Alert readers will notice some small changes in this issue of Nature Nanotechnology. The Research Highlights section now occupies one page rather than two, the Top Down Bottom Up column has been discontinued and the weekly Research Highlights on our web site have been scaled back. And from this issue onwards we will only have one Thesis columnist — Chris Toumey — who will write a column every three months (see page 3 for this quarter's column). The editorial resources and pages freed up by these changes will be used to cope with the increase in the number of submissions we are receiving — and the associated increase in the number of papers we are publishing — while maintaining the standards that authors, referees and readers have come to expect.