A toad sits at a pond's edge eyeing a cricket on a blade of grass. In the blink of an eye, the toad snares the insect with its tongue. This deceptively simple, remarkably fast feeding action offers a new look at how muscles work.
This fresh perspective could lead to designing more efficient electric motors, better prostheses and new medical treatments for neuromuscular diseases like Parkinson's.
Science has long held that muscles behave largely like motors. Northern Arizona University researcher Kiisa Nishikawa suggests that muscle acts more like a spring.
"Existing theories don't explain how muscles shorten rapidly," Nishikawa said. "Muscles can only shorten to do work; they can't do work by lengthening." A spring also can only do work by shortening.
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