Cells are amazingly complex little machines, but there are some
things that even they aren’t too good at — like communicating
over long distances. Generally, cells can only talk to their
close neighbors through touch or send messages to the body at
large by sending out chemical flares or distress signals. But
researchers in California have identified a new way that cells
seem to be able to communicate, and it appears this method can
ignore physical barriers that would usually prevent
communication, though researchers still aren’t sure exactly how
the mechanism works. The team reports in the American Journal of
Translational Research that they isolated nerve cells behind a
barrier that blocked normal methods of cellular communication,
such as hormonal messaging and ligand-receptor communications.
When similar nerve cells were placed outside of the barrier, the
isolated cells processed calcium signals in the same way as
their kin on the outside. When researchers placed dying and
cancerous cells on the other sid