In work published in Physical Review Letters, a research group led by Prof. Yuan Junhua and Prof. Zhang Rongjing from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences proposed a novel nonequilibrium mechanism in the allosteric regulation of motor switching, based on a precise measurement of the switching dynamics of the bacterial flagellar motor. This mechanism also has implications for nonequilibrium mechanisms regulated by other molecular motors.