How much harder is it to figure out the logic of how genetic circuits, signal transduction, and more generally speaking genetic, cellular, and developmental computation be if we were only restricted to data that is static? That, to a large extent I believe, is a decent description of the Life Sciences before live-imaging made an appearance. We do not wish to convey that great discoveries have not been made in the pre live-imaging era -- far from it! All we wish to convey is that with the advent of live-imaging a whole new set of phenomena that evaded our understanding might not be more addressable.
Adaptation is an idea that a) we have personal knowledge of (your own visual system), b) Has had profound impact on our understanding of the few cellular systems that we, as a community, can agree are our best understood living systems (bacterial chemotaxis), c) is being shown to likely be central in developmental patterning (TGF-\(\beta\) pathway).
Let's explore these ideas at first superficially and then more comprehensively.