Never take a walk for granted. Putting one leg in front of the other is not a simple affair. To most of us, it seems so easy. Yet walking - and its faster version, running - demands intricate neuron development and networking that is gradually set in place during the course of embryogenesis and very early childhood. Walking can be learned, as long as you have the correct bases to begin with. Watch a toddler taking its first steps. They lose balance. Cave in. Fall. But, within a few weeks, a small human - although far slower than most vertebrates - manages to master the technique of standing up and moving forward by using its two legs very successfully. The art of walking, or locomotion, demands close coordination between left, right, forward and backwards, as well as the limbs' muscles - without which walking would be a difficult enterprise*. In the case of four-legged vertebrates, coordination is even more complex. Recently, Swedish scientists discovered a protein - the Duplex and Mab-3 related Transcription Factor - which is directly involved in a horse's gait, and gives an insight into how locomotion, as a whole, is managed and organised both on the cellular and molecular level.
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