Readings from Scientific American


[ Contents ]



Skeleton, Bones, and Muscles

Month/Year Page Number Comment
12/52 18 "Artificial Muscle." Hayashi and Boehm; Exploring the mechanism of muscular contraction by reducing the tissue to its constituent molecules and putting them together again.
6/53 38 "The Skin of Your Teeth." by Reidar F. Sognnaes. A study of tooth enamel.
10/53 65 "Human Growth." by George W. Gray. The culmination of a 23-year study that shows the interdependence of body structure, emotion, and physiological function in human growth.
3/54 73 "Muscle as a Machine." Katchalsky and Lifson; discussion of experimental results for an experiment in which chemical energy is used to cause the contraction of gels (synthetic muscles.)
2/55 84 "Bone." McLean; a study of the growth and renewal of skeletal tissue and the mechanism by which it maintains the level of calcium in the blood.
2/57 51 See category 6.
12/57 109 "Tooth Decay." Sognnaes; Method of decay, types of resistance.
1/58 30 "The Leap of the Grasshopper." Hoyle: the impressive jump is achieved by powerful muscles with simple nerve controls.
5/58 66 "The Contraction of Muscle." Huxley; the electron microscope is beginning to show the molecular details of this process.
5/59 132 "Tissues From Dissociated Cells." Demonstrates cellular differentiation at the embryonic level.
1/60 138 See category 4.
5/60 148 "How Animals Run." Hildebrand; Evolution of body construction lending itself to the ability to run fast.
4/63 104 "The Aging of Collagen." Verzar; How the biological age can be determined by using collagen, a component of the connective tissue, as an objective index of aging. Clarification of the molecular basis of aging.
8/64 61 "The Embryological Origin of Muscle." Konigsberg. Detailed account of how cells differentiate.
3/65 72 "The Sarcoplasmic reticulum." Keith R. Porter and Clara Franzini-Armstrong. Intracellular coordination of myofibril shortening to produce muscle contraction.
5/65 88 "The Physiology of Exercise." Carleton B. Chapman and Jere H. Mitchell.
6/65 76 "The Flight Muscles of Insects." David S. Smith
10/65 18 "Electrical Effects in Bone." C. Andrew, L Bassett. When bone is mechanically deformed it generates a small electric current. The changes that occur in living bone when it is under mechanical stress may be mediated by electric fields.
12/65 18 "The Mechanism of Muscular Contraction." H. E. Huxley. Myofilaments as anatomical units involved in contraction.
4/67 56 "The Antiquity of Human Walking." Napier; How the discovery of an ancient toe bone shows that man's erect gait is more than a million years old.
7/67 102 "General Tom Thumb and Other Midgets." McKusick and Rimoin; How certain midgets have a deficiency of the pituitary's growth hormone.
1/68 21 "Earlier Maturation in Man." Tanner; discusses the trends in growth rates and in reaching puberty over the past century.
4/68 69 "Tetanus." Heyningen; discusses the etiology behind the condition. Of particular interest is the pathology in relation to the nervous and muscular systems.
3/69 54 "Continental Drift and Evolution." B. Kurten; displays skeletal evidence.
4/69 114 "Horns and Antlers." W. Modell; details of relation to skin and bone, respectively.
5/69 70 "The Energetics of Bird Flight." V. A. Tucker; wind-tunnel tests of metabolism.
8/69 87 "Keratins." R. D. B. Fraser; studies of the material of hair, feathers, horns, claws, etc., by several methods.
1/70 76 "Gigantopithecus." Simons and Ettel. This extinct ape may have stood nine feet tall and weighed 600 pounds.
3/70 88 "How an Eggshell is Made." Taylor. A substantial amount of Calcium for the shell is drawn from the hen's bones.
4/70 84 "How is Muscle Turned On and Off?" Hoyle. The calcium ion appears to play a key role in the contraction of muscle fibers.
6/70 82 "How Snakes Move." Gans. For their principle mode of locomotion snakes push downward but not sideways.
6/71 44 "Elastic Fibers in the Body." Russell Ross and Paul Barnstein; fibers that provide a means for tissues to stretch and rebound.
3/72 84 "The Sources of Muscular Energy." Margaria; ATP.
5/72 30 "How We Control the Contraction of Our Muscles." Merton; automatic feedback mechanism.
4/73 114 "The Amateur Scientist." Machines that work like muscles.
2/74 58 "Comparative Action of Muscle Proteins." Murray and Weber; Four proteins act together in muscle contraction.
11/75 36 "Protein Switch of Muscle Contraction." Cohen; the role of tropomyosin and troponin in contraction. Largely biochemical in nature.
6/76 109 "Future Performance in Footracing." Ryder, Carr and Herget; Fast runners are restrained more by psychological factors than physiological capabilities. The physiological limits of speed have never been reached by a human being.
12/76 72 "The Control of Walking." Keith Pearson; discussion of the mechanism by which the nervous system generates the rhythmic movements of the leg during walking.
2/77 106 "The Response to Acetylcholine." H. A. Lester; the first steps in the response of a muscle cell to a nerve impulse.
4/77 83 "Biocrystals." S. Inone and K. Okazaki; sea urchins provide a model for skeletal growth.
7/77 66 "Biological Regeneration and Pattern Formation." P. J. Bryand, S. V. Bryant, and V. French; regrowth of amputated limbs.
1/79 44 "The Surgical Replacement of the Human Knee Joint." D.A. Sonstegard, L. S. Matthews, and H. Kaufer; details of advances in artificial knee joints and their implantation.
12/78 148 "Fast Running Tracks." T. A. McMahon and P. P. Greene; optimum in rigidity vs. springiness can improve runners' times; new fast track at Harvard is based on this analysis.
1/79 108 See category 10.
4/79 150 "The Physics of Karate." M. S. Feld, R. E. McNars and S. R. Wilk; details of bare-handed destructions without injury.
5/79 100 "The Molecular Basis of Cell Movement." E Lazarides and J. P. Revel; uses immunofluorescence micrographs to examine the proteins involved for various types of cells.
3/80 154 "The Physics of Somersaulting and Twisting." C. Frohuch; diving and gymnastics.
7/80 150 "In judo and aikido application of the physics of forces makes the weak equal to the strong." Jearl Walker (Amateur Scientist).
11/80 198 See category 10.


[ Contents ]


Dick Piccard revised this file (http://ouvaxa.cats.ohiou.edu/~piccard/scientam/skeleton.html) on February 24, 1998.

Please E-mail comments and suggestions to piccard@ohiou.edu.