Discovery Science aired the Dinosaur Feather Mystery in 2008. The documentary explains the origin of feathers on dinosaurs and goes over the basic structure of feathers to flightstroke.
It's pretty difficult to mess up anything that is dinosaur related aend the discovery channel does not disappoint. The link between birds and dinosaurs is explained in this documentary and explains not only the production of feathers as well as disproving previous scientific hypotheses. By observing how feathers form today, scientists are able to hypothesize how feathers evolved from dinosaurs. Feathers, in essence, are hollow tubes and become increasingly complicated with the addition of barbs growing around tubes and eventually create a vein, which allows for flight.
One of the great things about this documentary is that it is simple yet interesting enough to keep a somewhat educated person's attention. There are enough demonstrations, displays and examples that really allow the audience to thoroughly understand the developmental process of feathers. By observing the development of feathers in present day birds, scientists have gotten an idea of how feathers evolved.
The documentary does a great job of giving on overview of various hypotheses, how they were formed and the newest conclusion based on paleontological research. One of the biggest hurdles in figuring out wings was the origin of flight. Some believe that flight started from the ground up and that certain dinosaurs used the feathers for aerodynamics and eventually became smaller and lighter to enable flight. Others believe that some dinosaurs were arboreal and developed flight first from gliding from one tree to another. Xu Xing, a paleontologist of the American Museum of Natural History, discovered an arboreal dinosaur, called micro raptor, that had wings on all four limbs.
While the information is dense, the repetition of evidence as well as how scientists came to the evolutionary conclusion can be a bit overbearing. However, overall the information is interesting and informative. While most of us have read about the connection of birds and dinosaurs for years, this is the first time that the information has been presented in an easy to understsand fashion. And of course, everyone loves dinosaurs!