A system for measuring vibrational spectra of living tissue, comprising a photon source configured to output a photon beam; a support device configured to support living tissue and to allow the photon beam to pass through the living tissue, wherein cellular motion of the living tissue varies an amount of the photon beam that is blocked, absorbed, or deflected, thereby directly modulating the photon beam as it passes through the living tissue; a detector configured to detect the modulated photon beam that passed through and was directly modulated by the cellular motion of the living tissue and to produce an analog signal representative of the cellular motion; an analog-to-digital converter configured to receive the analog signal and output a digital representation of the cellular motion; and a digital signal processor configured to: map the digital representation of the cellular motion to partials, each partial representing an amplitude specified over a narrow range of time and frequency; chain the partials into events, which are collections of partials localized in time and frequency and having similar topological properties; and characterize the events into one or more of vibrational spectra and discrete frequencies of the living tissue cellular motion over time, wherein the digital signal processor performs the mapping, chaining, and characterizing using a precision measuring matrix technique. a photon source configured to output a photon beam; a support device configured to support living tissue and to allow the photon beam to pass through the living tissue, wherein cellular motion of the living tissue varies an amount of the photon beam that is blocked, absorbed, or deflected, thereby directly modulating the photon beam as it passes through the living tissue; a detector configured to detect the modulated photon beam that passed through and was directly modulated by the cellular motion of the living tissue and to produce an analog signal representative of the cellular motion; an analog-to-digital converter configured to receive the analog signal and output a digital representation of the cellular motion; and a digital signal processor configured to: map the digital representation of the cellular motion to partials, each partial representing an amplitude specified over a narrow range of time and frequency; chain the partials into events, which are collections of partials localized in time and frequency and having similar topological properties; and characterize the events into one or more of vibrational spectra and discrete frequencies of the living tissue cellular motion over time, map the digital representation of the cellular motion to partials, each partial representing an amplitude specified over a narrow range of time and frequency; chain the partials into events, which are collections of partials localized in time and frequency and having similar topological properties; and characterize the events into one or more of vibrational spectra and discrete frequencies of the living tissue cellular motion over time, wherein the digital signal processor performs the mapping, chaining, and characterizing using a precision measuring matrix technique.