Sentences with phrase «midshipman muscles»

The researchers found that, as in the Atlantic toadfish, midshipman muscles only contract once per nerve impulse.

Crucially, however, midshipman muscles release approximately eight times less calcium than toadfish muscles in response to single nerve impulses.

Thus, to sustain an hour - long mating call, the midshipman muscle releases, and subsequently pumps, only two times as much calcium as the toadfish uses to make intermittent calls over the same time period.

Not exact matches

«The small amount of calcium released per stimulus is the key element that permits the calcium pumps in midshipman swimbladder muscle to keep up over long periods of high - frequency stimulation,» Rome explains.

Rome and colleagues therefore measured the amount of calcium released and pumped by midshipman swimbladder muscles as they repeatedly contract and relax.

«The midshipman swimbladder muscle generates more contractions per hour than any other known vertebrate muscle, explains Lawrence C. Rome, Professor of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania.

However, he adds, it remains to be seen how such low calcium levels cause the swimbladder muscle to contract with sufficient force to generate the midshipman's distinctive hum.

At a rate of 100 contractions and relaxations per second, the midshipman swimbladder muscle can therefore contract as many as 360,000 times over the course of an hour - long call.