Scientists in the United Kingdom have developed a way to monitor the health of individual cells by recording their electrical activity in much the same way that an electrocardiogram (EKG) monitors the heart. They say that the technique could revolutionize the way we test drugs and carry out environmental sensing. Using extremely sensitive equipment, the scientists have captured the last pulse of electrical activity in a cell, the equivalent of a final heartbeat, before the cell died.

Life signs: Superconducting electrodes (pink) act like leads of an electrocardiogram, measuring the electrical activity of an individual yeast cell (yellow blob). Credit: Dr. Irina Barbolina, University of Manchester

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