- 1.
The electrical properties of the membrane of an identified locust motor neurone, the fast extensor tibiae in the metathoracic ganglion, have been investigated to determine: the distribution of excitable and inexcitable membrane; the impulse initiation zone; and the conduction velocity of the spike in the ganglion and in the axon.
- 2.
The waveform of extracellularly recorded spikes indicates that the transition from inactive to active membrane occurs along the region of the neurite which bears many arborizations within the neuropile.
- 3.
Measurements of the delay between orthodromically or antidromically evoked spikes, recorded at the soma and other points along the neurite, place the impulse initiating zone close to the transition between active and inactive membrane.
- 4.
Within the ganglion, the spike is conducted at different velocities over different parts of the neurite. The average velocity within the ganglion is, however, only about a seventh of that in the axon (0.54 m.s−1 against 4.1 m.s−1).
In the field: an interview with Martha Muñoz
Martha Muñoz is an Assistant Professor at Yale University, investigating the evolutionary biology of anole lizards and lungless salamanders. In our new Conversation, she talks about her fieldwork in Indonesia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and the Appalachian Mountains, including a death-defying dash to the top of a mountain through an approaching hurricane.
Call for new preLighters
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preLights is the preprint highlighting community supported by The Company of Biologists. At the heart of preLights are our preLighters: early-career researchers who select and write about interesting new preprints for the research community. We are currently looking for new preLighters to join our team. Find out more and apply here.
Graham Scott in conversation with Big Biology
Graham Scott talks to Big Biology about the oxygen cascade in mice living on mountaintops, extreme environments for such small organisms. In this JEB-sponsored episode, they discuss the concept of symmorphosis and the evolution of the oxygen cascade.
Trap-jaw ants coordinate tendon and exoskeleton for perfect mandible arc
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Trap-jaw ants run the risk of tearing themselves apart when they fire off their mandibles, but Greg Sutton & co have discovered that the ants simultaneously push and pull the mandibles using energy stored in a head tendon and their exoskeleton to drive the jaws in a perfect arc.
Hearing without a tympanic ear
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In their Review, Grace Capshaw, Jakob Christensen-Dalsgaard and Catherine Carr explore the mechanisms of hearing in extant atympanate vertebrates and the implications for the early evolution of tympanate hearing.
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