Ballistic Fungi Use Surface Tension to Create Extraordinary Accelerations

Put a droplet of water on the table. Wet your finger and then, observing closely, touch your finger to that water droplet, and watch as the water on the table joins the droplet on your fingertip. It's a mundane process, but this humble mechanism is powerful enough to create some of the strongest accelerations on Earth.Seed and spore dispersal is one of the main challenges faced by living organisms, and has been for practically the entire history of life on Earth. For a big, leafy tree's offsprin...