Dandelion seeds fly using 'impossible' method never before seen in nature
Dandelion seeds fly using a method that researchers thought couldn't work in the real world, according to a study published on 17 October in Nature.
When some animals, aeroplanes or seeds fly, rings of circulating air called vortices form in contact with their wings or wing-like surfaces. These vortices can help to maintain the forces that lift the animal, machine or seed into the air.
Researchers thought that an unattached vortex would be too unstable to persist in nature. Yet the light, puffy seeds of dandelions use vortices that materialize just above their surfaces and lift the seed into the air.
Also at the University of Edinburgh and BBC.
A separated vortex ring underlies the flight of the dandelion (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0604-2) (DX)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 18 2018, @07:47PM (1 child)
This like when people say bumblebees and helicopters can't fly. All that means is the theory is wrong.
(Score: 3, Touché) by legont on Friday October 19 2018, @12:50AM
Actually bumblebees are flying using conventional theory. There is not much of a math difference between bumble bee and 747.
This one is very cool though - a new type of "wing". Looks like it has a bright future in nanotech where those flying spies and killer robots were limited greatly by ordinary wing designs.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Sulla on Thursday October 18 2018, @08:41PM (3 children)
This is great news! Now how do we apply it to aircraft?
Sincerely,
MIC
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 18 2018, @09:27PM (1 child)
Lots of people with tweezers and super glue, but that's not important right now.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Thursday October 18 2018, @11:23PM
They'll have to work extra-hard to keep my neighbor from ruining the job while cursing them, mumbling something about his lawn.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by arslan on Thursday October 18 2018, @10:17PM
Easy. A tornado will easily lift meat and bones up in the air.... but joking aside, reading the article it looks like they were able to mimic this using silicon discs simulating the spoke model of the dandy seeds. The model had to be very close, a difference of 10% or more and the vortex is not sustained. I suppose there's potential here to apply to various flying apparatus to complement flight.
Also, folks use paragliders for all sorts of fun nowadays utilizing wind lifts, so maybe we'll see someone with a giant man-made dandy ball on the beach one day?
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday October 19 2018, @01:04AM (10 children)
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday October 19 2018, @01:05AM (6 children)
I saw the unclosed blockquote right as I was pressing submit.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by vux984 on Friday October 19 2018, @02:03AM (2 children)
Hey,
-- meta question for the folks behind the site --
What are the odds we could have a warning/error about unclosed tags when hitting submit?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @11:55AM (1 child)
And this quote markup is not the biggest such problem around here, the real problem is strike, underline, italics and bold which end up modifying all subsequent comments in the thread. Looks pretty spectacular when it happens. :)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @12:06PM
Sorry to reply to myself but here's a taste of things gone funky: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=27151&page=1&cid=723072#723072 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday October 19 2018, @03:35AM (2 children)
No matter how carefully I proofread, if I missed something, it becomes instantly visible the moment I click 'submit.'
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @01:48PM (1 child)
This is why I really liked the 5 second delay on sending email that gmail had (at least for business, not sure if it was there for free accounts).
You always see the error right after hitting send, so being able to undo send for 5 seconds actually helped a lot.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday October 19 2018, @11:12PM
I believe it has been fixed, but fixes have not been retroactively applied. TMB can correct me if I'm wrong.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 19 2018, @02:15AM
Don't forget that bumble bees can't possibly fly - but they keep on doing so. To be fair, I haven't heard or read this bit of trivia in recent years, but it popped up time and again decades ago.
http://www.aviation-for-kids.com/bumblebee_flight.html [aviation-for-kids.com]
There's a slow motion video of a bumblebee flying on that side - kinda cool.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday October 19 2018, @05:29AM (1 child)
Apparently these so-called "editors" love clickbait now. Where were they for "one simple trick to make mars habitable, find out before its illegal!"? It's a disgrace. Although I couldn't approve of the department more.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @11:58AM
A Trump supporter criticizing clickbait? o_O