Fungi break acceleration record to escape dung

[jlauralee]

Horrifying and fascinating at the same time.

[14Mentalist]

fast shit thats quicker then me having the squitts

[nunchukgrl2]

her voice is annoying. (someone's reply --> your voice is annnoying)

[cacaplops]

HOLY SHIT...

[msbfd]

Just another thing to make a horror movie about the giant version - evil mushrooms that shoot their spores right through your body like a giant jet injector...

[ConstantC4]

so what was the acceleration?

[meusicalentall27]

You would have to derive a fomula for a. Either dv/dt or a=F/m

[fuunguus]

180,000 g.

[Haewatein]

wow, the narrator of this clip is really awesome. She should get an Oscar FOR BEING THE FUCKING WORST SPEAKER EVER.

In-fucking-credible, what retards think nowadays that they are talented...

[SectorH]

Sphaerobolus stellatus (artillery fungus) is cooler in my opinion because it's way bigger...

[violabrain]

We captured videos of S. stellatus as well. I still think that Pilobolus sp. is cooler to see in slo mo.

[katerinaksana]

wow.

[gotriceandshrimp]

Thats mads, looks like pimples pooping XP

[djwilko7]

how small r these thigns can we see one with naked eye , not that i wanna go looking thru cow shit to fid 1 but i wanna c one fly off

[Wildcard1992]

Holy crap that is awesome.

[eonblueeulogy]

Terence mckenna would have LOVED to have known this.

[ninjadude9]

That's cool.

[Q3o5]

It's like a natural gun

[Seethra]

The man with the golden spore.

[455898334]

it looks like a sperm cell squirting out sperm....

[mikedubya]

Sperm ARE cells, genius. Sperm cells do not squirt out more sperm. Don't you know anything about meiosis?

[455898334]

i said it LOOKS LIKE it einstein

[mikedubya]

fine whatever you're so smart

[staphinfection]

No, you just have a dirty mind and are always thinking about ejaculate. Which means you're either gay, or you're a teenager that is discovering the joy of masturbating.

[jproducts]

rofl thats true!!!!!!!

[455898334]

you guys are unblieveable...

[jproducts]

no i meant its true as in it looks like what you said, a sperm cell cumming...lol. Its kinda funny.

[455898334]

not u ipro

[javierenchina]

can we please get a little more info? how do they create the acceleration? a chemical reaction, or some physical process?

[TechnikaSound]

its a chemical reaction

[JohnChristopherHowe]

It happens due to osmotic potential building up throughout the stem which exhibits equal turgicity in the wall. The 'switch' which causes the burst is due to the slight weakness of the cell wall of the spore/stem connection parts. When the pressure is too high, the weakness gives way and the spore is propelled.

[kurtu5]

Powered by ion pumps running on ATP.

[techdawg667]

ion pumps don't run on ATP...

[mikeriveraprod]

they do.

[LtJackboot]

now you see why they call them fun-guy!-lol looks like a spunkshot tome-lol

[johnnycorvo]

1,000,000 times its own length in one second. WOW

[konikula]

thanks, source video is much better for download...

[IcyYeti]

They just ripped it from: watch?v=Y4n0b5rMqE0&feature=re­lated ¬¬

[UncleKennybobs]

Interesting but, "cow poo"? How old are you?

[zgitzoid]

huh huh huh she said cow poo, beavis

[archaedemos]

cool , but probably only useful at this tiny size. ):

[47f0]

I am deeply impressed, and humbled at the concept of an orgasm that can knock you across the room.

[Booshibonton]

That's crazy f*ckin' beanz maaaaan!!! >:V *in shock*

[linux750]

wow. even fungi hate cow dung.

[noinlair]

This is intriguing ... what is the mechanism?

[DopePiss]

Whats if cell from dbz did that. he would never have to fight he could just reproduce into someones general direction and FOOM! thats the end of goku.

[DarkHailProductions]

lol your so dumb in a funny way, not.....

[Gannondalf]

"your so dumb"

I love that. chock-a-block with irony :D

[DaZeD871]

This video is so much more interesting than most of the last ones, simply because it has sound in it :)

It's so much more interesting when we get some audio explaining what it's about, rather than watching a video, not getting what it's about, reading an article and then watching the video again to get it ;)

[ragingsquism]

gross

[Meddlmoe]

one million times their own length in a second... why do they think this is supposed to be impressing?

flees can jump 200 times their own bodyhight, so what. relative numbers are irrelevant! a flee or a fungus needs the same speed as a human to "jump" a certain distance. therfore same energy per bodymass etc.

[PoliomanGamer]

because the acceleration is the fastest biologic acceleration found in earth.

[GetMeThere1]

Relative numbers are relevant. F=ma; a=F/m

So, the thing that gets the highest acceleration is the thing which gets the highest force relative to its mass.

So, comparing relative masses and forces can give information on absolute accelerations.

[Salmo77]

Mycologists have more FUNgi!!!!

[kixdreng]

magic mushrooms?

[Ariji86]

nice

[thestalkinghead]

they should scale up the desigh and  launch stuff into space

[bigevasive]

It's the fastest acceleration found in nature. That doesn't mean it would be practical to build an artificial mushroom launcher.

[nytrospawn]

That kind of acceleration would turn humans into piles of goop. A person looses conciousness at around 10 G's. Imagine would would happen at 100K G's. Not even robots will make it, theyll just fall apart as the bonds between the metal plates would burst under the momentum.

[kurtu5]

Robots?

What do you think gets fired from navy ships? Robot guided munitions thats what. They survive.

[GetMeThere1]

This design could not be used to launch stuff into space (the design is, more or less, a sling shot). But stuff CAN theoretically be launched into space on other than rockets--long electromagnetic rail guns have been suggested.

[taklamakan44]

SPACE ELEVATOR!

[frizspin175]

isn't it more like a gun

[GetMeThere1]

No. A gun uses combustion in a closed container to accelerate the bullet. The fungi (and other plants, and insects) use the force of a molecular spring, let loose from a "cocked" position. If you think about it, this is exactly what a slingshot does (rubber, after all, IS a plant molecule).

[frizspin175]

the fungi uses pressure to propel the spore, like the way the air in a gun gets pressurized and propels the bullet.

[GetMeThere1]

I haven't read the actual article. There's a summary in yahoo news that claims it's a squirt, but it also says the osmotic pressure created doesn't seem capable of generating 180,000Gs!

I think the issue is not yet resolved.

Certainly, many plants and insects use elastic molecules to accomplish similar launches.

[frizspin175]

Agreed!

[matieman77]

i'm not sure its using osmosis anyway....

[kurtu5]

Scaling laws.

10 gees kills an elephant. 10 gees is hard on a human. 10 gees on a mouse is merely annoying. 10 gees on an ant, unnoticed....

Huge acceleration at the cellular level are easy to bear and cause.

[benner2000]

I learned more from your comment than the video.

[ewigkase1]

I love fungi!!! it is an amazing organism!!

learn how fungi will help make bio fuels

watch?v=NisX3AMZphw

[GetMeThere1]

They say it travels one million times its length in one second, and they say it has a "launch speed" of 25 meters per second. If they calculate the speed over the distance of 25 meters, then they're saying the spore are 25 microns in diameter (which sounds about right).

Then that IS fast! 25 meters p.s. equals about 1342 miles per hour!

[GetMeThere1]

Sorry, calculation error. Speed is 55.9 miles per hour!

Supposedly cheetahs can go 60 mph or more; but if they can't reach that speed within a second, then they don't have a faster acceleration than the spore.

[bankitdrew]

It's actually 100km/h... which is about 66mph.

[GetMeThere1]

There are 60*60 = 3600 seconds per hour. 3600*25 = 90000 = 90km/h, which is 55.92 mph.

[GetMeThere1]

...so, if f=ma, then the ratio of the FORCE applied to the spore and its mass (f/m) is the largest in nature.

Not such a big deal. All it means is that, compared to the tiny mass of the spore, the "spring" mechanism of the launcher is built using more "spring structures" per mass of spore than is typically seen.

It's already been seen that the "cocked spring method" (like jumping fleas) can exert greater force than, for example, muscle.

[GetMeThere1]

They're cheating a bit, I think.

First of all, acceleration MUST go negative soon after launch, since there's no rocket engine here. So, they give the acceleration distance as a ratio of its OWN length: 0 to 1 million lengths in one second. OBVIOUSLY, large animals can accelerate faster in an absolute sense, but, just as obviously, not in a relative sense.

So, properly speaking, they do NOT have anywhere near the "fastest acceleration" in nature.

[DoctorPlausible]

Great images! What's missing here is telling us what triggers each launch.

[Canonpixmalogitechko]

I wonder what subkingdom of fungi that is? Or even better, what species. I'm not familiar with anything other than Dikarya.

[hayleyscomet]

The species shown in the video is Pilobolus kleinii.

[Canonpixmalogitechko]

Thanks!

[crash6871]

sick

[randomae]

1,000,000 spore per second.

[kukelz]

25m/sec = 90 km / hour

pretty descent

[UnholySavagery]

I'm not getting near cow shit any time soon...

[srudlak]

consider gaia as an enormous fungi... ;)

[zueq]

gaia the sand dude from Naruto?

[ruthlessx]

LOl narutard

[buykh2ordie]

It's GAARA not GAIA you fucktard. Think before you speak, just because it's the internet is no excuse to be stupid.

[zueq]

whatever he is the sand kid from that cartoon Narutard, he puts makeup thats why he is so white!!!

[srudlak]

no, ehm think bigger.

[djindio555]

O_o ...

[LittleTruckingBozo]

My mother always said women are like cow shit. the older the get the easier they are to pick up.

[HKragh]

haha:D

[zueq]

i DO salute your MOM for her Wisdom...

[CanOfSpam]

Cow poo?

Wouldn't it of been better to say cow feces? What scientist uses the word "poo"??

[tropacat1214]

dam!!! (O_O)

[MiniMaxis468]

nice

[pubtor]

looks like someone... :)

[MassZombicide]

Awesome

[desiredusername]

"1 million times their own length in one second" is a velocity, not an acceleration. What is the acceleration? Why is even a science magazine afraid of numbers and units?

[faolitaruna]

Accelaration is 2 million spores per second square. It's new unit ;)

[clownschuhe]

You could work out the actual acceleration (body lenghts per second per second) if you wanted but that's just extra. Number of body lenghts travelled in one second already tells you everything you need.

[desiredusername]

The *average* acceleration over that second is 1,000,000 body lengths/s^2. But we aren't interested in the average, we are interested in the peak (according to the video).

Would it be so hard to just report the real value or provide some context? They might as well tell us that the acceleration was "bigger than the state of Texas" for all the good these numberless, unitless comments are.

[clownschuhe]

But isn't the acceleration rather 2 million body lengths/s^2? Since:

dist. = 0.5 * accel. * time^2

=> accel. = dist./0.5 (* time^2)

And I think the body lenght/second is used as a unit simply because that way we can compare different species' performance in a meaningful way.

[desiredusername]

At the beginning of the second, the velocity is 0. At the end of the second, it is 1,000,000 body lengths/s. That change happened in one second.

Therefore the average acceleration for that second is (1,000,000 body lengths/s)/s.

Your point about comparing species only argues for my point about units. Since they don't tell us if this record is absolute (m/s^2) or on a species basis (body lengths/s^2 or bodylengths/lifespan^2 maybe), we really didn't learn anything.