It’s surprisingly difficult — by puffing from any one direction — to send all of a dandelion’s delicate white seed tufts wafting away from their stem. A clump almost always clings on the opposite side of the stem no matter which direction the wind blows. Understanding a plant’s selective seed release has been tricky too.
After about three years of off-and-on rethink, retest and repeat, a team of U.S. and Australian researchers has found a structural quirk that lets batches of seeds catch upward puffs. That allows the plant to game the vagaries of wind, says fluid dynamicist Chris Roh of Cornell University.
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