Issue Information

Front cover: Kagami‐mochi (mirror rice cake) is a representative of Japanese New Year decorations. It usually consists of a couple of stacked large round‐shaped mochi that resemble ancient bronze mirrors with one daidai (Japanese bitter orange) on top. This year, however, our kagami‐mochi is somewhat different from the usual; it is a so‐called ribosome‐like kagami‐mochi. Two stacked mochi likened the ribosome’s large and small subunits bind to a gohei (a folded ribbon of paper) that resembles an mRNA encoding (DAIDAI) n amino acid sequence, and a chain of daidais extends upward from the mochi likened the large subunit. It looks like a polypeptide chain itself. Designed by TRAIS Co., Ltd. (Kobe, Japan).