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Fungus Fire Spores With 180,000 G Acceleration

Posted by timothy on from the easy-at-that-size dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Although a variety of spore discharge processes have evolved among the fungi, those with the longest ranges are powered by hydrostatic pressure and include 'squirt guns' that are most common in the Ascomycota and Zygomycota. In these fungi, fluid-filled stalks that support single spores or spore-filled sporangia, or cells called asci that contain multiple spores, are pressurized by osmosis. Because spores are discharged at such high speeds, most of the information on launch processes from previous studies has been inferred from mathematical models and is subject to a number of errors, but now Nicholas Money, an expert on fungi at Miami University, has recorded the discharges with high-speed cameras at 250,000 frames-a-second and discovered that fungi fire their spores with accelerations up to 180,000 g, calling it 'the fastest flight in nature.' Money and his students, in a justified fit of ecstasy, have created a video of the first fungus opera."

69 comments

  1. Nematocysts by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nature has other fast biological processes. I will cite the Nematocyst cells that jellyfish employ to inject poison into their victims.

    Essentially creatures like jellyfish have cells that contain what looks like a coiled rope marinating in poison ... when the cell is stimulated, it squeezes and fires the rope out through the small opening on the outside of the cell and sends a rigid looking line instantly out several feet. This was thought to be one of the fastest biological processes for a while as estimates have placed the force on these coils to be 40,000 g to millions of gs.

    I saw a discovery channel special on this once and the video footage they showed up close of these cells reacting just gave you a skin crawling sensation all over your body. But after seeing that, it's no wonder certain box jellyfish or the Portuguese Man O' Wars (not actually jellyfish but a colony of Siphonophorae) can put poison through your skin, through your flesh and down to your bones/organs instantly.

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Nematocysts by aproposofwhat · · Score: 3, Funny
      The paper's quite interesting in it's own little way, but what made me grin was the description of the fungi as 'corprophilous'.

      Gotta love that shit...

      --
      One swallow does not a fellatrix make
    2. Re:Nematocysts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      makes me wonder if someone ever measured the speed of a pinched out zit

    3. Re:Nematocysts by fbjon · · Score: 1

      Should be simple enough... just attach an impact sensor to the mirror.

      --
      True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
    4. Re:Nematocysts by SomeoneGotMyNick · · Score: 2, Funny

      makes me wonder if someone ever measured the speed of a pinched out zit

      What mass, and how many G's does it take for the discharge to break the mirror?

      (Score:-1, Disgusting!!!)

    5. Re:Nematocysts by DivineOmega · · Score: 1

      Your post is interesting too; you used the contraction for IT IS instead of a possessive pronoun like ITS. I don't love that shit, though.

      Well said

  2. So Dr. Money... by Bananatree3 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm guessing you've got little problems with receiving grants?

    1. Re:So Dr. Money... by fiordhraoi · · Score: 5, Funny

      Is it wrong to point out that this video of quickly expelled reproductive materials, taken by Dr. Money, could justifiably called a "Money shot?" :P

    2. Re:So Dr. Money... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's what she said! (And also the bit about acceleration...).

    3. Re:So Dr. Money... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1) Money
      2) Fungi
      3) Profit! (Duh!)

    4. Re:So Dr. Money... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's all I could think of :)

    5. Re:So Dr. Money... by MistrBlank · · Score: 1

      Thanks, I just spit my afternoon latte all over my monitor.

    6. Re:So Dr. Money... by ScreamingCactus · · Score: 1

      That explains the "fit of ecstacy"!

      --
      The path to enlightenment is truly through homemade drugs!
  3. Fungus/fungi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Fungus fires spores, or

    Fungi fire spores

    Pick one or the other

    1. Re:Fungus/fungi by Intron · · Score: 5, Funny

      Only you can prevent fungus fires.

      --
      Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
    2. Re:Fungus/fungi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Forest fires cause smokey bears...

    3. Re:Fungus/fungi by Rui+del-Negro · · Score: 1

      No, you don't get it. The article is about the extremely high-acceleration sporing of fungus fire.

  4. Zerg! by chill · · Score: 4, Funny

    Zerg Spore Colonies in Starcraft. Better get 'em while they're young, from a safe distance. Watch for the rush.

    --
    Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
  5. Bad 80s saying by OneEyedJack · · Score: 1

    That's SO Money!

    http://www.builderonline.com/Images/BD050701063L2_tcm10-12885.jpg

    --
    -Jon in Canada
  6. acceleration !=fast by Thelasko · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I would have called it the quickest flight in nature, but that's not entirely accurate either.

    --
    One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
    1. Re:acceleration !=fast by crenshawsgc · · Score: 1

      Sorry, for 99.9% of the general public and 98% of slashdot, the terms used are perfectly acceptable. And even someone as erudite as you got the intended meaning as well. Let it go.

  7. Must...resist...obvious...joke... by nasor · · Score: 2, Funny

    Nicholas Money has taken some video "shots" of these fungi firing their spores everywhere?

    1. Re:Must...resist...obvious...joke... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Asci porn is so 80's. What's this doing on the Slashdot front page?

  8. You are Non... by ungybungy · · Score: 2, Funny

    Perhaps, if we were to plant spore sacs in your brain organ and let its tendrils spread through your flesh, then you would truly understand Juffo-Wup... become part of Juffo-Wup.

    1. Re:You are Non... by LSD-OBS · · Score: 1

      A single spore lands, finds nourishment in decay and attains maturity.. In turn it exhales a cloud of life, a thousand spores land... so progresses Juffo-Wup.

      The Juffo-Wup is strong in this place.

      --
      Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why. -- Hunter S. Thompson
    2. Re:You are Non... by Coraon · · Score: 1

      What makes this world so special to you?

      --
      -Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
    3. Re:You are Non... by zapakh · · Score: 1

      What? Sorry, you spazzed out there for a second.

  9. Material for Sci-fi Artists by Talking+Goat · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have to see a starship firing off missiles with this kind of action. Replace fungal-goo with plasma, spore with warhead, and you'd have an awesomely unique design concept for space weaponry.

    --

    + G to tha Izzo, A to tha Tizee, Talking Giz-oat, Ya'll Bettah Feel Me... +
    1. Re:Material for Sci-fi Artists by mikael · · Score: 1

      I remember Xenon 2 - it had some amazing shaded/animated fungi and blobby things that exploded when you fired at them.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    2. Re:Material for Sci-fi Artists by nedlohs · · Score: 1

      You mean like the bugs in Starship Troopers, though they were slow motion anti-air (well anti-orbiting space craft maybe) shots...

    3. Re:Material for Sci-fi Artists by StrawberryFrog · · Score: 2, Funny

      So long as the warhead only weighs as much as a tiny spore, that should work well.

      --

      My Karma: ran over your Dogma
      StrawberryFrog

  10. Aaaaaaaahhhhh,,,, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...SKEET SKEET SKEET.

  11. Fit of ecstasy? by lbmouse · · Score: 1

    You are a pretty sick puppy when fungus causes any type of "fit of ecstasy".

    1. Re:Fit of ecstasy? by WillDraven · · Score: 3, Funny

      You have clearly not eaten enough of the fungus to understand.

      --
      This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
  12. Odd... by rehtonAesoohC · · Score: 1

    Those videos don't look all that unfamiliar.

    /hint hint
    /nudge nudge

  13. Why can't I tag this "late?" by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

    I can tag it "latex," or "latency" but not "late," despite typing late into the box and making sure that was all that was there when I hit enter. I was stupid enough to try the experimental index system and now I can't go back. Woe is me.

    http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/09/17/fungi-spore-speed.html

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    1. Re:Why can't I tag this "late?" by stjobe · · Score: 1

      Try this: Click "Help & Preferences", click "Index", uncheck the "Use Beta Index" box.

      Now, woe can be someone else!

      --
      "Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
    2. Re:Why can't I tag this "late?" by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 1

      Some tag keywords (story, comment, nix, nod, etc.) are reserved for internal use instead of being sequestered into an isolated name space (i.e. internal tags could start with underscore and users prevented from creating tags starting with underscore).

      --
      Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
  14. From TFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The fungi fire their spores up to 55 miles an hourâ"which translates to an acceleration of 180,000 g.

    Speed translates to acceleration?

    Oh, wait... Does g stand for grams?

    Mixing metric and imperial units may have catastrophic effects, as NASA already experienced.

  15. Loosely related acceleration question by abigsmurf · · Score: 1, Interesting
    This extreme level of G force reminds me of something that's always messed with my head regarding acceleration.

    Shouldn't Stopping be impossible?

    I'll explain. Assuming you've a steady linear deceleration and it takes you 10 seconds to come to a stop. The closer you get to 10 seconds, the closer you are to zero velocity. However at some point, you have to reach 0m/s. The problem is, going from any value even something amazingly small like 1 x 10^-99999m/s to 0m/s instantly would be infinate G's. It could only be possible if you continued accelerating by an infintessimal amount past 0 or never actually stopped.

    Is coming to a complete stop (or a constant, fixed velocity) actually impossible, is there some effect at low velocities I was never taught or is this a case of a fired arrow never hitting a turtle?

    1. Re:Loosely related acceleration question by archeopterix · · Score: 1

      Arrow and turtle. If your position is time^2 for time < 0 and 0 (stopped) for time >= 0 then there is no infinite acceleration anywhere along the line. Do the d/dtime calculations and see (hint: d/dx(x^2)=2x ).

    2. Re:Loosely related acceleration question by Front+Line+Assembly · · Score: 1

      What's the problem? You don't do it instantly but take some time. Duh...

    3. Re:Loosely related acceleration question by bruins01 · · Score: 1

      He's saying that no matter how slowly you are going before you stop, you still need infinite acceleration to actually reach 0 m/s.

    4. Re:Loosely related acceleration question by TerranFury · · Score: 1

      Say you're in a car, braking, and assume constant deceleration -- call this constant value a. Then velocity decreases linearly to zero, at which point (say this happens at time t = t_s) the acceleration discontinuously changes from a to zero. Notice that the acceleration is bounded below by 0 and above by a; it is always finite -- so all inertial forces here are bounded.

      What is infinite is the jerk, which is the time-derivative of acceleration. In this example, the jerk is zero for all t not equal to t_s, and infinite at t_s. But of course this is imprecise. More precisely, the jerk can be represented by a Dirac delta function.

      Hope that helps. (*Wonders is "infinite jerk" puns will follow.*)

    5. Re:Loosely related acceleration question by Spykk · · Score: 1

      This sounds like a variation on the old paradox: To walk across a room, you must first walk half of the distance. To walk half the distance, you must first walk half of that. There are an infinite number of half distances that must be travelled before reaching a destination, so how do we get anywhere?

    6. Re:Loosely related acceleration question by thesandtiger · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That's another variation on the concept of Xeno's Paradox, really (wiki it). In both cases, in order for this to be an actual paradox, time would have to be infinitely smooth, as in not have a minimum possible unit - you can keep on having shorter and shorter amounts of time.

      From what I understand, because time and distance seem to be granular (with the minimum units being Planck distance and Planck seconds or something like that), the whole problem gets avoided since EVERYTHING is granular and the deceleration from one moment to the next (even before a full stop) would go in a kind of quantum way - either you're at a speed of 1000 planck distances per planck second, or you're at 999 planck distances per planck second, not 999.99 p/p etc.

      It made sense at the time I heard it, but you know, that was undergrad and I was probably really high.

      --
      Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
    7. Re:Loosely related acceleration question by Fex303 · · Score: 1

      Sounds like the second answer - it's some sort of variation on one of Zeno's paradoxes. I would suggest that the part where you're going wrong is 'instantly'. Things don't actually happen instantly, they just happen over periods of time that are too small for us to measure. (There are various exceptions for quantum effects, but they get weirder than I can bothered discussing now.)

    8. Re:Loosely related acceleration question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're changing your velocity infinitesimally in an infinitesimally small amount of time - this can be a finite ratio (calculus)

    9. Re:Loosely related acceleration question by Hythlodaeus · · Score: 1

      You go from 1 x 10^-99999m/s to 0m/s in ~10^-999999s, not instantly, though at some scale things become quantized, apparently.

      --
      For great justice.
    10. Re:Loosely related acceleration question by blindd0t · · Score: 1

      I think you've over-complicated a simple question...

      Shouldn't Stopping be impossible?

      No, depending on the magnitude and direction of the forces being applied on an object over a duration of time, it is possible for the velocity, at some instance in time, to be zero (even though forces will continue to act on it). Yes, you can talk about an infinitely small/large time and velocity, but being "stopped" is merely a description of what happens in one very specific instant of time. Think of this article's scenario similar to a spring force, which is used to fire a "spore" up, which also has the forces of gravity and friction from the air acting on it. The spring-like force will only act on the object for a small duration of time compared to gravity, obviously, so gravity, over a larger duration of time, applies more fore than the spring force from when the spore is ejected. So, if we assumed the spring force acting in one direction, and gravity is acting in the exact opposite direction, and there are no other forces acting on the object, then you would expect the object's velocity to hit zero at some point in time. The equation used to express the spore's vertical position would be a typical negative quadratic in respect to time. When the slope of this quadratic is zero, the velocity is zero.

      Now, if you really wanted to complicate things, you would say the object, as observed in typical conditions on Earth, appears to have "stopped." Though the object is still moving with the Earth despite this, what's particularly relevant here is physical behavior in regard to what we observe. Also, the likelihood achieving net forces which are applied in a manner which results in an exact opposite velocity seems very unlikely, though it's possible to get infinitely close, or at least close enough to be relevant to what's observable and/or measurable. There's always some margin of error with measurement.

    11. Re:Loosely related acceleration question by woztheproblem · · Score: 1

      Why? Acceleration is simply the rate of change of velocity. If you decelerate from 2m/s to 1m/s in some amount of time, then you can decelerate from 1m/s to 0m/s in the same amount of time with the same deceleration rate (g's).

      There's nothing special about 0m/s compared to any other velocity, except that he's chosen to stop decelerating when he hits 0m/s. He could choose to continue decelerating which would give him a negative velocity (like -1m/s). Alternately, he could have simply chosen to stop decelerating at 1m/s.

    12. Re:Loosely related acceleration question by Daimanta · · Score: 2, Informative

      That's easily solved by Calculus. An infinite number of additions can result in a finite number.

      Example: Consider 1/3 (one third)

      Written our it's 0,3333333333333....

      You can turn that into a sum namely

      0,3 + 0,03 + 0,003 + 0,0003 + .....

      You can write that as a sum //Forgive the crappyness of plain-text // Slashdot is many years behind on this one...

      Sum from n=1 to n=infinity of 3/10^n

      So here it is, a infinite sum making a finite number. Glad to have busted that one.

      --
      Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
    13. Re:Loosely related acceleration question by francium+de+neobie · · Score: 1

      It doesn't have anything to do with the smoothness of time. People have been doing differentiations and integrations over continuous-time functions for centuries. When you're talking about real physics with Plank time and distance limitations, the GP's 1 x 10^-99999m/s difference might make sense.

      But the Newtonian model of physics usually just assume time and space to be continuous - e.g. to get the distance from a velocity function you do integration not summation over Plank-time steps. And the math still works. The reason it works is because it is mathematically ok to get a finite ratio over infinitesimal numbers. It doesn't work for the GP's scenario because the GP's number, 10^-99999m/s, is just finite, not infinitesimal. The GP is thinking differentiation and integration in discrete-time terms, and that wouldn't work.

    14. Re:Loosely related acceleration question by thesandtiger · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but math is, like, hard, and I was high.

      Actually, to respond to your real point - I guess I just feel like the calculations are approximations (albeit incredibly accurate and useful and so on), or attempts to describe the physical world, but not actually descriptions of what the real world is like. From what I gather of Newtonian physics, we know that it doesn't REALLY describe what's happening at every level, it's just a way of calculating the macroscopic behavior of a system. Newton, for example, basically said, "things have mass, can be accelerated, and are affected by gravity, whatever either of those are, and here's how mass and gravity and acceleration seem to make things move" (and yes, I'm simplifying the hell out of it.) He did not talk about what the actual mechanism for things having mass was, or what acceleration was, or what causes/is the basis for gravity.

      My comment was primarily about the actual basis for such behaviors (a guess, really, since I am absolutely not up on the details about all this stuff and am entirely a layperson, not a lawyer, etc. and so on) - just a different way of explaining something.

      The math describes the behavior but doesn't explain it. The planck stuff (if that's actually the case, but what the hell do I know?) attempts to explain the behavior but doesn't describe it. Two different approaches to the same problem.

      The post I was responding to asked why it is or how it is that something can stop moving without experiencing infinite g's. While the calculus might be nice for showing how it mathematically describes the behavior, it doesn't actually address the question of what the basis for the behavior is.

      --
      Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
  16. Big Blew by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "or cells called asci"

    IBM has yet to get the EBCDIC version working...

  17. Another fun animal by Knuckles · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Bombardier beetle.

    --
    "When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
  18. This Side of Paradise by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Do any of these spores thrive under Bertold rays and have miraculous healing properties on humans, such as regrowth of a removed appendix?

    --
    Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
  19. Find out more on the CBC! by RabidMonkey · · Score: 2, Informative

    This was discussed on Quirks and Quarks, a fantastic science news show on the CBC, a few weeks back (link to the show here, available as an mp3, or ogg).

    It was a really interesting segment, have a listen. The show is also available as a weekly podcast, and I can't reccomend it enough.

    Hurrah for public radio!

    --
    We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us. - Douglas Coupland
  20. Real uses for this? by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

    I'll resist from making jokes (I had too much SCons/Python today for a person used to a Make/Perl diet; but I am beginning to acquire the taste).

    Can anyone think (dream/scheme) up some practical uses for this?

    With that acceleration, can we send something into space with a very large array of these?

    Could this be Mother Nature's non-lethal weapon? (Zap somebody in the face with fungus spores, instead of tasering them?

    I'm sure the eclectic melange of geniuses and nut-bags that are /. could come up with something that is halfway practical/unfeasible.

    --
    Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  21. Putting the spores to shame by dhTardis · · Score: 1

    You go from 1 x 10^-999999m/s to 0m/s in ~10^-999999s, not instantly, though at some scale things become quantized, apparently.

    Fixed that for you. -10^900000 gs sounds unpleasant!

  22. Re:Nematocysts what a discovery... by davidsyes · · Score: 1

    That is kewl and fungky....

    --
    Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
  23. ah, good old Miami University by Freeside1 · · Score: 1

    I'm quite surprised and relieved that something useful has come from Miami U, given the type of students they have.

  24. warning: twitter sockpuppet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=986049&threshold=-1&commentsort=1&mode=nested&cid=25269377

  25. Poor math by Jerry+Coffin · · Score: 2, Informative

    For anybody who cares, the correct number is not 180 000 Gs of acceleration. It's really 180 000 meters per second squared, which gives about 18 000 Gs.

    --
    The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
    1. Re:Poor math by Sir+Holo · · Score: 1

      Actually, 18,000 gs would be more correct.

      Big G is the gravitational constant, little g is 9.8 m/s^2.