Colourimetry of Iridescent Muscle Fibres

摘要

Countless professional scientists with expensive apparatus and government funding continue to strive after a complete understanding of the molecular basis of muscle contraction, but there are still a few humble mysteries to investigate with a microscope at home. I have paged through many scholarly textbooks on muscle biochemistry and biophysics, but I have never found an explanation for the muscle fibre iridescence I sometimes see in my Sunday roast beef. The most likely explanation I can deduce from my experiments at home is that the iridescence is caused by multilayer interference from discs of protein having different refractive indices [1]. This might even have some commercial importance.