Researchers from China report that mice have the potential for “superfast muscles,” making them the mouse equivalent to Barry Allen. Identifying the muscle structure in mouse legs could help in creating future technology that assists in breaking the physical speed limits among normal human arm and leg movements.
In the animal world, superfast muscles are not uncommon. The wings in hummingbirds and tails in rattlesnakes have developed fast-twitching muscles — the same muscles athletes use for competitive sports like sprinting. When it comes to superfast muscles, however, there’s little human research on the topic. The only evidence of superfast muscles in humans is in the eye — where they control rapid eye movement.
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In the current study, the research team used “a new technology called single-cell metabolomic imaging,” according to senior author Ng Shyh Chang, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Headquarters, in a media release. The high-tech machinery allows scientists to study the cells in frozen slices of mouse leg muscles.