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Male broad-tailed hummingbirds make a loud buzzing sound by fluttering their tail feathers during U-shaped courtship dives. Barn owls can fly virtually silently, their flight feathers suppressing sound. An owl’s facial ruff collects sound, reflecting and focusing sound into its ears, enabling it to hunt in total darkness, entirely by hearing. In this talk, we’ll look at the remarkable microscopic structures within feathers that allow them to create, suppress and collect sound.
Lorna Gibson’s new book, Birds Up Close: An Engineer Explores Their Hidden Wonders, draws on her experience as a professor of engineering at MIT and as a lifelong birder to describe how birds work from an engineering perspective.
About Lorna Gibson
Lorna Gibson is the Matoula S Salapatas Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT and a MacVicar Faculty Fellow, MIT’s top award for undergraduate teaching. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Audubon Society. She has always loved nature and getting outside to walk, bicycle and bird.