Nature is a great place to steal ideas from.

Here's a fine example of seed gliding inspired design:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbuGCgc-JCM&feature=playe...

Thanks for bringing back memories. As a kid, I was always fascinated (and still am) by the helicoptering action of maple seeds when my sisters and I dropped then into the air from our deck.

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/TRC/Aeronautics/Maple_Seed....

Agreed. There is a whole field called biomimicry that tries to apply systems found in nature to solve engineering problems. This TED video explores the topic pretty well: http://www.ted.com/talks/janine_benyus_shares_nature_s_desig...

That's nearly as good gliding ratio as Boeing 747, FWIW.

On first reading your comment my reaction was, "No way." With a little research though it appears the angle for a 747 is only 5.9 degrees.

Thanks for the perspective.

Actually, I now see that I have originally misread descent angle for glide ratio, but still, even 1/2 of 747's performance is great. Natural selection!

That's a glide ratio of ~4.7:1 whereas the Gimli glider managed ~12:1.

I love David Attenborough's narration. Be it this video or any of the Planet Earth series or the older videos from the BBC.

His narration is virtually unchanged since he started about 60 years ago. Please do watch Life on Air: David Attenborough's 50 Years in Television. He tends to wear similar looking dresses for all episodes of a series, so that the attention of the viewer is not on the anchor, but on the topic at hand. And when his trousers start fraying near the ankles, he snips off the cloth with a scissor.

Apparently, this method of dissemination is most effective when the vines grow on an especially tall breed of Redwood.