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Cover Closeup of African cheetah skin. Cheetah spots, zebra stripes, and similar periodic mammalian color patterns are an unsolved mystery. What molecular mechanisms underlie these patterns, and how has their diversity been shaped by evolution? Advances in sequencing technology and bioinformatics allow genome-scale gene expression information from non-model organisms. In this issue, EcoP15I-tagged Digital Gene Expression (EDGE) is applied to skin biopsy samples from a cheetah, identifying genes likely to control differences in the color of spotted versus non-spotted regions. (Photo: Anke van Wyk © 2007/Bigstock.com. [For details, see Hong et al., pp. 1905–1915.])