In fact, this has a particular relevance to a recent debate with regard to the role of tidal stretches in modulating asthmatic airway hyper-responsiveness (AHR). It has been a widely held view, based primarily on in vitro studies, that dynamic stretches due to tidal breathing and deep inspirations are responsible for a reduction in airway narrowing capacity, especially in healthy subjects, which has important implications for loss of function in asthmatics (i.e. [12,13]). Recently new in vitro evidence demonstrated little to no effect [14], while attributing this to the interactions between scales which occur in intact airways but not in isolated tissue; this has ignited a spirited debate about the potential factors at work [5,15,11]. While this issue is far from settled, it highlights the potential importance of multiscale interactions in understanding the complex behaviour of the lung.