EMBO J 31 8, 1879–1892 March 06 2012 Asymmetric cell division and cell cycle length are two fundamental mechanisms that influence the fate of neural stem cells during mammalian brain development. In this issue of The EMBO Journal, the team of Noriko Osumi proposes an elegant link between the two by showing that the mRNA of cyclinD2, a positive regulator of G1 progression, is confined to the basal end-foot of radial glial cells and is asymmetrically distributed upon mitosis to the two resulting daughter cells (Tsunekawa et al, 2012). According to this model, the daughter cell inheriting cyclinD2 mRNA maintains its self-renewal capability, while lengthening of G1 and differentiation would occur in the sibling cell.