Estimate of entropy production rate can spatiotemporally resolve the active nature of cell flickering

We use the short-time inference scheme [Manikandan , ], obtained within the framework of stochastic thermodynamics, to infer a lower bound to entropy production rate from flickering data generated by interference reflection microscopy of HeLa cells. We can clearly distinguish active cell membranes from their adenosine-triphosphate-depleted selves and even spatiotemporally resolve activity down to the scale of about 1 µ m . Our estimate of activity is .