That's fascinating. Turbulence has been a confusing mystery for a century, despite its importance in aerodynamics. Finally, someone has insight into the problem.
At the risk of sounding too much like Wolfram, I wonder if some kind of cellular automata approach might shed light on these "populations of puffs".
I was going to read this, but this site has a large popup overlay for a fathers day sale, so I just hit back. That's just become knee-jerk at this point.
Sucks for you man. I too did not like the popup. Then I got over myself and got to read a nice article!
Crazy people trying to actually earn a living from their hard work. Harumph!