Kinesin-8 family members function in microtubule length control and exhibit highly processive plus-end directed motility in conjunction with microtubule dissassembly activity. In a recent issue of Cell, Varga and colleagues describe how these two activities may be used to simultaneously measure and adjust the length of cellular microtubules.

INTRODUCTION Following the dominance of altitude acclimatised athletes during the 1968 Olympic Games held in Mexico City (2400 m), and early anecdotal training experiments in the USA in the 1970s, altitude (hypoxic) training has become very popular among individual endurance athletes including marathon runners, cyclists, swimmers and triathletes. Altitude training is used to further enhance exe...