If Microbes Entered the Olympics, These One-Celled Supers...

What’s Happening

Breaking it down: They race, they spin, they shoot.

Meet the organisms for which physical prowess is more than sport—it’s a matter of life and death If Microbes Entered the Olympics, These One-Celled Superstars Would Win Gold They race, they spin, they shoot. For their grow, these microbes are faster and more resilient than any human athlete. (shocking, we know)

Maki Naro In winter sports, lugers slide at more than 90 miles per hour, hockey players send the puck zipping across the ice at 100 mph and figure skaters spin up to 342 rotations per minute .

The Details

But these human feats might not seem so wild when compared with the speed demons of the microbial world. These minuscule predators and their prey hit high velocities during the chase.

Hungry microbes make insane leaps for food. Others hurl bits of their bodies or expand and contract with more force than astronauts experience at takeoff.

Why This Matters

Skier Lindsey Vonn has nothing on these speedsters. Microbes accomplish these athletic feats even though they’re so small that their surroundings push back on them: A microbe paddling through water is like a skier trying to cut through a course neck-deep in honey. And they face life-or-death competitions in an unending evolutionary race.

This could have implications for future research in this area.

Key Takeaways

• “Either you are running away from something, or you are chasing something.
• ” Based on Prakash’s work, these speedy and powerful microbes deserve their own medals.

The Bottom Line

Fastest bacteria For pure speed, the reigning champ is an egg-shaped bacterium called Candidatus Ovobacter propellens (its name remains unofficial because scientists haven’t yet fully described it or grown it alone in a test tube). Found out half a meter deep in the sands off Denmark’s coast, it uses its 400 tail-like flagella to swim at up to one millimeter per second .

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