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Cover   The cover illustration shows two images of rabbit skeletal muscle, prepared by Hugh Huxley and published in the J. Biophys. Biochem. Cytol. (the forerunner of the J. Cell Biol.) 5, 631-648, 1957. Both a longitudinal and a cross-section are shown, demonstrating the relative positions of thin and thick filaments in a fixed sarcomere. Detailed studies of similar muscles by light microscopy had already been published (e.g., Huxley and Niedergerke, Nature 173, 973, 1954; Huxley and Hanson, ibid., 973), and limited information about muscle ultrastructure was available from X-ray diffraction (Huxley, Proc. R. Soc. Lond. Ser. B, 141, 69, 1953), but it had been difficult to develop a direct interpretation of muscle filament behavior during contraction from these observations alone.   During the 1950's good methods for preparing tissues for electron microscopy were being worked out. Osmium tetroxide was available as a fixative, and specimens were often embedded in methacylate or mixtures of this plastic with methyl methacrylate, which permitted the cutting of good thin sections, though specimen compression was often a problem. Phosphotungstic acid was sometimes used in the dehydrating alcohol to enhance contrast. The microscopes of the day were capable of imaging with good resolution.   These images were obtained from sections about 25-nm thick, a significant technical feat at the time and not easy, even with today's equipment. From images like the ones shown here, Huxley and his colleagues obtained direct evidence that muscle contraction is accompanied by a relative sliding of its component fibers, supporting a then new model for muscle contraction that has stood the test of time until today.