Scientists at Baylor College of Medicine and Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands have discovered that the antennae-like structures on light-sensing neurons, called photoreceptors, have a unique feature not observed in the ‘antennae’ or cilia of other types of cells. The study, published in the Journal of Cell Biology, reveals that this novel functional zone plays a structural role that is essential for the function of the photoreceptors and also helps explain why mutations on certain cilia proteins, although present throughout the body, only affect cilia on photoreceptors, causing non-syndromic blindness.