Muscle

For the first time, engineers have digitally recreated the complex muscular architecture of the octopus arm and its unique movements involving around 200 muscles, which opens the door to developing soft robotics with unprecedented dexterity.

Good news for those who need to hit pause in getting fit: Even after a 10-week break from training, it took very little time to return to pre-hiatus levels. The study has revealed fascinating new insights into the power of mysterious muscle memory.

If you've ever woken up in the night with a painful thigh, calf or foot cramp, you'll know how disruptive this condition is – and it gets worse as we age. But there's good news out of the first human trial that used a type of vitamin K to combat it.

Rapid weight loss can cause a greater loss of muscle mass than losing weight slowly. The popularity of newer weight-loss drugs that shed pounds quickly has raised concerns among researchers about how this will affect the health of our muscles.

Examining the muscles of Eddie Hall, a British strongman and deadlift champion, has given researchers greater insight into muscle strength, which could inform athletic performance, injury prevention, and healthy aging – giving hope to even the non-athletic among us.

Researchers have tracked muscle contractions in a bird's vocal tract, and reconstructed the song it was silently singing in its sleep. The resulting audio is a very specific call, allowing the team to figure out what the bird's dream was about.

Exercise is usually a good thing but for many long COVID patients it can often make their condition worse. Two new studies are shedding light on this counter-intuitive phenomenon, finding distinct physiological abnormalities in long COVID patients.

The race is on in the search for a way to effectively extend both our lifespan and healthspan. One team of scientists is confident its mitochondria-targeted drug-like molecule has the potential to deliver on these two crucial areas of human longevity.

More than 40 million Americans carry this feline-host bug. Now, a new study has linked our immune response to the infection with accelerated physical and cognitive decline. Fortunately, you don't have to throw the cat out with the cat litter just yet.

Researchers have created a magnet-containing 'workout mat' that simulates the mechanical forces exerted on muscle cells during exercise. It may assist in testing treatments for people with muscle injuries and neuromuscular diseases.

Using paired smartphones, motion-capture app OpenCap films video and then uses AI to analyse human movement, providing detailed data for use in rehabilitation, presurgery plans and disease diagnostics – and is 1% of the cost of traditional technology.

A new study has investigated the biological mechanisms brought about by calorie restriction and found that a moderate reduction in calorie intake can improve muscle health and activate biological pathways important for good health.