The Milestones are a series of specially written articles, published by Nature Publishing Group, highlighting the most influential developments towards understanding and using fundamental properties of light and its basic units, photons.

Nature Milestones in Crystallography also includes a Collection of relevant articles, an online-only Library of papers and reviews from Nature Publishing Group and a milestones timeline. Moreover, two articles from the International Union of Crystallography describe the role of the Union and its journals for the crystallographic community and the activities and long-term objectives for the International Year of Crystallography.