The Venus Express mission has returned its first findings on the harsh atmosphere of our sister planet. It's another step towards explaining how Venus turned out so differently from our balmy home.

Where would you start in trying to work out the structure of a macromolecular machine consisting of 456 proteins? Taking a combined experimental and computational approach is one answer.

Synaptic communication is triggered by action potentials, but neurons also talk to each other in between action potentials. Specific intracellular-calcium sensors regulate these conversations.