ewly transcribed RNA represents a threat to genomic stability, say Xialu Li and James Manley (Columbia University, New York, NY). They find that, in meta-zoan cells, the threat is neutralized by a splicing factor that coats RNA as it it emerges from RNA polymerase. The danger arises because nascent RNA can anneal to the template DNA strand, thus forming an R loop. The non-transcribed strand is left as a single strand, potentially susceptible to attack by nucleases. Bacteria combat this tendency by tightly coupling translation to transcription. In eukaryotes, this is not an option as transcription and translation are nuclear and cytoplasmic, respectively.

Optogenetic tools enable the causal examination of how specific cell types contribute to brain circuit functions. A long-standing question is whether it is possible to independently activate two distinct neural populations in mammalian brain tissue. Such a capability would enable the examination of how different synapses or pathways interact to support computation. Here we report two new channelrhodopsins, Chronos and Chrimson, obtained through the de novo sequencing and physiological characterization of opsins from over 100 species of algae. Chrimson is 45 nm red-shifted relative to any previous channelrhodopsin, important for scenarios where red light would be preferred; we show minimal visual system mediated behavioral artifact in optogenetically stimulated Drosophila. Chronos has faster kinetics than any previous channelrhodopsin, yet is effectively more light-sensitive. Together, these two reagents enable crosstalk-free two-color activation of neural spiking and downstream synaptic transmission in independent neural populations in mouse brain slice.

In optical microscopy, fine structural details are resolved by using refraction to magnify images of a specimen. Here we report the discovery that, by synthesizing a swellable polymer network within a specimen, it can be physically expanded, resulting in physical magnification. By covalently anchoring specific labels located within the specimen directly to the polymer network, labels spaced closer than the optical diffraction limit can be isotropically separated and optically resolved, a process we call expansion microscopy (ExM). Thus, this process can be used to perform scalable super-resolution microscopy with diffraction-limited microscopes. We demonstrate ExM with effective ~70 nm lateral resolution in both cultured cells and brain tissue, performing three-color super-resolution imaging of ~107 μm3 of the mouse hippocampus with a conventional confocal microscope.