Light in the dark

Writing in Cell, X.-W. Deng and colleagues describe the cloning of one of a particular class of genes concerned in the control of a plant's response to light. That achievement, and the authors' related observations, will help in the endeavour to understand plant phototransduction. The paper is also the latest in a series reporting the association of familiar functional modules of regulatory proteins in unfamiliar combinations; this is a line of plant research that is turning in a number of surprises and will be of interest to a much wider community.