Nature's Incredible ROTATING MOTOR (It’s Electric!) - Smarter Every Day 300

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Finally, an explanation for how Tails' helicopter butt works in Sonic the Hedgehog

As a molecular biologist, I think Destin did a great job of explaining how the expression, imaging, chemotaxis, and the rest works. I hope this video makes people think deeply and ask important questions. And if this comment gets enough upvotes I’ll do a video about ATP synthase 😂

Hey everyone, Prash here! I am one of the researchers in this video. It was a pleasure discussing this topic with Destin. He is incredibly smart and genuinely humble. I want to thank everyone for watching and engaging with this video!

Biologist here, just wanted to point out to other viewers that the flagella in eukaryotic cells (like sperm) are totally different from those found in bacteria and archaea. While bacteria and archaea rotate, eukayote flagella bend and whip.

The thing that's been blowing my mind the last year or so is nitrogen fixation. Nitrogen is an essential ingredient for life but the majority of it is bound up in an inaccessible state of triple bonded N2. To split that bond in a laboratory you need something like 500°C temperatures at 200+ atmospheres of pressure. It takes a tremendous amount of energy. And yet, there are bacteria with these enormously complex enzymes called nitrogenases that can take triple bonded atmospheric nitrogen and in a move just short of magic (I'm being facetious) break it apart at or below room temp. Without nitrogenase life on earth would have all died off long ago as earth's supply of free nitrogen was consumed, but these bacteria saved us all. More than that, nitrogenase itself requires elements like molybdenum which are also biologically inaccessible - except for other very particular bacteria that have the ability to collect it and make it accessible to the ones that use it for nitrogen fixation. All over the place there are biological process that seem to intuit the needs of others, and not always with an apparent benifit to the giver. If I weren't alive I'd find life unbelievable.

Biologist here, this is the part where I see many people make the wrong assumption. The flagella in a sperm is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from the rotating flagella in a bacterium. The name is the same, I know, but they operate completely differently. The sperm flagella does not rotate at all, It's actually a sliding mechanism inside that creates a swaying motion. The flagella in bacteria are the rotating ones! ATP Synthase, though, is also another rotating molecular machines that exist in both bacteria and mammalian cells.

I stumbled upon those motors around 1996: there was a small section about them in the university textbook Brock´s Biology of Microorganisms . To this day I remember the drawing of the motor components, very similar but not as detailed as those shown in the video. I was amazed upon learning about the flagellar motors, but even more amazed because the general public and the media seem to ignore them completely. Another interesting fact: The proteins that made up the flagellum are produced inside the cell and "pumped" through the motor hollow core; then they self-assemble to build the flagellum, which is a hollow and flexible tube that grows up from its tip. I have enjoyed very much this video showing the current status of science knowledge about this topic.

As a chemist, molecular biololgy blows my mind away, we struggle to synthezise a 30 atom molecule while every living thing constantly produces insanely complex and biomechanically working supra molecules all the time. The DNA replicating complex is an equally fascinating example

The dithering sound effect was spot on 😂

I love how when Prash talks about the clockwise and counter-clockwise motion he moves the motor in the appropriate direction for the viewer and not himself. It demonstrates his natural ability to get outside of his own head and perspective effortlessly.

Honestly, the fact that microbes have molecular "machinery" to which our own technology bears a coincidental resemblance strikes me as less of an indication that bacteria are unbelievably complex, and more an indication that our technology is extremely simple.

Software developer here, it's interesting that the process they use to generate 3D images is essentially the same as photogrammetry. This is the process of taking pictures of objects, like a rock, from many angles and stitching them together to create a 3D model for things like video games and movies. The idea to do this at the scale of an electron microscope is extremely clever. The rest of the things I learned in this video are truly mind-blowing. Thanks Destin!

The coolest thing about being an 11M sub YouTuber is that you can read about a cool thing, and then just go talk to the scientist that discovered it.

Someone already mentioned that the reason its so efficient is friction, heat and physics works differently at the molecular level.

Oh awesome, an episode on Cryo-EM! I am an Application Scientist for the company that builds those things so I get to play with these microscopes for a living! Great episode and really shows the great potential that this method has for the field of structural biology

The bacteria knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. :D

Another amazing thing about this video is that Destin has built up a reputation such that he can just call up any random reasercher anywhere and they take the time to explain their work to him. That is huge intellectual capitol.

Excuse me while I engineerify your biology.🤣

One thing often missed about evolved complexity is how it doesn't have to be a straight line of "progress". Human-built structures often have scaffolding, some temporary structure that the building relies on during construction, but which is removed when the building is complete. Look at the St. Louis Arch during construction: at a certain point, the legs couldn't get taller without falling over, so it had a big temporary brace, kind of making it into a temporary smaller arch... Once the keystone section was put in place, the brace could be removed and the whole thing stood on it's own. At that point, someone could say it was irreducibly complex: You can't remove a single piece without the structure collapsing, so how could it have been built? Evolution can do something similar: it could be that there's something even more complex that could've been reached through incremental steps, each of them having some survival advantage, but then in the process of optimizing that full structure, we start removing pieces.