A new paper published in the journal J. R. Soc. Interface, by Chris Garvey and co-workers, has attracted significant media attention in Science Daily, ABC Science and Innovation Digest.
The title of the paper is "Thermal fluctuations of haemoglobin from different species: adaptation to temperature via conformational dynamics", and the work results from collaboration with a number of institutes in France and Germany.
A number of different experimental methods, including inelastic neutron scattering, were used to investigate the dynamics of the haemoglobin protein from four different organisms with very different body temperatures: platypus, domestic chicken, human and salt-water crocodile.
The results reveal a direct correlation between protein resilience, melting temperature and average body temperature of the different species on timescales of a tenth of a nanosecond.
Published: 17/07/2012