Plurrrr

Tue 05 Apr 2022

Ballooning spiders rely on electric fields to generate lift

In 1832, Charles Darwin witnessed hundreds of ballooning spiders landing on the HMS Beagle while some 60 miles offshore. Ballooning is a phenomenon that's been known since at least the days of Aristotle—and immortalized in E.B. White's children's classic Charlotte's Web—but scientists have only recently made progress in gaining a better understanding of its underlying physics.

Source: No air currents required: Ballooning spiders rely on electric fields to generate lift, an article by Jennifer Ouellette.