a walk, and you are almost certainly within arm's reach of a few thousand of them right now. Dr. Cody Limber, who recently finished his PhD at Yale, spent it taking growing feathers apart one cell at a time to find out what they are actually made of. A feather is not a fancy scale, it does not grow the way you would guess, and after all this time nobody can say what the first ones were for.
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In this episode:
The strangest things growing out of birds, and which of them actually count as feathers
What a feather is actually made of, once you smash one into individual cells and read what every cell was doing
What a feather actually is, whether it is alive or dead, how it is put together, and the coordination that color and pattern demand
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All audio, video, and images in this episode are either original to Okay, But... Birds (© Okay Media, LLC) or used under license/permission from the respective rights holders. Media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:
Eastern Whip-poor-will audio contributed by Bob McGuire, ML195774
Red-bellied Woodpecker audio contributed by Wil Hershberger, ML306064
Indian Peafowl audio contributed by Rounak choudhary, ML621021542
Common Raven audio contributed by Gerrit Vyn, ML132161
Mallard audio contributed by Mike Andersen, ML136504
Double-crested Cormorant audio contributed by Bob McGuire, ML233274
Zebra Finch (Australian) audio contributed by Vicki Powys, ML226233
American Herring Gull video contributed by Steve Kelling, ML540908261
Golden-winged Warbler video contributed by Benjamin Clock, ML476422
Great Argus audio contributed by Arnoud B. van den Berg, ML71122
Horned Screamer audio contributed by Paul A. Schwartz, ML58925
Wild Turkey audio contributed by James (Jim) Holmes, ML73964601