Drosophila researchers met in sunny San Diego for the 49th annual meeting of The Genetics Society of America. It was cold outside and even colder inside. Like last year, ‘Mitosis, Meiosis and Cell Division’ was no longer a session. Instead, we searched out and covered talks and posters in ‘Cell Division and Growth Control’, ‘Gametogenesis’, ‘Cytoskeleton and Cell Biology’ and ‘Genome and Chromosome Structure’. We split up for maximal coverage and re-grouped later for the Workshop on Cell Cycle and Checkpoints. We apologize in advance for the brevity or omission of some reports.