Hugh Huxley (1924-) and Andrew Huxley (1917-) (the
scientists were unrelated) researched theories regarding muscle contraction.
Hugh Huxley was initially a nuclear physicist who entered the field of biology
at the end of World War II. He used both X-ray diffraction and electron
microscopy to study muscle contraction. Andrew Huxley was a muscle biochemist
who obtained data similar to Hugh's, indicating that the contractile proteins
thought to be present in muscles are not contractile at all, but rather slide
past each other to shorten a muscle. This theory is called the sliding filament
theory of muscle contraction.
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