Fungus Fire Spores With 180,000 G Acceleration

Hugh Pickens writes "Although a variety of spore discharge processes have evolved among the fungi, those with the longest ranges are powered by hydrostatic pressure and include 'squirt guns' that are most common in the Ascomycota and Zygomycota. In these fungi, fluid-filled stalks that support single spores or spore-filled sporangia, or cells called asci that contain multiple spores, are pressurized by osmosis. Because spores are discharged at such high speeds, most of the information on launch processes from previous studies has been inferred from mathematical models and is subject to a number of errors, but now Nicholas Money, an expert on fungi at Miami University, has recorded the discharges with high-speed cameras at 250,000 frames-a-second and discovered that fungi fire their spores with accelerations up to 180,000 g, calling it 'the fastest flight in nature.' Money and his students, in a justified fit of ecstasy, have created a video of the first fungus opera."

Nematocysts

[eldavojohn]

Nature has other fast biological processes. I will cite the Nematocyst [wikipedia.org] cells that jellyfish employ to inject poison into their victims.

Essentially creatures like jellyfish have cells that contain what looks like a coiled rope marinating in poison ... when the cell is stimulated, it squeezes and fires the rope out through the small opening on the outside of the cell and sends a rigid looking line instantly out several feet. This was thought to be one of the fastest biological processes for a while as estimates have placed the force on these coils to be 40,000 g to millions of gs.

I saw a discovery channel special on this once and the video footage they showed up close of these cells reacting just gave you a skin crawling sensation all over your body. But after seeing that, it's no wonder certain box jellyfish [wikipedia.org] or the Portuguese Man O' Wars (not actually jellyfish but a colony of Siphonophorae) [wikipedia.org] can put poison through your skin, through your flesh and down to your bones/organs instantly.

Fungus/fungi

[Anonymous Coward]

Fungus fires spores, or

Fungi fire spores

Pick one or the other

Material for Sci-fi Artists

[Talking Goat]

I have to see a starship firing off missiles with this kind of action. Replace fungal-goo with plasma, spore with warhead, and you'd have an awesomely unique design concept for space weaponry.