At first blush, measuring the weight of a single cell seems an impossible task. By contrast, an E. coli cell weighs 100 billion times less than 0.1 grams. Back in 1953, for example, two biologists from Southern Illinois University (supported, in part, with funding from the Anheuser-Busch brewery) invented one of the first methods to determine the weight of an individual yeast cell. As a single cell floats through the channel in this beam, the beam’s vibration changes ever so slightly. The device can also be used to measure the same cell again and again, meaning researchers can track the growth of the cell over time.