Ribosomes are the complexes of ribonucleoproteins at the heart of protein synthesis in cells. However, in the absence of conclusive evidence, how these complexes operate has been open to debate. Now, Hirotatsu Imai and Noriyuki Kodera at Kanazawa University, alongside Toshio Uchiumi at Niigata University in Japan, show visualizations of the structural dynamics and factor pooling that take place at ribosome stalk proteins as they build new proteins.