A cell in idle mode

A stationary cell keeps much of its movement machine idling over. Here the anchor points of the cell are stained in red (at 0 minutes), yellow (at 10 minutes), green (at 20 minutes) and purple (at 35 minutes). The anchor points are moving towards the middle of the cell, as can be seen from the progression from red, to yellow, green, and purple. (This is most obvious at the bottom right.) Figure courtesy of Gregg Gundersen. Copyright The American Association for the Advancement of Science.