A team of researchers has developed a new mathematical framework that describe, for the first time, how long transient behaviors might occur in complex systems. They introduce ghost channels and ghost cycles as novel objects that explain how natural systems can be stable over prolonged period of time, yet still be able to rapidly switch to another state. This might help us understand tipping cascades, such as those affecting biodiversity or the consequences of ice melt in the Arctic, but also neuronal dynamics that governs how we encode taste, for example.