Machine learning is usually applied to man-made targets -- masses of data about the contents of a digital image, or the movement of cars through a city. This week, however, a new study applied the approach to find order in an equally chaotic mass of data: the cell. By using an advanced machine learning approach, a team of researchers from the University of Texas was able to sift through years of experimental data to understand how tadpole cells control their own development, and then used that understanding to take control of the cells themselves. It's a breakthrough they think they can apply directly to developing all new treatments for cancer. When it comes to cancer, cellular control is the whole ball game.