世界上速度最快的生物

科學家計劃研究世界上速度最快的生物——并希望將從它們的行動中所學到的知識運用到制造微型機器人當中。

The creature isn't a cheetah or a falcon; instead, it's a single-celled organism called Spirostomum ambiguum, commonly found in bodies of water. Cheetahs can sprintat speeds of more than 60 mph (96.5 km/h), and falcons may dive at well over 250 mph (400 km/h). But S. ambiguum can move even faster, shortening its body by 60 percent into a football shape within "a few milliseconds," according to a press release.

這種生物既不是獵豹也不是獵鷹，而是一種名叫Spirostomum ambiguum的單細胞微生物，通常能在水體中找到它們。獵豹的沖刺時速可以超過96.5公里/小時，而獵鷹的俯沖時速可以超過400公里/小時。但是根據一篇新聞稿，S. ambiguum的移動速度甚至更快，能在“短短幾毫秒”的時間內能將身體縮短60%變成一個球形。

But researchers have no idea how the single-celled organism can move this fast without the muscle cells of larger creatures. And scientists have no clue how, regardless of how the contraction works, the little critter moves like this without wrecking all of its internal structures.

但是研究者不清楚這些沒有大型生物肌肉細胞的單細胞微生物是如何做到這么快速的移動的。就算不管它們身體的收縮是怎么個原理，這些小家伙如此快速的移動還不會破壞內部結構就讓科學家毫無頭緒了。

Saad Bhamla, a researcher at Georgia Tech, received a grant from the National Science Foundation to study and model S. ambiguum's contraction motion at the subcellular level. He hopes to come to understand the motion well enough, he said, to break it down into ideas that could be used for robots.

喬治亞理工大學的研究者Saad Bhamla得到了美國國家科學基金會的基金，用于研究和模擬S.ambiguum在亞細胞級別上的收縮運動。他希望能足夠了解這種運動，然后分解成概念再運用到機器人當中。

"As engineers, we like to look at how nature has handled important challenges," Bhamla said in the release. "We are always thinking about how to make these tiny things that we see zipping around in nature. If we can understand how they work, maybe the information can cross over to fill the gap for small robots that can move fast with little energy use."

“作為一個工程師，我們想看看大自然是怎樣對付重大的挑戰(zhàn)的，”Bhamla在新聞稿中表示，“我們一直在思考是什么讓我們看到的這些小東西在自然環(huán)境里移動迅速的。如果我們能理解了其中的原理，或許這些知識可以用來填補使用少量的能量就能快速移動微型機器人的空白。”

When you curl into a ball like the S. ambiguum, or sprint like a cheetah, or dive like a falcon (the latter is not recommended, except possibly into very deep swimming pools), you activate actin and myosin proteins in your muscle cells that contract to generate motion, the statement said.

聲明中說道，當你像S.ambiguum一樣蜷縮成一個球，或者像獵豹一樣沖刺，或是像獵鷹一樣俯沖(最后一個不建議模仿，除非俯沖進一個很深的游泳池里)，你會激活肌肉細胞中的肌動蛋白和肌球蛋白。

But tiny creatures like S. ambiguum don't rely on proteins of that sort, Bhamla said. (S. ambiguum exists on a sort of fuzzy boundary between animals and non-animals. Older texts often considered single-celled "protozoans" like this, which have animal-like characteristics, to be part of the animal kingdom. But more recently biologists have tended to separate them into their own kingdom of life, known as Protista.)

但像是S.ambiguum這樣的微型生物并不依賴于蛋白質這樣的，Bhamla說。(S.ambiguum存在于動物和非動物之間一個有些模糊的界線上。較老一些的教科書通常認為像它這樣的是單細胞“原生動物”，有著類似于動物的特點，是動物王國的一份子。但是最近的生物學家更傾向于將這類生物單獨劃分出來歸類為原生生物。)

"If they had only the actin and myosin proteins that make up our muscles, they couldn't generate enough force to actually move that fast,” Bhamla added. "The smaller they are, the faster they [accelerate] — up to 200 meters per second squared [650 feet per second squared]. That's really off the charts."

“如果它們只有構成我們肌肉的肌動蛋白和肌球蛋白的蛋白質的話，是無法產生足夠的動力供它們快速的移動的，”Bhamla補充說道，“它們的體型越小，加速度就越快——能夠達到每平方秒200米。這真的是快到爆表。”

Instead, the creatures use alternative, complex molecules to achieve both motion and tasks like moving their internal structures around.

作為替代，這種生物使用交替的、復雜的分子來實現運動和完成移動它們內部結構的任務。

Bhamla hopes, he said in the release, that the molecules at work in this motion might lead to meaningful technological jumps, which in turn could lead to improvements on existing nanorobot technology.

Bhamla在新聞稿中表示，他希望在這種運動中運轉的分子可以帶來意義深遠的技術飛躍，轉而改進現有的納米機器人技術。