Nature's Incredible ROTATING MOTOR (It’s Electric!) - Smarter Every Day 300
Added 2024-07-28 15:00:40 +0000 UTCThank you for supporting Smarter Every Day on Patreon! You'll notice that there's no sponsor on this video. That means this video is 100% supported by you on Patreon!
1. Here's a link to the Team's Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-024-01674-1
2. The Iverson Lab at Vanderbilt University: https://lab.vanderbilt.edu/iverson-lab/
3. Prash's personal page (you can download a 3D print file etc here) https://linktr.ee/prash_singh
I'm grateful for your support! I think this video is quite interesting. Thanks for helping me make what I hope you view as intelligent, respectful content!
Grateful,
Destin
Comments
As a longtime viewer, with a background in molecular biology, I very much enjoyed this video! And as a fellow believer, I agree this is a sign of providence. Thanks Destin.
Andrew Wojcik
2024-08-15 00:06:20 +0000 UTCCould we just dampen the oscillation of CO2 a little with some kind of… okay I’m not an engineer, but it seems like we need a little plumbers putty! https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-pinpoint-the-quantum-origin-of-the-greenhouse-effect-20240807/
Slug Forcontacts
2024-08-13 01:24:37 +0000 UTCLife had to happen? No offense intended but your words sound almost religious. "Had to" infers there was intent, a conscious will. Scientific exploration leads us to a beginning. Not an infinite universe as was once speculated. The universe is expanding, therefore it was smaller in the past. Therefore at one point in the past, it was a single point of beginning.
Mike and Sonja Connell
2024-08-04 23:31:03 +0000 UTCIsn't that the beauty of the probability though? As our universe seems to be infinitely big (13.5 billion years is the light bubble we can see, no evidence suggests that the actual universe isn't bigger), the probability of life happening no matter how small is 1 as space and time are truly infinite. Life had to happen and it did given the scales we're dealing with.
Parth Patel
2024-08-04 22:40:53 +0000 UTCHey Mike, I would say we actually don't know what the answer is behind consciousness. There's no way we know if those are the only two options - bring created by an intelligence or it coming out of nothingness. The problem with god concept is that it's the action of believing in a concept before even beginning to research the problem. If we find that it is indeed the case, well, then we should believe in the meta physical entity called god. That entity being benevolent is a different case altogether. If you held complete control over another being's life (animal or human), meaning you can control when and how they are able to move including the power to kill them, should they worship you? I guess they should - to beg for mercy. There is no guarantee that you would be nice to them. There are people who enjoy killing, what if they were in control instead? Second problem with the 'intelligence sparking our intelligence' idea is that who created the first intelligence? Where was this entity/universe created? Why don't we worship the intelligence that created god itself? Why not go one level deeper and worship the intelligence that created the intelligence that created god? You see where I'm going with this? That line of thinking, at least to me, seems wrong. Why not work our way up from the experimental data we can collect and form hypothesis and theories based on that? The beautiful thing about science is that if a god was indeed true and experiments and data prove it, people following the scientific method would believe in it. Science is always changing the beliefs according to new data.
Parth Patel
2024-08-04 22:38:01 +0000 UTCThey are scientists James. They can believe in a religion but their work would involve using the scientific method for their research. Otherwise, what's stopping them from hanging up their coats/careers saying 'Well, God did this, so there's nothing more we can look at or understand'. Most people believe in religion to cope with the nothingness of our existence i.e. to find meaning or purpose for their lives and actions. Human brain can't comprehend why there is so much of mass spread around in such unique ways, so it must be for us. Someone must have created this space and everything in it for us. The fear to cope with vastness of the space and the grand scale of the time is what sparked the 'god' myth among humans - contrary to any evidence. I don't have a problem with the concept of god if that helps bring peace to someone. Organized religion however, I believe, has done so much bad compared to the little good it does. Religion has always been a tool to exploit/control masses by the few people who understand it's power to wield it. What I'm trying to say is, scientists can still believe in god for their personal belief, however their actual work involves unlocking the secrets of the laws of physics that govern our universe (laws of physics being the concept of god for some of the scientists).
Parth Patel
2024-08-04 22:28:08 +0000 UTCI'm so much more interested, how they made the movie of this moving motor. edit: that sounds rude, I'm sorry. Thank you for your video, it was interesting and nice a recap and update on this topic for me. And from this point of view comes first sentence, cause we struggled (time and resource wise ) to make such good looking and long videos with our proteins (and similar big molecules).
dwarfnose
2024-08-04 21:10:13 +0000 UTCI'm not so into this stuff anymore (cause I left academia some years ago). But the thing with "electric" is, that it only works due to the presence of this different ions (charged particles) and their induced electric potential difference. So you could theoretical isolate the motor (included in a membrane) and produce the charged particle via anode and have the corresponding electrode (cathode) on the other site of the membrane. The motor should then only work if this electric circle is closed. It should not work if you put a pressure difference on it or other potential energy differences. I hope this helps as explanation. (the electric potential difference with ions is often used in cells in many different aspects of their working, for example the "Electron transport chain" to produce usable energy in cells via mitochondria (fun part: there is also a motor like protein complex used at one point, the ATP-Synthase))
dwarfnose
2024-08-04 20:58:58 +0000 UTCAnd yet at the core are 2 ideas trying to answer the question "How did it all start, where did it all come from?". One believes in an intelligence that sparked it. The other believes it was sparked out of nothingness. Proving one or the other is impossible, we can only look at the evidence and come to a reasonable conclusion.
Mike and Sonja Connell
2024-08-04 18:28:13 +0000 UTCThank you Destin for the 2 camps analogy. It took me decades to have the confidence to say the evidence leads me to believe the earth and universe are ancient, not just several thousand years old. And yet the evidence also leads me to believe that the idea of random, sequential evolution leading to the complexities we see at even the smallest scale is beyond anything reasonable. A perfectly balanced universe that has the capacity for life to form causes one to pause and consider an intelligent designer. Michael Behe's book - Darwin's Black Box - helped me understand just how impossible the randomness of everything coming together at the right time AND in the proper sequence is.
Mike and Sonja Connell
2024-08-04 18:18:33 +0000 UTCCongrats Destin on #300! Freaking awesome! (And for some reason the mental image of Leonidas keeps coming to mind.... but I don't know why... ha!) ;)
James B
2024-08-03 12:59:57 +0000 UTCHere is a short list of living persons who have legitimate hard science degrees/educations, are practicing or retired scientists, and who are also publicly professing Christians. 1. Dr. James Tour - organic chemist 2. Dr. Hugh Ross - astrophysicist 3. Dr. Francis Collins - former director of the National Institutes of Health and leader of the Human Genome Project 4. Dr. John Lennox - mathematician and philosopher of science at Oxford University 5. Dr. Joshua Swamidass - computational biologist 6. Dr. Michael Behe - biochemist 7. Dr. John Polkinghorne - physicist (and Anglican priest) 8. Dr. Donald Knuth - mathemetician, computer scientist and creator of the TeX computer typesetting system. 9. Dr. Henry F. Schaefer III - theoretical chemist You can look up the written works of any of these, and several have extensive YouTube videos/conversations. I highly recommend Drs Tour, Ross, Lennox, and Swamidass. Incredibly deep thinkers within legitimate scientific fields, and who also deeply believe in God. They each have extensive YouTube videos. I encourage you to check them out. Respectfully
James B
2024-08-03 12:48:42 +0000 UTCYou can disagree without being sarcastic. Many in this thread have done so. You choose to attack me rather than to dispute what *science* actually is.
Randy Coffee
2024-08-01 19:18:06 +0000 UTCMust be difficult to exist in a place where you react to a suggestion of having open and unbiased discussion by taking such a defensive and "prove-ably" ego centric position. Please allow for the possibility that any conceivable interpretation may ultimately prove valid.
Rick Edwards
2024-08-01 18:39:30 +0000 UTCWe don't really know what's 'right'. It's the method of asking questions and forming beliefs/hypothesis that is on debate here. Do you want to make your opinions based on emotions/feeling/faith or on a pseudoscience like astrology OR do you want to have opinions and beliefs based on facts and theories that align as closely as possible to the experimental, observable data we can gather through scientific methods? And no, this is not that fallacy of not listing other options and forcing you to choose between the given options. These two ideologies are fundamentally different.
Parth Patel
2024-08-01 03:21:24 +0000 UTCAnd this is what Destin was referring to when he was talking about defending a flag. There is a discussion to be had. Nowhere in here is he saying you are wrong. If you are in fact right you should have no problem asking questions.
Phil
2024-08-01 02:32:30 +0000 UTCI'm extremely disappointed that Destin would suggest that just because something is complex and hard to understand, it must be 'made by god' or somehow faith should be involved in this discussion. Why are we involving creationism ideas when there's no need to? Purposefully confuse the people with theories that have no scientific basis?
Parth Patel
2024-07-31 08:48:22 +0000 UTCOh wow, I didn’t know folks were looking at this back in 2007. It’s neat to see how the schematic has become mapped out down to each atom and bond.
Max Goldstein
2024-07-31 05:39:34 +0000 UTCCongratulations on 300 episodes Destin. I saw this thumbnail and title and had to wait so my wife and I could watch it together. We did plenty of E. coli gene manipulation in college, and loved watching you poke into our fields of study. I knew this video would be like crack for my brain and boy did it deliver. All my favorite things I had to visualize in my head with biochemistry are now being modeled on computer for others to see and follow along, what a difference a couple of decades of technological progress makes. Seeing your "Ahaa moments" as you connect the dots from what you already know into a new subject area you are learning is great! Please keep making amazing videos like this one where you pursue something you are interested in. Also thanks for including the reminders at the end to keep an open mind, think critically, and listen to others as we explore the universe.
Timothy Thiele
2024-07-31 04:06:09 +0000 UTCI really enjoyed this video - previously I'd only seen the flagellar motor used as a football in debates on the origin of life. Learning how it actually works, and how the imaging of it was done was so much more interesting.
Patrick Ford
2024-07-31 02:46:25 +0000 UTCEven cars with automatic parking do this...
David Sallge
2024-07-30 21:02:07 +0000 UTCI had the same question. The researchers refered to it as "electric".
Smarter Every Day
2024-07-30 14:38:40 +0000 UTCBlobafil is important to map out. LOL. My buddy George came up with that word.
Smarter Every Day
2024-07-30 14:37:21 +0000 UTCOf course, that's the "god of the gaps" argument. I think you might enjoy reading this paper. https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.0700266104
Smarter Every Day
2024-07-30 14:36:15 +0000 UTCI don't think Destin was really addressing the scientific community there, do you? I thought it was more directed at us, his viewers. There's always the temptation to use a creator's work to say "see? My view point is obviously true". Destin is always careful to avoid setting us up for that (he doesn't ever use what he's sharing to back up a political or philosophical claim). At the end of the video, he's just more explicitly encouraging people to think about whether they do that sometimes themselves
Samuel Hatton
2024-07-30 14:21:56 +0000 UTCIt's amazing what nature is capable of.
Iván
2024-07-30 14:13:07 +0000 UTCI’m not religious but I get the same feeling when I look at this flagellar motor. A sense of awe. Thanks for what you do Destin you too are awesome 👍
Gavin Sullivan
2024-07-30 10:29:42 +0000 UTCOh crap! I must have missed it. Thanks!
Lucas T.
2024-07-30 01:58:55 +0000 UTCIt's the first link in the description of the post!
Drake Bauer
2024-07-30 01:58:08 +0000 UTCThis is getting way above my pay grade. lol My wife is a RN at one of the clinics at Vanderbilt. I would of liked to of met you and treated you to lunch or something when you came to Nashville. If you would like let me know when your coming to Nashville sometime. Always enjoy your insight and videos!
Nashguy207
2024-07-29 20:47:59 +0000 UTCAmen! Great video. I love how you do not hide your faith. Believe that we have to have this open minded experience to look at the world through a broad lens. Then you can come to your own conclusion and still respect view points that you may not see as valid but more as a data point.
Jeremiah Cawthon
2024-07-29 17:36:01 +0000 UTCNice video Destin!! By any chance, you have the link or name of the paper for the published paper?
Lucas T.
2024-07-29 16:43:03 +0000 UTCBefore jumping to any philosophical or religious conclusions, it's worth noting that there's still a lot on this topic we don't know. Are there different versions of this motor in different bacteria species? How are new motors manufactured by bacteria as they divide and reproduce? What are the genes for this motor, and how are they related to other genes? A similar conversation happened around the evolution of the eye, which is now better understood. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the argument "science can't explain x, therefore literal biblical God" does not have a good track record.
Max Goldstein
2024-07-29 16:14:26 +0000 UTCCongrats on episode #300 Destin! This is an amazing glance into microbiology. For some reason I connected emotionally more with it than some of the more manufacturing content. Perhaps it's because of these tiny discoveries still being made? Thanks for the video man. P.S. Also enjoyed the explanation of the microscope imagery process. My next step is to purchase a cyro-electron microscope and map out my blobafils.
Greg Strike
2024-07-29 16:12:32 +0000 UTCSame reason that I turn down the radio while parking the car... :-D
Sean Corbett
2024-07-29 13:52:53 +0000 UTCThis video was disappointing to me. The scientific community isn’t defending flags. They are defending observable, prove-able facts that can be repeated.
Randy Coffee
2024-07-29 11:25:46 +0000 UTCCongratulations on #300! I really appreciate and enjoy your excitement as you got deeper into your discussion with Prashant. I especially enjoyed the passion he has for his work and ability to make such a complex mechanism and the process to discover it understandable. Wow. Thank you Destin!
David Glover
2024-07-29 08:23:07 +0000 UTCCongratulations on 300 episodes!
Daniel Turner
2024-07-29 02:48:52 +0000 UTCDestin, You referred to it as being “electric“ but in reality if it is being driven by pressure differentials in high and low concentration of ions, would that not be hydraulic just like in a generator in a hydroelectric dam?
Steven Kershaw
2024-07-29 01:53:16 +0000 UTCDestin- First, congratulations on your 300th episode! Second, thank you for exploring the flagellar motor. Knowing you are a man of faith, I appreciate how you handled the science versus faith debate. When we focus on true understanding, the more we get smarter every day!
Dale Hedges
2024-07-28 23:55:20 +0000 UTCWow. Just wow. I got smarter today because of Destin. :-) Very glad to be a patron.
Jim Jernigan
2024-07-28 23:41:22 +0000 UTCOne of the most interesting Videos on YouTube in the last couple of years. Please consider the Flagellar Motor for this year's stickers.
Bojan Hrnkas
2024-07-28 22:49:36 +0000 UTCMy husband, with permission, used cell animation from Harvard to prepare a lesson for church on the incredible design of the cell. Here is a link to one of the videos in the series. https://youtu.be/XOaiWl-nW1k?si=5OpULrTQm4jfjhkF
JaneWalker
2024-07-28 21:27:35 +0000 UTCI notice that when you concentrate on listening and you're trying to understand, you tend to look down at nothing. I do the exact same thing. Not sure why I do it, but I have a theory that it is to lessen other potentially distracting input. I can have trouble concentrating if there is something that catches my eye and start wondering about the way someone's mouth moves or notice something else in their appearance. I don't see many people do this. Just found it interesting.
Örn Arnarson
2024-07-28 20:47:41 +0000 UTCDear Destin, I was on the verge of supporting you for many years now but I finally did it. I’m a PhD student in Machine Learning at a Biochemistry institute and we work on similar problems with similar technology. We also look at ML/AI techniques adapted to protein sequence and structures to solve engineering challenges. You’re welcome to reach out if you ever want to do a followup video or need some pointers to US based protein groups!
Philip Hartout
2024-07-28 19:52:35 +0000 UTCThis is absolutely amazing! Thanks for stimulating my curiosity and for being a true inspiration for so many years, Destin!
Jonas Wahlen
2024-07-28 18:49:25 +0000 UTCHappy 300th! Thanks for enriching and equipping me!
Tyler Callis
2024-07-28 18:00:32 +0000 UTCUnspeakably cool to see half an hour wizz by whilst watching cutting-edge chemistry! I had about the same reaction when I first learnt about mitochondreal proton pumps in my chem major and it's kept me going through to a masters. Nature is just too awesome to not be studying. Cheers om the 300 episodes, here's to many more!
Rick Rijpers
2024-07-28 17:56:15 +0000 UTCmy brain is racing to figure out more ways to use this in healthcare. UNC had an amazing project they were researching using molecular levels to deliver medications more accurately to synapse or uptake sites. Unfortunately the lead researcher passed away so I hope this can all continue on this molecular structure engineering and modern applications
Adam Edmundson
2024-07-28 17:47:56 +0000 UTCThis is why I am here. The details, the natural curiosity and guest experts that are so very passionate about their work. Good science builds Faith, and good Faith requires discovery.
Kevin Milne
2024-07-28 17:44:39 +0000 UTCThank you for the work you do
joe chapman
2024-07-28 17:36:17 +0000 UTCLucky 300! I feel the same sense of joy in finding out about our amazing world. The science and dedication of the people doing the foundation research is so inspiring. Thank you for counterbalancing all the 'badness' out there. Please keep finding and sharing the joy.
Barry
2024-07-28 17:28:17 +0000 UTCThat was a really nice 300th video🎉 I always enjoy when you make links across multiple fields, really makes things easy to understand. I've seen this engine on Twitter before but didn't research the details, it is amazing.
Tiky
2024-07-28 17:28:04 +0000 UTCCongrats on 300 episodes! 💯
Jay Mweller
2024-07-28 17:16:44 +0000 UTCThanks for being so authentic. It is one of the things I love about you!
Danny Haws
2024-07-28 16:43:10 +0000 UTCWe really, really need you to use your credibility and standing to dig into this area. Please stay with me while I try quickly to explain… To sum up: Because these little motors can (and do) break up CO2 using sunlight, we need to understand and replicate this feature at huge scale, cheaply, and quickly. This needs a pragmatic engineer who can gently redirect academic navel gazing. That’s you, man! Context: There are many bio-engines like this flagellar turbine. Biochemists know of one that can save Earth, assuming we can scale it up. I’m not sure why it’s not already done, but that’s where you come in. I’ll drop links to detail at bottom. For now, I’ll try to get to the beef. Target: There are two well known cycles that have made our planet suitable for living things bigger than bacteria. (1) The Calvin cycle, and (2) The Krebs cycle. The Calvin cycle is what makes photosynthesis happen. The Krebs cycle is how Cyanobacteria put enough oxygen into the air to sustain complex life in the first place. Comment: (The Krebs cycle can run forward or backwards, so it may be the best starting point. But the Calvin cycle already does what we need. But it’s inefficient.) OBJECTIVE: …we need to engineer one or both of these motors into thin films (or lagoons, or whatever) so that we can specifically grab CO2 molecules (literally. one-at-a-time.) and make them harmless. ———— …okay if you’re still with me, thank you! I’ll edit more in, below, to fill in the gaps, so you can see why I’m writing this note… I’ll drop in links to ATP Synthase and Nitrogenase. (Bio)chemistry seems to have very old roots and that shows up in naming conventions.) Your submarine analogy in this video is not as useful as DC current-conducting sheets. Your submarine is not a pressure vessel. It’s a circuit board. Electrons have negative charge and protons have positive charge. The submarine is a semiconductor. Search on “Lipids” for more. When the charge difference gets big enough, electricity moves across the membrane and does things. (This is where the old metaphor of thinking of electricity as water in a hose brings the two ideas back together.) Chlorophyll is the best understood of these drive systems. It includes the fuel converter, the electrical conductors, and the batteries that get charged. It’s also got the MECHANICAL component that makes this thing work! This mechanical component is why it’s biology and not just chemistry. The guy I’m linking below has some wonderful old-school illustrations that show you exactly what’s going on in ATP synthase and RuBisCo. (Disclaimer: As I understand things, our best knowledge is on photosynthesis. Nitrogenase as not nearly fully understood. And every time I go looking at our understanding of how electrons orbit around molecules, I find something new.) Science seems to be really struggling to “see” under ten nanometers! Let alone at that scale IN MOTION! In your video, the guy says they’re looking at stuff that “looks familiar.” …That is not quite science, as you well know…. But it’s the best we’ve got and we’re running out of time. https://www.patreon.com/posts/107948232?utm_campaign=postshare_fan
Slug Forcontacts
2024-07-28 16:26:33 +0000 UTCThis is why I joined Patreon. I don’t support any other creators but your work has to be funded. Thank you for what you do.
Phil
2024-07-28 16:11:38 +0000 UTCThat is amazing, thank you for creating this and sharing it with us.
Dewayne
2024-07-28 15:21:47 +0000 UTCGods pretty cool, war damn destin
George Reese
2024-07-28 15:17:03 +0000 UTC
