Scientists from the Biozentrum of the University of Basel used time-lapse imaging to observe a microfluidic tool that was developed for building and observing bacteria with a rod shape, like E.coli. Scientists were able to take images of the developing bacteria over time and used computational tools to examine and then model events like cell division, development, and DNA replication in different kinds of conditions, for thousands of cells. Scientists emphasize that instead of looking for relationships between variables, it is more instructive to recognize which variables resemble to vary independently of each other.