Video: The fastest on the planet
2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55
A striking example of research, which is engaged in modern science. We invite the readers of Kramola to independently assess the importance and prospects of studying the fastest creature on planet Earth. The speed is 724 km / h. You never know who it is.
Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have discovered the fastest creature in the world. It turned out to be a single-celled worm-like creature Spirostomum ambiguum, which lives in fresh water and develops a speed of up to 724 km / h.
High-speed vertebrates depend on proteins such as actin and myosin. The latter is one of the main components of muscle fibers; it makes up 40 to 60 percent of the total amount of muscle proteins. However, the worm-like creatures Spirostomum ambiguum, which measure only four millimeters in length, do not need it and are capable of moving at speeds of up to two hundred meters per second squared, according to Saad Bhamla, an assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
To gain this speed, S. ambiguum shortens their body length by 60 percent and then fires like a spring. This movement occurs so lightning fast that it is almost invisible to the human eye.
This week, a university research team received a grant from the US National Science Foundation to study these creatures. Saad Bhamla told what scientists have to do:
“From an engineering point of view, we are interested in watching nature overcome incredible constraints. We always think about how to implement those things that we see in nature ourselves. If we understand how these organisms work, perhaps we can create small, high-speed robots that use a small amount of energy. We're going to record everything this creature does and simulate its actions on a computer. When I started studying biology, I thought that cells are just sacs of fluid that make up tissue, but Spirostomum is different from all cells that we know."
What exactly makes the creature move so fast is a mystery. In the next four years, scientists plan to begin a major study in which they will study Spirostomum ambiguum in more detail.
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