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HTF is that thing targeting the bacteria? Surface receptor sites for... something? And look - it ignores another bacteria and continues to follow its prey. Dang.
Upon further thought, I feel my thinking about peptidoglycans as the chemical attractant may be in error as this component is also contained in the good bacteria that our body uses. So at the moment, the chemical attractant is somewhat alluding me, but I will try and investigate further.I know bacterium cell walls contain peptidoglycan. This polymer is not found in the human body so perhaps it acts as the chemical attractor. That's just a guess though.
Peptidoglycan is like to a bacteria what cellulose is to a plant cell or collagen is to a human cell, a matrix of some tough stuff outside the plasma membrane.
On another board a guy was telling me that if a bacteria was the size of a car in a big swimming pool or something you would see it churning water and surrounded in a stinky cloud of various kinds of greasy crud it keeps belching out.
What I was wondering was more along the lines of the guidance system. The chemotaxis page didn't offer anything new. That video seems to show more than the emergent behavior of a cell with receptor sites all over it heading up some chemical gradient - if that was the case, then when it passes that other bacteria you would expect it to stick a pseudopod or something out that way. Instead, it actively ignores it and concentrates on its initial prey. Awesome.
I understand the scale but find it hard to comprehend how "blobs" move so (relatively) quickly. It is moving half it's body length in 1 second the equivalent of a human moving at walking pace. The fact that it is moving by changing shape makes it even more remarkable. Looking at the speed of the bacteria, I'm convinced that this is time lapse and I'm curious how much it is sped up.
Another amazing thing about this video is that it was made in the 1950s.
Mike.
There was no mention of it being human, far as I know no one has suggested it was.