from the atomic-age-MNT??? dept.
Neutron scattering has been used to quantify thermal positional disorder in proteins. In myoglobin, there is a transition at ~200K from a "harmonic" regime where all the atoms are trapped in single potential wells to an anharmonic regime where jumps between wells become important. The anharmonic regime is important for the biological function of myoglobin (O2 binding), but may cause problems for use of proteins as mechanical elements in nanotechnology.
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