|
wiring up
Title: wiring up
Category: Science & Technology
Details: Words: 2035 | Pages: 8.7 (approximately 235 words/page)
wiring up
WHEN the commonplaces of one discipline are applied to an unrelated field,
they can prove curiously fruitful. In 1952 two British physiologists, Alan
Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley, managed just such a fruitful crossover, applying
textbook physics to living tissue. They were both later knighted, and
shared a Nobel prize in 1963. The experimental method they pioneered
remains fundamental to research into the behaviour of nerve cells.
As anyone who has ever had an electric shock knows, electricity …showed first 75 words of 2035 total…
You are viewing only a small portion of the paper.
Please login or register to access the full copy.
|
|
…showed last 75 words of 2035 total…called this the gating
current. It flows when, under the influence of a voltage across the
membrane, charged molecular plugs break away to unblock the channels.
Research today concentrates on matching what is known of the molecular
structure of the channels, with ever finer readings of their electrical
behaviour, to discover how and why the channels open and close. This
continues the escape from "biological generalisations", in favour of Dr
Hodgkin's and Dr Huxley's approach.
Need a custom written paper?
|
|
