Biology – the study of living things – can admittedly be a little reductive at times.

It’s easy to miss important connections depending on how you look at an organism. Microscopes show us the fine details of a body, dissection has helped us identify different organs, and X-rays can show us the bigger picture of internal systems.

But until now, it’s been tricky to see how living cells communicate across those systems, which traditionally have been studied in isolation, even though our bodies ultimately work as a whole.