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Gonorrhea, a bacteria that's transmitted via sexual intercourse and causes painful swelling, may turn out to be the perfect molecular machine. A group of researchers at Columbia University have announced findings proving that the bacteria can use its pili, long filaments that act like limbs, to pull with a force equivalent to 100,000 times its weight, and hold it for hours. Here you can see a video of a gonorrhea bacterium pulling on tiny, flexible columns around it (the pili, which you can't see, can stretch up to ten times the length of the bacterium, and you can see several columns moving rather far away from the bacteria). I've added some music by Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives that might express what the bacteria is secretly thinking. More »
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