locomotion
- Thermal robustness of biomechanical processes
Summary: Mechanical processes that replace chemical processes in organismal movement can result in performance that is robust to changing temperature.
- Thermal acclimation leads to variable muscle responses in two temperate labrid fishes
Summary: Two fish species from the Northwest Atlantic demonstrate variable acclimation responses when presented with temperatures that naturally induce winter quiescence.
- A low-cost method for carrying loads during human walking
Summary: In humans, carrying loads on the swinging arms is as costly as carrying loads at the waist, despite the expectation that swinging a mass about a limb should be much more costly.
- Walking on chains: the morphology and mechanics behind the fin ray derived limbs of sea-robins
Summary: Several morphological modifications are likely to contribute to the stiffness of the novel walking appendages in the sea-robin and therefore their ability to facilitate underwater locomotion.
- How zebrafish turn: analysis of pressure force dynamics and mechanical work
Summary: Modified particle image velocimetry (PIV) together with pressure computations reveal the turning mechanics in zebrafish.
- Stepping pattern changes in the caterpillar Manduca sexta: the effects of orientation and substrate
Highlighted Article: The stepping patterns of Manduca sexta (caterpillars) vary with substrate and orientation, indicating that they can detect and respond to the mechanical properties of the environment with which they interact.
- The biomechanics of knuckle-walking: 3-D kinematics of the chimpanzee and macaque wrist, hand and fingers
Highlighted Article: The first 3-D kinematics of the knuckle-walking chimpanzee hand illustrates unique characteristics as well as shared commonalities with digitigrade and palmigrade walking of macaques.
- To walk or to run – a question of movement attractor stability
Summary: In accordance with the dynamical systems theory, lower limb attractor stability is highest at a particular gait mode closest to the corresponding preferred speed.