Cancer cells rapidly increase their energy output when physically squeezed, according to a study in Nature Communications. The results help explain how cancer cells survive mechanical challenges such as crawling through a tumor microenvironment, slipping into porous blood vessels, or withstanding the forces of the bloodstream. Identifying this mechanism could point to strategies that hold cancer cells in place before they spread. The phenomenon was observed in 84 percent of confined HeLa cancer cells, compared with virtually none in floating, uncompressed cells. While the study looked at cancer cells, the authors of the study stress that the phenomenon is likely a universal phenomenon in biology.