« Cloned animals deemed safe to eat | Main | Did worldwide drought wipe out ancient cultures? »

Boost in mystery muscle creates endurance mice

Rare muscle fibres could improve sporting prowess.

A genetic tweak has converted mice into endurance runners by enriching a little-known form of muscle fibre. The discovery could help boost sporting abilities, or reveal ways to slow muscle wasting.

Read the story here.

Posted by Helen Pearson on January 2, 2007 05:48 PM |

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blogs.nature.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1680

Comments

the freaks of nature link doesnt work

Posted by: marty k | January 5, 2007 07:23 PM

Your description of muscle fiber types is in error. The article states that there are 2 types of slow twitch fibers -- Types I & IIA. Type I fibers are slow twitch, but Type IIA are not. There are 3, and some say 4 types of fast twitch fibers -- Types II, IIA, IIB, and some sources say IIAB. with proper training, Type IIA fibers can attain a greater degree of aerobic capacity than Type II or IIB but they are still classsified as fast twitch fibers.

Posted by: James Nonnemacher | January 6, 2007 03:05 PM

Post a comment

Comments will be reviewed by staff before being published. You can be as critical or controversial as you like, but please don't get personal or offensive, and do keep it brief. Excessively long entries may be cropped. Remember this is for feedback and discussion - not for publishing papers or press releases.

We strongly encourage you to use your real, full name. Email addresses are required: this is just in case we need to discuss your comment with you privately. They won’t be published.


Please enter the numbers you see below - this helps us to cut down on spam. Note that attempting to post within 30 seconds of hitting ‘preview’ or ‘post’ can cause the system to think you are spamming the site. If you are having trouble with this system, you can instead e-mail a comment to 'inthefield at nature.com'.

Search