Sliding Filament Mechanism at the Molecular Level -- Early Developments in Muscle Research and the Role of New Structural Technologies -- The Molecular Basis of Cross-Bridge Function -- Molecular Synchronization in Actomyosin Motors - From Single Molecule to Muscle Fiber Via Nanomuscle -- Distribution of Crossbridge States in Contracting Muscle -- X-Ray Diffraction Studies of Striated Muscles -- Conformational Change and Regulation of Myosin Molecules -- Mechanism of Muscle Contraction -- Driving Filament Sliding: Weak binding cross-bridge states, strong binding cross-bridge states, and the power stroke -- Mysteries about Amplitude and Efficiency of Cross-Bridge Powerstroke -- Sarcomere Dynamics, Stepwise Shortening and the Nature of Contraction -- Crossbridge Formation Detected by Stiffness Measurements in Single Muscle Fibres -- Non Cross-Bridge Stiffness in Skeletal Muscle Fibres at Rest and During Activity -- Nature's Strategy for Optimizing Power Generation in Insect Flight Muscle -- Muscle Energetics -- From Crossbridges to Metabolism: System Biology for Energetics -- Energetics, Mechanics and Molecular Engineering of Calcium Cycling in Skeletal Muscle -- Heat, Phosphorus NMR and Microcalorimetry in Relation to the Mechanism of Filament Sliding -- How Two-Foot Molecular Motors May Walk -- Regulatory Mechanism and E-C Coupling -- Molecular Basis of Calcium Regulation of Striated Muscle Contraction -- Mechanisms of Calcium Release from the Sarcoplasmic Reticulum in Skeletal Muscle -- From Inward Spread of Activation, Active Elongation to the Effect of Organic Calcium Channel Blockers in Muscle Excitation-Contraction Coupling -- Cardiac and Smooth Muscle -- Cardiac Myosin Binding Protein C: Modulator of Contractility -- Human Atrial Myosin Light Chain 1 Expression Attenuates Heart Failure -- Cytoplasmic Free Concentrations of Ca2+ in Skeletal Muscle Cells -- Mysterious Beauty of Beating Heart: Cardiac mechano-energetico-informatics -- Is Myosin Phosphorylation Sufficient to Regulate Smooth Muscle Contraction? -- Other Aspects -- Comparative Aspects of Crossbridge Function - Skinned Fibre Studies -- Dynamic Structures of Myosin, Kinesin and Troponin as Detected by SDSL-ESR -- Mutations of Transcription Factors in Human with Heart Disease for Understanding the Development and Mechanisms of Congenital Cardiovascular Heart Disease -- General Discussion Part I Skeletal Muscle Mechanics -- General Discussion Part I Skeletal Muscle Mechanics -- General Discussion Part II Skeletal Muscle Energetics -- General Discussion Part II Skeletal Muscle Energetics -- General Discussion - Skeletal Muscle III Structural Studies -- General Discussion - Skeletal Muscle III Structural Studies -- General Discussion Part IV Cardiac Muscle -- General Discussion Part IV Cardiac Muscle -- General Discussion Part V Smooth Muscle -- General Discussion Part V Smooth Muscle -- Concluding Remarks -- Concluding Remarks. Sliding Filament Mechanism in Muscle Contraction: Fifty Years of Research covers the history of the sliding filament mechanism in muscle contraction from its discovery in 1954 by H.E. Huxley through and including modern day research. Chapters include topics in dynamic X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy, muscle mechanisms, in-vitro motility assay, cardiac versus smooth muscle, motile systems, and much more.