Spirostomum ambiguum shrinks rapidly, offering clues for faster artificial muscles

Spirostomum Ambiguum. PIC COURTESY/Joseph Lannan

In under five milliseconds, the giant single-celled organism Spirostomum ambiguum can shrink to one quarter of its length, contracting ten times faster than human muscle fibers.

Driven by a fishnet-like, calcium-activated protein network rather than conventional muscle, this rapid mechanism helps the ciliate escape predators and communicate.

Decoding this capability offers inspiration for engineering faster artificial muscles and advanced synthetic cellular machinery.

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