Rivalry is widespread in science — in fact, a little healthy competition is undoubtedly a good thing. Rivalry in the neurosciences, however, refers not only to the expression of one of our most basic human behaviours, but also to some of the phenomena that we want to understand, such as binocular rivalry in the visual system. Sometimes, two researchers who have historically held opposing views on a subject are able to come to a consensus as the field matures.

We are delighted that two of the most influential researchers in binocular rivalry, Randolph Blake and Nikos Logothetis (page 13), have collaborated to write a review that brings together seemingly disparate (perhaps we should say rival) evidence and reconciles it to give a new perspective on visual rivalry. They argue that rivalry is not a single process with one neural locus, but consists of many processes that occur in different parts of the visual system.

In this issue, we also publish the result of the Highlight competition that we opened in November. As a review journal, one of our primary goals is to communicate science — to spread the word about new and exciting discoveries in an accessible and enjoyable format. For that reason, we are keen to encourage the development of communication skills among young scientists. We are therefore proud to showcase the winning entry of the Highlight competition, written by Anne West from Harvard University (page 4). We also feature another example of excellent writing by a young scientist — the Perspective article by Jade Jeng from the University of California, Irvine (page 71) — a historical account of the profound contributions of Ricardo Miledi to our current understanding of synaptic transmission and the role of calcium in transmitter release.