Professional Documents
Culture Documents
If you wish to distribute this article to others, you can order high-quality copies for your
colleagues, clients, or customers by clicking here.
The following resources related to this article are available online at www.sciencemag.org
(this information is current as of November 4, 2010 ):
Updated information and services, including high-resolution figures, can be found in the online
version of this article at:
This article cites 101 articles, 53 of which can be accessed for free:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/288/5463/100#otherarticles
This article has been cited by 242 article(s) on the ISI Web of Science.
This article has been cited by 75 articles hosted by HighWire Press; see:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/288/5463/100#otherarticles
Science (print ISSN 0036-8075; online ISSN 1095-9203) is published weekly, except the last week in December, by the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1200 New York Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20005. Copyright
2000 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science; all rights reserved. The title Science is a
registered trademark of AAAS.
MOVEMENT: MOLECULAR TO ROBOTIC
REVIEW
Recent advances in integrative studies of locomotion have revealed sev- through Newtons laws, accelerates in the
eral general principles. Energy storage and exchange mechanisms discov- opposite direction. Yet, studies of walking,
ered in walking and running bipeds apply to multilegged locomotion and running, swimming, and flying indicate that
even to flying and swimming. Nonpropulsive lateral forces can be sizable, the spatial and temporal dynamics of force
but they may benefit stability, maneuverability, or other criteria that application are not as simple as they might
become apparent in natural environments. Locomotor control systems first appear. From whale sperm to sperm
combine rapid mechanical preflexes with multimodal sensory feedback whales, locomotion is almost always pro-
and feedforward commands. Muscles have a surprising variety of functions duced by appendages that oscillate or by
in locomotion, serving as motors, brakes, springs, and struts. Integrative bodies that undulate, pulse, or undergo peri-
approaches reveal not only how each component within a locomotor staltic waves. As a consequence, although an
system operates but how they function as a collective whole. animal may appear to move forward at a
steady speed, the forces it exerts on the en-