More Informative Together Than Apart

Abstract

T he cells in our bodies, like those of all living things, encode information in so-called signaling molecules. Cells release these molecules to relay messages to other cells (for example, between neurons in the brain) and to send signals to themselves (which occurs during embryo growth). Cells also use these molecules to internally transmit information between elements of their soupy insides. The concentrations of these molecules constantly change, so researchers looking to understand a given cell-signaling process typically performmultiple measurements on the system, one after another. Now scientists at the Physics Laboratory of the École Normale Supérieure, France, show that those researchers could obtain more information from twomeasurements if they analyze them collectively, rather than sequentially [1].