Fastest Actions / Responses In Living Organisms

[EnolaGaia]

I couldn't find a thread that recommended itself for the story below. In addition, the story is addressing speed / quickness not in relation to the organism's movement within its environs, but rather in relation to the organism's actions with or within its own body.

... So I'm starting a new thread ...

 

[Krepostnoi]

I couldn't find a thread that recommended itself for the story below. In addition, the story is addressing speed / quickness not in relation to the organism's movement within its environs, but rather in relation to the organism's actions with or within its own body.

... So I'm starting a new thread ...

You may have been a bit, well, quick on the draw - which story are you referring to?

 

[EnolaGaia]

Here's the story that motivated me to start the thread (and to make clear allusions to 'fast' weren't limited to locomotion).

These Are the Fastest Creatures on Earth But You'll Never Spot Them
Scientists have a plan to study the fastest creature in the world — and hope to use what they learn from its behavior to build tiny robots.

The creature isn't a cheetah or a falcon; instead, it's a single-celled organism called Spirostomum ambiguum, commonly found in bodies of water. Cheetahs can sprint at speeds of more than 60 mph (96.5 km/h), and falcons may dive at well over 250 mph (400 km/h). But S. ambiguum can move even faster, shortening its body by 60 percent into a football shape within "a few milliseconds," according to a press release.

But researchers have no idea how the single-celled organism can move this fast without the muscle cells of larger creatures. And scientists have no clue how, regardless of how the contraction works, the little critter moves like this without wrecking all of its internal structures. [5 Ways Gut Bacteria Affect Your Health]

Saad Bhamla, a researcher at Georgia Tech, received a grant from the National Science Foundation to study and model S. ambiguum's contraction motion at the subcellular level. He hopes to come to understand the motion well enough, he said, to break it down into ideas that could be used for robots.

"As engineers, we like to look at how nature has handled important challenges," Bhamla said in the release. "We are always thinking about how to make these tiny things that we see zipping around in nature. If we can understand how they work, maybe the information can cross over to fill the gap for small robots that can move fast with little energy use." ...

FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/63303-fastest-creature-single-cell-nanobot.html

 

[EnolaGaia]

You may have been a bit, well, quick on the draw - which story are you referring to?

You gotta give me a few seconds to post it!

For the record ... I prefer to initiate a thread with an intro or 'heading' post describing what the thread is intended to address (however broadly or vaguely).

 

[kamalktk]

You gotta give me a few seconds to post it!

Soooo.... Fastest Actions / Responses in Living Organisms = not you then.

 

[Krepostnoi]

You gotta give me a few seconds to post it!

For the record ... I prefer to initiate a thread with an intro or 'heading' post describing what the thread is intended to address (however broadly or vaguely).

Apologies. Perhaps I should simply delete my earlier post (along with this one). Might be the neatest solution.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Apologies. Perhaps I should simply delete my earlier post (along with this one). Might be the neatest solution.

No need - deleting your post would only make things more confusing ...

 

[EnolaGaia]

Soooo.... Fastest Actions / Responses in Living Organisms = not you then.

Not when I have to interrupt myself to address meta-issues ...

 

[EnolaGaia]

Here's a similar claim made for the 'Dracula Ant' ...

The Dracula Ant's Lightning Mandibles Make It the Fastest Animal in the World
What’s the fastest animal in the world? You might guess a cheetah, a sailfish, or a peregrine falcon. According to new research, however, all of those are wrong. The fastest animal in the world is an ant. Specifically, the ‘Dracula ant’ native to Southeast Asia and Australia, which can move its mandibles over 200 miles per hour.

A team of researchers was studying the Dracula ant-scientific name Mystrium camillae-in order to understand how its mandible mechanism works. Plenty of ants have mandibles that quickly snap shut, but the Dracula ant's appeared to work differently. Thanks to the research, the scientists have been proven right: The Dracula ant uses a completely novel method to snap its jaws shut. ...

FULL STORY: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/dracula-ant-apos-lightning-mandibles-212400171.html