The left wing of a goose

The Olympics always manage to capture my imagination. I can't help but be fascinated and amazed by the work, the drive, the effort that goes into getting to the games -- regardless of the outcomes.

And while I've been fast-forwarding through a lot of the pre-packaged video pieces, I've been reading a fair bit about the games. (Let's be honest -- I've always liked reading more.) In doing so, I came across this gem related to the creation of badminton shuttlecocks that I just need to share with you:

The shuttles themselves are intricate creations. Yonex orders thousands of goose feathers a year from China. The feathers are then trimmed to size and matched by color, flexibility and other factors. Only feathers from the left wings of geese are used in the tournament shuttles. Satoshi Yuza, a promotion manager at Yonex, chalked that up to aerodynamics.

Can you imagine? Only the feathers from the left wing of a goose go into competition-level shuttlecocks. What a weird, beautiful thing.