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A New Spin On The Bacterial Flagellum: Its Normal Niche And Displacement, Alan L. Gillen

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Antoni van Leeuwenhoek observed individual living cells for the first time in history in 1674. Two years later, he noted microbes with long, thin appendages protruding from globular cells that seemed to provide locomotion, like “little feet” as they moved in drops of water. He gave credit to God in his writings over these new moving wonders. These appendages are now known as flagella (fig. 1), meaning “little whips” (from Latin).

More than 300 years later, Dr. Michael J. Behe used the flagellum and its nanomotor to introduce the concept of “irreducible complexity”—the idea that a structure is so complex …