Scientists flex their muscles to solve an old problem
Monday, April 11, 2011 - 15:00
in Physics & Chemistry
In a famous experiment first performed more than 220 years ago, Italian physician Luigi Galvani discovered that the muscles of a frog's leg twitch when an electric voltage is applied. An international group of scientists from Italy, the UK and France has now brought this textbook classic into the era of nanoscience. They used a powerful new synchrotron X-ray technique to observe for the first time at the molecular scale how muscle proteins change form and structure inside an intact and contracting muscle cell. The results are published in the 11 April 2011 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).