Consumer & Gadgets

Body-monitoring tech trend comes with concerns

A ring shimmers on display at the Consumer Electronics Show, but this is no mere piece of jewelry—it's packed with sensors capable of detecting body temperature, respiration and much more.

Robotics

A wearable robot that assists people with walking

In recent years, roboticists have introduced increasingly advanced systems, which could open exciting new possibilities for surgery, rehabilitation, and health care assistance. These robotic systems are already helping to ...

Robotics

A personalized exosuit for real-world walking

People rarely walk at a constant speed and a single incline. We change speed when rushing to the next appointment, catching a crosswalk signal, or going for a casual stroll in the park. Slopes change all the time too, whether ...

Hi Tech & Innovation

New fibers can make breath-regulating garments

A new kind of fiber developed by researchers at MIT and in Sweden can be made into clothing that senses how much it is being stretched or compressed, and then provides immediate tactile feedback in the form of pressure, lateral ...

Robotics

Scientists create the next generation of living robots

Last year, a team of biologists and computer scientists from Tufts University and the University of Vermont (UVM) created novel, tiny self-healing biological machines from frog cells called "Xenobots" that could move around, ...

page 1 from 9

Muscle

Muscle (from Latin musculus, diminutive of mus "mouse") is the contractile tissue of the body and is derived from the mesodermal layer of embryonic germ cells. Muscle cells contain contractile filaments that move past each other and change the size of the cell. They are classified as skeletal, cardiac, or smooth muscles. Their function is to produce force and cause motion. Muscles can cause either locomotion of the organism itself or movement of internal organs. Cardiac and smooth muscle contraction occurs without conscious thought and is necessary for survival. Examples are the contraction of the heart and peristalsis which pushes food through the digestive system. Voluntary contraction of the skeletal muscles is used to move the body and can be finely controlled. Examples are movements of the eye, or gross movements like the quadriceps muscle of the thigh. There are two broad types of voluntary muscle fibers: slow twitch and fast twitch. Slow twitch fibers contract for long periods of time but with little force while fast twitch fibers contract quickly and powerfully but fatigue very rapidly.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA