Exciting Times in Excitable Media

In spite of this early recognition by Michael Faraday [1] of the importance of nonlinear reaction-diffusion systems, most of the explosive interest in nonlinear systems that has resulted in the founding of Centers (and Centres), journals, book series and research inititiatives in the area of Nonlinear Science have been concerned with either solitons or chaos. It is only recently that spectacular results have begun to emerge in the area of nonlinear wave processes in excitable media.