Cell biology can be really hard to explain in words. So sometimes it helps to kick back, pop some corn and watch a video instead.

Tonight, we witnessed the glory of CellDance – the cell biology movie competition, held at this meeting every year. And that means we got to watch a lot of pretty pictures that, when you think about it, kind of blow your mind.

Cell biologists love their movies, so the competition is tough. This year, the winner, Rachel Fink of Mt. Holyoke College, made a short video called, “Run Silent, Run Deep.” It showed single cell edging its way through a fish embryo, in search of its proper place. In the video, the front edge of the cell fluouresces brightly because it’s engineered to glow when a certain protein is active. That protein is key to cell movement – so the cell’s leading edge lights up like fireworks.

It’s pretty incredible that we can see things like this happening in real time, thanks to the recent huge boom in imaging technologies. Hopefully, this and the other winners from this year will be posted soon here. In the meantime, check out last year’s winners here .