2007 RELEASE! All animals must act upon and respond to the world around them. Their bodies have adapted to suit their individual lifestyles and the environment. Every move they make is achieved by using sets of muscles evolved for their particular purposes. Muscles alone, however, do not make movement. In higher animals, they work with other interacting systems to produce the movements in life. "Muscles and Movement" is part of the "Mechanics of Life" series, an introduction to human biology and physiology tailored to the middle-school audience. Humans and other vertebrates are the most prominent animals on earth. There is a great variety among them, but they share certain characteristics that have made them dominant. The vertebrate organism can be viewed as a machine that is the sum of a number of independent yet interacting systems and sub-systems. The "Mechanics of Life" video series describes and illuminates five of the principal systems.

Originally released by Phoenix Learning Group, 2007. Streaming video file encoded with permission for digital streaming by Infobase on April 07, 2015.

How Muscles Work (4:03); --Voluntary Movements (1:57); -- Involuntary and Smooth Muscles (4:23); .