Aguzzi, A. et al Prions: health scare and biological challenge. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology February (2001) www.nature.com/nrm.

Chen, Y. & Scheller, R. SNARE-mediated membrane fusion. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology February (2001) www.nature.com/nrm.

Abenavoli, A. et al. Calcium: the common theme in vesicular cycling. Nature Neuroscience February (2001) www.nature.com/neuro. A News and Views article on the role of calcium in endocytosis of vSNAREs at synapses in the hippocampus.

McCormick, D. A. Brain calculus: neural integration and persistent activity. Nature Neuroscience February (2001) www.nature.com/neuro.

Gerard, C. and Gerard, N. P. Chemokines: back to the future? Nature Cell Biology February (2001) www.nature.com/ncb. A News and Views article on the finding that the inflammatory cytokine RANTES also promotes growth and survival of astrocytes in the human forebrain during embryonic development.

Lansbury, P. T. Following nature's anti-amyloid strategy. Nature Biotechnology February (2001) www.nature.com/nbt. A News and Views article on a new assay for monitoring protein solubility, using the Alzheimer's amyloid protein Aβ as an example.

Borst, A. Direction selectivity in ganglion cells: pre or post? Nature Neuroscience February (2001) www.nature.com/neuro. A News and Views article on the computation of directional selectivity in the retina.

Holland, E. C. Gliomagenesis: genetic alterations and mouse models. Nature Reviews Genetics February (2001) www.nature.com/nrg.

Steel, K. P. & Kros, C. J. A genetic approach to understanding auditory function. Nature Genetics February (2001) www.nature.com/ng.

Pedersen, R. A. Sperm and mammalian polarity. Nature 25 January (2001) www.nature.com . A News and Views article that speculates that the entry of the sperm into the egg may be the first step in determining the polarity of the developing mouse embryo.