A study from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators has found a surprising role for what had been considered a nonfunctional “junk” RNA molecule: controlling the cellular response to stress. In their report in the Dec. 15 issue of Cell, the researchers describe finding that a highly specific interaction between two elements previously known to repress gene transcription—B2 RNA and EZH2, an enzyme previously known only to silence genes—actually induces the expression of stress-response genes in mouse cells.