Crystal clear

correct context has taken a lot of work. Yanagida's approach to this work has been influenced by his location — starting with the choice of fission yeast. " Working on a remote island, I thought it may be better to work on a more obscure organism, " he says. And once that work was started, " we were quite happy to study these mutants in an isolated fashion. " But if the research was somewhat isolated, the interpretation of that research was not. Yanagida travels as much as possible to discuss his results, and encourages his students and others to do the same. There are difficulties in bridging the gap — language is one, and culture another. With the Meiji restoration, which started more than 100 years ago, the Japanese mantra for reengagement with the West was wakon yosai — Japanese soul and Western talent — but " wakon yosai is not possible, " says Yanagida. To communicate effectively, " you need to share the same soul. " Unfortunately for Japanese scientists, " it is basically impossible to behave the same way in Japan and the West, " he says. " But we [in Japan] must be part of the world of science. I hope the younger generation will take more responsibility for that. " Yanagida is ever vigilant of his scientific progeny, many of whom have moved to universities in the US or Europe, but he has another concern closer to home. Mandatory retirement looms in just five years' time, so Yanagida's considerable intellect is now focussed on an administrative rather than intellectual problem. " I need to be very inventive, " he says, " about how to continue being a scientist after retirement. " He may add to his three successful books, and continue to promote the Japan-based journal Genes to Cells, but most of all he will stick with what he does best — deep contemplation of some of biology's most difficult problems. These abstract images showing crystals of histology stains were produced by Peter Whittaker at the and were runners-up in this year's Current Biology Photomicrography Competition. The top image is of picrosirius red and the bottom image is of haematoxylin. Both were viewed with polarized light. These stains can be used with polarized light for the quantitative assessment of cellular and subcellular structure in tissues such as collagen and muscle.