●Using human neural stem cells to model neurological disease. Jakel, R. J., Schneider, B. L. & Svendsen, C. N. Nature Reviews Genetics February (2004)

●Vision: the need for speed. Blumer, K. J. Nature 1 January (2004) Neurons in the retina turn on and off rapidly in response to light. With the discovery of mutations in human genes that mediate this quick turn-off, discussed in this News and Views article, we have the first picture of its importance in visual perception.

●Learning to take a deep breath — with BDNF. Richerson, G. B. & Bekkers, J. M. Nature Medicine January (2004) Short bursts of hypoxia induce a form of learning in the neuronal network that controls breathing. In this News and Views article, Richerson and Bekkers discuss new work showing that this process shares mechanisms with synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus.

●No glial death with NO. Snyder, S. H. & Kim, S. Nature Cell Biology January (2004) This News and Views article describes new work showing that NO participates in a molecular cascade that allows it to protect astrocytes, but not neurons.

●Beyond simulation? Neural mechanisms for predicting the actions of others. Sebanz, N. & Frith, C. Nature Neuroscience January (2004)

●Adaptation and attentional selection. Boynton, G. M. Nature Neuroscience January (2004)

●Whither structural biology? Harrison, S. C. Nature Structural & Molecular Biology January (2004) In this commentary, Harrison argues that structural molecular biology and structural cell biology must merge into a single discipline, and must establish a lively intellectual complementarity with the nascent 'systems biology' of the cell.

●Profile: Marc Tessier-Lavigne. Mandavilli, A. Nature Medicine January (2004) How do you top solving a century-old riddle in developmental neurobiology? By moving to a company with no commercial interest in neuroscience. For Marc Tessier-Lavigne, profiled in Nature Medicine, leaving academia for the biotech giant Genentech could be the right choice.

●Endocytic recycling. Maxfield, F. R. & McGraw, T. E. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology February (2004) After endocytosis, some membrane components are trafficked to late endosomes or the Golgi. The pathways taken by internalized molecules that eventually recycle to the cell surface can be surprisingly complex and can involve a series of sorting events that occur in several organelles.