How Dandelion Seeds Float Seemingly Impossible Distances

A single breath from a playing child can send dozens of fluffy dandelion seeds floating into the air. Now scientists find these seeds can keep themselves aloft by generating a type of vortex previously thought too unstable to exist, helping explain how these flowers have dispersed across the planet. Image Credit: "Smudge9000" via flickr. (CC BY-SA 2.0) Each dandelion seed is attached to a bundle of roughly 100 feathery bristles known as a pappus, whose name derives from an ancient Greek word for...