Artistic representation of imaged brain activity in larval zebrafish.

See Vladimirov et al.

Eye of a Metapocyrtus subquadrulifer beetle. This image was the winner of the 2018 Nikon Small World photomicrography contest.

Artistic representation of the dynamic nature of neuronal network activity.

See Pandarinath et al.

3D rendering of mitochondria in a single Purkinje cell, derived from cloud-based segmentation of volumetric electron microscopy data.

See Haberl et al.

Reconstruction of neurons in zebra finch area X using segmentation by flood-filling networks.

See Januszewski et al.

A CRISPR-edited mosaic founder mouse with unique genetic editing events at targets and off-targets in subpopulations of cells. Cover art was inspired by the classic mosaic ‘unswept floor’.

See Anderson et al.

Composite of a depth-encoded super-resolution image of the actin cytoskeleton in a human fibroblast cell, as well as interferograms and intensity–phase images underlying the SELFI 3D super-resolution microscopy approach.

See Bon et al.

Escherichia coli depicted with the historical mechanical feedback system called the 'governor', commonly seen on engines. The governor is a proportional feedback controller that helps to autoregulate production/power tradeoffs. Artistic rendition by Ella Maru, adapted by Erin Dewalt.

On the cover: a cellular model learned by an artificial neural network. Cover design by Erin Dewalt, based on a concept by Jianzhu Ma, Samson Fong, Michael Yu and Trey Ideker. p290

Stylistic rendering of an array of nanopores sequencing single RNA molecules. Drawn by Peter Inkpen, iemedia solutions and adapted by Erin Dewalt, SpringerNature. p201

A structural protein interactome may be used to map genomic variants that cause disease. The image is based on the epidemiological map generated by John Snow to trace the water pump source of an 1854 cholera outbreak in London. The Snow map was modified by Juan Felipe Beltrán and Haiyuan Yu, p107

We have chosen organoids as the Method of the Year 2017, for their potential in human development and disease research. Stylized miniature organs lie above issue covers from 2017 in this cover design by Erin Dewalt.