In this issue's Emerging Area, also a hot article, Yoshiki Morimoto (Osaka City University, Japan) reports the total assignments of the previously incomplete stereostructures of three members of the oxasqualenoids, through the first asymmetric total syntheses of the natural products. 

The Perspective, by Wen-Xiong Zhang and Zhaomin Hou (RIKEN, Japan), shows how the addition of alkyne C-H, amine N-H and phosphine P-H bonds to carbodiimides can provide an efficient route to propiolamidines, guanidines, and phosphaguanidines. This work is also features on the inside front cover. 

The outside front cover is supplied by Veronique Gouverneur (University of Oxford, UK) whose communication reports the synthesis of enantioenriched propargylic fluorides from enantioenriched allenylsilanes.

Cover illustration produced by Dr Karl Harrison (Chemistry Department, University of Oxford).