Electric Motors
 (L-R: electric motor patent schematic, electric fan motor (top view), SEM photos of flagellar motor
The earliest forms of life, dating back perhaps three and a half billion years, are assumed to be bacteria, and as far as we observe, every cell comes from a cell. Under episodes of cell stress or genome shock, as Shapiro points out in Evolution, a cell “activates the molecular systems that restructure genomes” (ref. Jorgensen). This intense scurry for novelty in response to an external threat, and the coding of solutions into DNA which is passed sideways to their peers, is an observed method of evolutionary progress, and as antibiotic researchers will tell you, it is very effective indeed.
These bacteria are some of the most complicated and smartest critters on the planet – the proof being their survival over eons and their central role even in the biology of human beings: you might not want to live with them, but you can’t live without ‘em.
A method of their locomotion so strongly conserved that it still exists today is the flagellar motor. This cunning device rotates between 20,000 and 100,000 RPM, five times the speed of an F1 engine, and due to the high surrounding pressure at molecular levels (a severe difficulty in nanotech engineering) can stop immediately. When you assemble these motors, they work automatically in response to signals from within the bacteria – there is no need to invoke the supernatural any more than there is to keep track of your electric fan.
The combination of molecules is so precise, and once correctly assembled, they are so sturdy and incapable of misperforming that they only require the context of the cell with its switches, endless supplies of recyclable fuel, and regulatory systems, to perform their specialised task.
Proton or sodium driven, they are equipped with rotor, clutch, bushings, washers, gearing, and even a tiny printed maintenance schematic:
 Osaka Graduate School of Frontier Sciences (bacteria don’t really have a printed manual. Who could read it anyway, below the wavelength of visible light?) |
