To function over a lifetime of use, materials and structures must be designed to have
sufficient factors of safety to avoid failure. Vertebrates are generally built from materials …

Neuromechanics seeks to understand how muscles, sense organs, motor pattern
generators, and brain interact to produce coordinated movement, not only in complex terrain …

Animal performance fundamentally influences behaviour, ecology, and evolution. It typically
varies monotonously with size. A notable exception is maximum running speed; the fastest …

Geckos with adhesive toe pads rapidly climb even smooth vertical surfaces. We challenged
geckos (Hemidactylus garnotii) to climb up a smooth vertical track that contained a force …

Technological advances in robotic hardware and software have enabled powered
exoskeletons to move from science fiction to the real world. The objective of this article is to …

Legged animals routinely negotiate rough, unpredictable terrain with agility and stability that
outmatches any human-built machine. Yet, we know surprisingly little about how animals …

We currently know little about how animals achieve dynamic stability when running over
uneven and unpredictable terrain, often characteristic of their natural environment. Here we …

Dynamic changes in jaw movements and bite forces depend on muscle architectural and
neural factors that have rarely been compared within the same muscle. Here we investigate …

Muscle work during level walking and ascent and descent ramp and stairway walking was
assessed in order to explore the proposition that muscles perform more positive than …

Natural selection is an important driver of microevolution. Yet, despite significant theoretical
debate, we still have a poor understanding of how selection operates on interacting traits (ie …