Nature is Metal
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It’s always something.
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@jon-nyc said in Nature is Metal:
Think about how many hominids had to die to pass that heuristic down to us.
Stories do preserve the collected wisdom of a culture.
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It’s always something.
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I really didn't need to see or know that.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_channel
In excitable cells such as neurons, myocytes, and certain types of glia, sodium channels are responsible for the rising phase of action potentials. These channels go through three different states called resting, active and inactive states.
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Voltage-gated sodium channels play an important role in action potentials. If enough channels open when there is a change in the cell's membrane potential, a small but significant number of Na+ ions will move into the cell down their electrochemical gradient, further depolarizing the cell. Thus, the more Na+ channels localized in a region of a cell's membrane the faster the action potential will propagate and the more excitable that area of the cell will be. This is an example of a positive feedback loop. The ability of these channels to assume a closed-inactivated state causes the refractory period and is critical for the propagation of action potentials down an axon.Na+ channels both open and close more quickly than K+ channels, producing an influx of positive charge (Na+) toward the beginning of the action potential and an efflux (K+) toward the end.
