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Prime Mover: a Natural History of Muscle. (Books: a selection of new and notable books of scientific interest).


STEVEN VOGEL

Why does squid get chewy chew·y  
adj. chew·i·er, chew·i·est
Needing much chewing: chewy candy.



chewi·ness n.
 if it's cooked too long? How do hand tools serve as extensions of our muscles? How do katydids make such a loud sound? How much work can a muscle do? In answering these and many more questions, this book is an entertaining and compelling overview of what we know about muscle. Vogel, author of Cats' Paws and Catapults, is a professor at Duke University who specializes in biomechanics The study of the anatomical principles of movement. Biomechanical applications on the computer employ stick modeling to analyze the movement of athletes as well as racing horses.
Biomechanics 
. Here he reminds readers that muscle has served as our "engine" for most of humans' time on Earth. It was pretty much by sheer muscle power that the Great Pyramids Great Pyramid,

the Cheops’ tomb, built 4,600 years ago, nearly 500 feet high, with bases 755 feet long. [Egypt. Arch.: Brewer Dictionary, 735]

See : Wonders, Architectural
 were erected, and it's muscle that makes up 40 percent of our body weight. From whale to human to flea, muscular muscular /mus·cu·lar/ (mus´ku-lar)
1. pertaining to or composing muscle.

2. having a well-developed musculature.


mus·cu·lar
adj.
1.
 composition is largely the same. Each animal just uses its muscles differently. Vogel explains how clams use muscle to clam up clam 1  
n.
1.
a. Any of various usually burrowing marine and freshwater bivalve mollusks of the class Pelecypoda, including members of the genera Venus and Mya, many of which are edible.

b.
, how birds use it to fly, and how people have designed tools based on it. Norton, 2001, 370 p., b&w illus., hardcover, $25.95.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
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Publication:Science News
Article Type:Book Review
Date:Mar 16, 2002
Words:174
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