For about an hour, Ariel Hernandez-Leyva held a scientific secret. A discovery only he had uncovered.
At the time, more than a decade ago, he was an undergraduate at Yale University, working long hours in a biology lab studying cytokinesis, the final stage of cell division. One spring afternoon, while using a high-resolution fluorescence microscope to observe a yeast cell split in two, Hernandez-Leyva identified not one but two contractile rings cinching the cell like an ever-tightening belt to divide its contents. This was shocking because one contractile ring is thought to drive cytokinesis and ensure the correct distribution of chromosomes and organelles.