The fibres of a mouse heart resemble a neat bird’s nest structure, but their specific orientations and interactions come together to drive blood around the body. The individual muscle strands were visualised using diffusion tensor imaging, which essentially tracks the movement of water molecules through single cells, revealing their position, size and shape. The pattern of…
Tag: biomechanics
In focus: New genetic method proves the importance of wing geometry in ‘superflies’.
What defines the biomechanical performance of an animal? Dr Robert Ray (Francis Crick Institute), in collaboration with Dr Richard Bomphrey’s group at the Royal Veterinary College have just published their findings that by altering the production of just one protein they can change – and even improve – flight agility in fruit flies. This ground-breaking…
It’s a leap day! Frog hoppers accelerate at equivalent to more than 500g to beat nature’s high jump record
Although the flea is well-known for being the greatest animal high-jumper, researchers have demonstrated that the frog hopper could steal the crown for insect acrobatics. Compared to the previous title-holders, frog hoppers take off almost five times faster, exerting a force equivalent to over 400 times their own body-weight where the flea produces around 135…
In Focus: Innovations in bats’ skin helped flying mammals take off
This week’s post was written with the help of Dr Jorn Cheney, post-doctoral fellow at the Royal Veterinary College. If you would like to contribute a guest post, please get in touch on Twitter or Facebook. Powered flight has evolved four times in the animal kingdom: once each in insects, birds, pterosaurs and bats. Biomechanists have spent decades…
Spine flexibility helps cheetahs reach top speeds
Cheetahs are the ultimate sprinters among large land animals, reaching bursts of up to about 110 kph (~68mph) and unbeaten as the fastest living runner on the planet. This beautifully re-articulated skeleton reveals some of the ways they are able to reach such superhuman speeds. The sigmoidal curve of the spine visible in this image allows the front and…
News: RVC’s Dr Richard Bomphrey talks about smoke, lasers and solving the bumblebee paradox
It’s a commonly-quoted scientific paradox that bumblebees should be unable to sustain flight, according to the laws of aerodynamics. But Richard Bomphrey, from the RVC’s Structure and Motion lab, is using biomechanics and some seriously high-tech equipment to solve this and other major questions in insect flight – read all about it in a new article…
Kangaroo tails act as a ‘fifth limb’, making them one of the only pentapedal animals
Although they’re famous for their bounding jumps, kangaroos are masters of another curious method of locomotion: they walk using five ‘legs’. When moving at slow speeds, kangaroos walk on all fours, but they frequently move their two hind legs in unison, rather than staggered like most other tetrapods do. As they move their hind legs…
We’re gearing up for a new project here at RVC..!
Today we welcomed seven new pheasants to the lab for a project on bird biomechanics! Masters student Olivia Morris-Barry will be filming the birds and tracking their movement for her thesis project at the Royal Veterinary College. For more information on our work on birds, watch the video above!
Anatomy To You 