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  • Summer 2008 - Issue Number 71
  • Summer 2008 - Issue Number 71

Below are the feature articles from Physiology News Issue 71, Summer 2008.

To read the full articles please download the issue.

  • Features

Nucleotide release and airway epithelial physiology

Nucleotide release provides extracellular communication in poorly innervated tissues. In airway epithelia, synchronous release of nucleotides and mucins ensures efficient lung innate defence

  • Features

Sensory vestibular information and vertebrate motor behaviour

Strains of mutant mammals where the inner ear degenerates at birth can be used to study the effect of the lack of sensory vestibular input during development. Recent data show the maturation of the membrane properties of central vestibular neurons is delayed, but not impaired, by the absence of sensory vestibular information. However, the motor behaviour of adult animals remains strongly affected

  • Features

The strange origins of the Student’s t-test
  • Features

Force-frequency relation and myofilament Ca2+ sensitivity

In the failing heart alterations in Ca2+ sensitivity of the myofilaments contribute to the decrease in pump function when heart rate increases, for instance during exercise. An altered balance between kinase and phosphatase activity, which influences phosphorylation and thereby function of the myofilament protein troponin I appears to be responsible

  • Features

A chemical engineering perspective of the gut

The flow patterns existing within the intestine are a function of wall motility and the flow properties of digesta, and are likely to affect the efficiency of nutrient uptake. Spatiotemporal mapping of intestinal motility and chemical engineering techniques are being used to evaluate the physiology of gastrointestinal mixing
  • Features

Skills plan for bioscience
  • Features

Taste receptors and glucose absorption in the small intestine

Natural sugars and artificial sweeteners activate taste receptors in the gastrointestinal tract to triple sugar absorption through the apical GLUT2 pathway and also to increase incretin secretion within minutes. George Kellett highlights the underlying mechanisms and looks at the dietary consequences and clinical opportunities
  • Features

The relatively high Ca2+ flux in Ca2+ sparks could be due to the Ca-binding protein calsequestrin in the sarcoplasmic reticulum

Twenty times more Ca2+ is reported to come from calsequestrin than the pool of free Ca2+ in the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) during voltage-activated SR Ca2+ release in skeletal muscle, thus highlighting its function as a very strong buffer of the global [Ca2+]SR. Calsequestrin may also serve an important function of preventing a local decrease in [Ca2+]SR near the mouth of an open SR Ca2+ release channel thereby enhancing the Ca2+ flux through the channel

  • Features

Exercise for liver health

Sedentary life-style, together with irregular rhythm of life and high energy diet, are nightmares to social and financial policymakers today
  • Features

Why do we bob up and down while walking? The mystery of Antiquity walking shadow finally deciphered

You may find it trivial to move up and down while walking, but this motion is a masterpiece of 4 cm shaped by 7 million years of marriage between smoothness and bounce. This vertical movement, first noticed by Aristotle and now tracked by satellites, is particularly beneficial for loading our muscles to perform a little work efficiently. A lesson on how optimization is a relative success story, and not perfection, is described here
  • Features

Women utilize lipid as fuel more than men during exercise – is there a paradox?
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