The twirling seeds of maple trees spin like miniature helicopters as they fall to the ground. Because the seeds descend slowly as they swirl, they're carried aloft by the wind and dispersed over great ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Winged seeds called samaras grow on maple trees. These are seeds from the Japanese maple, _Acer palmatum_. AlessandroZocc/iStock ...

Like helicoptering maple seeds, tiny new fliers whirl gracefully as they glide. The miniature aircraft, which can be made as small as a grain of sand, could be dispersed by air over long distances.

Maple tree seeds and the spiraling pattern in which they glide to the ground have delighted children for ages and perplexed engineers for decades. Now aerospace engineering graduate students have ...

Although humans can fly with the help of copious engineering, Mother Nature has already come up with much simpler ways to soar, like the way a maple tree’s spinning seeds scatter by floating on the ...

Around the summertime, you might often see maple seeds—also known as “helicopter” seeds—twirl and dance in the air before floating to the ground. While they’re fun to play with as a kid, adults are ...

We’ve seen aircraft based on “helicopter” seeds (technically samara seeds, which include those of maples and elms) before, but this recent design from researchers at the Singapore University of ...