This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American I was enchanted with the words metonymy and ...

Mathematicians love a good puzzle. Even something as abstract as multiplying matrices (two-dimensional tables of numbers) can feel like a game when you try to find the most efficient way to do it.

In this respect, Matrix Metalloproteinases (MMPs) and their tissue inhibitors (TIMPs) have been widely recognised playing a prominent role in cancer cells (Hadler-Olsen et al, 2013), especially in the ...