Fast, faster, fastest…
What’s the fastest acceleration ever recorded in nature? As it happens– and as demonstrated in this video (replete with music from Friday’s honoree, Giuseppe Verdi, the “Anvil Chorus” from Il Trovatore)– it’s the firing of spores from a fungus– 180,000 g.
Read the journal article here.
As we fasten our seat belts, we might recall that this was a bad date, in 1216, for King John of England… retreating from an invasion by the French (having succumbed to the Barons the year before, and signed the Magna Carta), John took a safe route around the marshy area of the Wash in Lincolnshire to avoid the rebel-held area of East Anglia. But his poky baggage train (which was carrying his Crown Jewels) took a direct route across it– and was lost to the unexpected incoming tide.
