Recurrent DSB clusters in neural stem/progenitor cells are shown. The genome of developing brain cells harbors 27 clusters or hotspots where its DNA is much more likely to break in some places than others, researchers from the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine (PCMM) at Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute report in the journal Cell. Those hotspots appear in genes associated with brain tumors and a number of neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric conditions, raising new questions about these conditions' origins, as well as how the brain generates a diversity of circuitry during development.

A major coral bleaching event took place on this part of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. A study at Oregon State University has concluded that significant outbreaks of viruses may be associated with coral bleaching events, especially as a result of multiple environmental stresses.

Graphic of microtubules, the 'railway network' within every cell of the human body Researchers from the University of Warwick have discovered how cells in the human body build their own 'railway networks', throwing light on how diseases such as bowel cancer work. The results have just been published in Nature Scientific Reports.

A new imaging technique has allowed researchers at North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of Pittsburgh to see how DNA loops around a protein that aids in the formation of a special structure in telomeres. The work provides new insights into the structure of telomeres and how they are maintained.