Steering reactions with light

Waves of electricity or chemicals ripple through living tissues in many processes, including heart-muscle contractions, nerve signaling, and cell metabolism. To learn how those waves form and propagate, researchers examine analogous wave motions in the lab (SN: 2/11/95, p. 84).

WAVE WAYS. This combined sequence of colorized snapshots, each separated by 40 seconds, depicts the moving front of a chemical reaction.