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Who is the World’s Fastest?Usain Bolt was born in Jamaica on August 21, 1986. Both a standout cricket player and a sprinter early on, Bolt’s natural speed was noticed by coaches at school, and he began to focus solely on sprinting under the tutelage of Pablo McNeil, a former Olympic sprint athlete. As early as age 14, Bolt was wowing fans of sprinting with his lightning speed, and he won his first high school championships medal in 2001, taking the silver in the 200-meter race. 

At the age of 15, Bolt took his first shot at success on the world stage at the 2002 World Junior Championships in Kingston,

Jamaica, where he won the 200-meter dash, making him the youngest world-junior gold medalist ever. Bolt’s feats impressed the athletics world, and he received the International Association of Athletics Foundation’s Rising Star Award that year and soon was given the apt nickname “Lightning Bolt.”

Usain Bolt became the first man in Olympic history to win both the 100-meter and 200-meter races in world record times in 2008. Four years later, at the London Olympics, he became the first man to win gold medals in both the 100 and 200 at consecutive Olympic Games. He holds the world record for the 100 meter dash: 9.58 seconds.

The Mantis ShrimpThe Mantis Shrimp is one of the oceans most amazing animals. Called "sea locusts" by ancient Assyrians, "prawn killers" in Australia and now sometimes referred to as "thumb splitters" – because of the animal's ability to inflict painful gashes if handled incautiously– mantis shrimp sport powerful claws that they use to attack and kill prey by spearing, stunning, or dismemberment. Although it happens rarely, some larger species of mantis shrimp are capable of breaking through aquarium glass with a single strike from this weapon.

Mantis shrimp strike by rapidly unfolding and swinging their claws at the prey, and are capable of inflicting serious damage on victims significantly greater in size than themselves. In some species, these two weapons are employed with blinding quickness, with an acceleration of 102,000 m/s2 and velocities of 23 m/s from a standing start. In fact, if a human being could move their arm with 1/10th of that acceleration, they could throw a baseball into orbit.

Now, a new study reveals the secrets behind the strength of the mantis shrimp's claw at the molecular level. It turns out this appendage is ideally adapted to deliver punishing blow after punishing blow without breaking. These adaptations are already inspiring researchers to engineer biology-mimicking materials that could inspire everything from better boat propellers to safer body armor.

The Cheetah

Usain Bolt 1

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If cheetahs seem a breed apart, it’s because they are. Not only are they a separate species from the other great cats, they belong to a separate genus as well, a genus with just one member: themselves. Their genus name, Acinonyx, comes from Greek words for “thorn” and “claw” and refers to the cheetah’s curious semi-retractable claw, a feature they share with no other cat. Unlike lions and leopards, whose fully retractable claws are tools designed for tearing flesh and climbing trees, cheetahs have claws that are more like the spikes on a sprinter’s track shoe and serve a similar function: solid grip and quick acceleration.

Everything about a cheetah is designed for speed—pure, raw, explosive speed. Thanks to its flexible spine and long, fluid legs, a cheetah can gobble up turf in bounds that exceed 25 feet. An elite human athlete who could leap that far even once, after a good run, would be well on his or her way to qualifying for the Olympic Games. A cheetah sprinting at top speed might be doing that up to four times a second. These incredible strides allow a cheetah to accelerate faster than most sports cars. In fact, a cheetah can reach speeds of 100 km/hr (or about 60 mph) in three seconds, and has an estimated top speed of

120 km/hr. How fast is this? Well, at this speed, a cheetah could run mile (1600 meters) in 45.5 seconds.

Name _____________________________________Period __________ Date ____________Conclusion

A __________________ is faster than both a __________________ and a _____________________. In the article,

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In the article, ______________________________________________________________________________________________

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In the article, ______________________________________________________________________________________________

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_______________________________________________________. This means ________________________________________

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In conclusion, a __________________ is faster than both a__________________ and a_________________________,

because ____________________________________________________________________________________________________

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