Color-coded actin filaments in a cell (merged stack of images from a confocal microscope, not all filaments are in one plane!).
The network starts with the creation of actin filaments, which are polymers (long chains of the same chemical unit, which is repeated). Actin networks are super important, since they determine the structure and form of cells, but are also involved in muscle activity. After creating the actin filaments, I added nodes wherever the filaments had a common point. But if I do that I have to make sure that my entire network is actually connected and I don't get several, separate clusters of actin networks! In my code, this becomes a long "while" loop which started taking a lot of time when I run it. I understand more and more why people want more computational power for simulations... It's so exhausting to sit in front of a screen and wait for 4 min. or the like and you can't start doing something else! I could start collecting statistical data of the muscovy ducks (Flugenten) in front of my window and the likelihood that they survive Christmas ;)
