Crystals on the cover and validation reports

With this, the first issue of 2010, we proudly initiate the sixth year of publication of Acta Crystallographica Section F and thank our Co-editors for their dedicated service. In keeping with tradition, the cover of this issue is an assembly of the best crystal photomicrographs from crystallization communications published in 2009. This year, we have included such a large number of micrographs that we decided there are simply too many to acknowledge individually. Nevertheless, we gratefully thank the authors for these fine crystal photographs. As a reminder, we would like you, the authors of our articles, to nominate your published crystal photographs for inclusion in the cover. If you would like one of your pictures to be considered as part of a future January cover, you should contact Louise Jones, Technical Editor ([e-mail]).

Our crystals cover highlights the contribution of crystallization communications to our journal's scientific content. In 2010 the 13th ICCBM meeting (https://www.iccbm13.ie/ ) will be held in Trinity College, Dublin. This series of meetings has been the chief venue for scientific interchange on macromolecular crystallization since its inception in 1984, and will undoubtedly be of importance to readers who are interested in crystallization.

We also take this opportunity to mention the new Notes for authors which appear in this issue. We and our colleagues at Acta Cryst. D are dedicated to improving the quality of our journals and, accordingly, we are committed in 2010 to full enforcement of the validation requirements in the notes. A future editorial in 2010 will outline journal developments in readiness for the improvements to the validation process at the Worldwide Protein Data Bank, which we applaud and support wholeheartedly.