Access

News and Views

Nature 389, 547 (9 October 1997) | doi:10.1038/39191

Open Innovation Challenges

Chemotaxis:  On the crest of a spiral wave

Alison Mitchell

Drop a pebble into a pool of water and you'll see a series of concentric waves, fanning outwards in ever-increasing circles. Subject slime moulds on a surface to starvation and a similar effect occurs — single-celled Dictyostelium discoideum amoebae move chemotactically towards the periodic waves of cyclic AMP that are emitted from the so-called aggregation centre.