The beautiful colours and patterns of flowers have captured the imagination of many, and many have sought to understand how and why such diversity has evolved. Species of the morning glory genus, Ipomoea, provide a potentially powerful system in which to elucidate the causal links between genes, ecology and floral adaptations. In their Review on page 206, Michael Clegg and Mary Durbin show how studying flower pigmentation in this genus has already given us insights into the genetics of floral adaptation.

Leaves — just like flowers — vary tremendously in form (if not colour). Miltos Tsiantis and Angela Hay, in their review on page 169, discuss how comparative studies of plants with different leaf morphologies show that homeodomain proteins related to KNOTTED-1 are key regulators of leaf form.

In the Perspectives' section, this month we turn to bioethics in China. Sinologist Ole Döring expertly evaluates the problems that China faces with adopting 'Western-style' ethical standards. At times, agreement on ethical issues cannot be reached in Western societies either — in the Ethicswatch column, bioethicist John Robertson writes about the problems of patenting higher life forms.

This month also sees the launch of our new Perspectives category — Innovation. It is started off by Ernst Wimmer who, on page 225, discusses methods for insect transgenesis that, although developed in Drosophila, are equally applicable to non-model insects. Eager to point out the great potential of these technologies, the author also highlights their potentially harmful environmental and ecological impact. Finally, we would like to welcome to our team Nick Campbell who brings us expertise in population and evolutionary genetics and, appropriately enough, in non-model species, including insects.