Researchers explain why feather shafts change shape when under stress
http://phys.org/news/2016-12-feather-shafts-stress.html?utm_source=nwletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-nwletterPaper: Light Like a Feather: A Fibrous Natural Composite with a Shape Changing from Round to Square
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/advs.201600360/fullChanging shape along the feather shaft: a) schematic of a flight feather shaft, numbers indicating positions along the shaft length (from calamus to rachis). Optical micrographs of the transverse sections along the shaft from b) seagull and c) crow and microcomputed tomography images from d) condor showing gradual shape change from circular hollow tube to rectangular foam filled. Pink dotted lines indicate the transverse septum and blue rectangles the ventral groove, respectively. Dorsal, lateral, and ventral portions of the shaft cortex are marked in the left figure.
Structural model of the feather shaft cortex: a) the shape factor. The cross section changes from circular at the calamus to near rectangular at the rachis. The layered structure of cortex with varying and differentially oriented fibers along shaft length: b) at the calamus, all the cortex is composed of a thin outer layer of circumferential fibers and a thick inner layer of aixal fibers; c) at the proximal rachis, the dorsal cortex consists of a thinner outer layer of circumferential fibers covering axial fibers, the lateral walls of crossed fibers and the ventral cortex of longitudinal fibers; d) at the distal rachis, the dorsal and ventral cortices are composed of axial fibers and the lateral walls of crossed fibers.