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This press release is copyright Nature.
VOL.438 NO.7064 DATED 03 NOVEMBER 2005
This press release contains:
* Summaries of newsworthy papers:
* Astronomy: Local black hole sized up
* Astronomy: A glimmer of the first stars
* The Nature Podcast enters the iTunes Top 50
* Photonics: Silicon puts the brakes on light
* Microbiology: Malaria parasite 'wired' differently
* Earth science: Volcanoes slow sea level rise
* Algal physiology: Many algae need their vitamins
* Marine microbiology: Bacteria use light to drive 'animal' metabolism
* And finally... Bridging a wobbly gap
* Mention of papers to be published at the same time with the same embargo
* Geographical listing of authors
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[1] Astronomy: Local black hole sized up (pp 62-64; N&V)
The black hole at the centre of our Galaxy is as wide as the radius of the
Earth's orbit, according to research published in this week's Nature.
Although the object, known as Sagittarius A*, has long been suspected to be
a black hole, this observation provides strong confirmation for the idea.
Zhi-Qiang Shen and colleagues used the Very Long Baseline Array, a system of
ten radio telescopes spread across the USA, to capture the radio waves
emitted from just beyond the edge of the supermassive black hole, which is
about 4 million times as massive as our Sun.
"These observations ... are a further step towards a powerful and classic
test of the general theory of relativity: attaining an image of the shadow
around the edge of a black hole," comments Christopher Reynolds in a related
News and Views article.
CONTACT
Zhi-Qiang Shen (Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, China)
Tel: +86 21 64386191 x221; E-mail: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
Christopher Reynolds (University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA)
Tel: +1 301 405 2682; E-mail: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
[2] Astronomy: A glimmer of the first stars (pp 45-50; N&V)
A team of researchers in the USA claims to have detected a faint glow from
the first stars to have formed in the Universe.
These earliest stars, known as population III, are believed to have formed
out of primordial gas and dust less than 200 million years after the Big
Bang. They will not now be visible in any of the telescopes either existing
or planned, but it should nonetheless be possible to detect them from the
energy that they radiated into the cosmos. This will contribute to the
general glow of infrared radiation dispersed throughout the present-day
Universe, called the cosmic infrared background (CIB).
The problem, however, is that all the younger stars also contribute to the
CIB. Distinguishing the glow of population III stars from the rest is like
trying to hear individual violins playing in a vast orchestra. Previous
attempts to see the imprint of these oldest stars on the CIB have been
unable to isolate it clearly from the background cacophony. Alexander
Kashlinsky and colleagues at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Maryland, now believe that they have done so.
They have measured the CIB using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. After
carefully removing the contributions from all other stars and galaxies, the
researchers find that the remaining infrared radiation is spread across the
sky in an uneven way, which they believe is a reflection of the clumpiness
of the population III stars.
CONTACT
Alexander Kashlinsky (Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA)
Tel: +1 301 286 2176; E-mail: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
Richard S Ellis (Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 626 395 2598; E-mail: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
The Nature Podcast enters the iTunes Top 50
The Nature Podcast, our weekly audio show highlighting content from each
issue has stormed into the iTunes Music Store Top 50 after only 4 episodes.
These episodes have featured interviews with the scientists behind our
hottest research, from the 1918 flu genome sequence to the makeup of the
Deep Impact comet. Also in Nature's archive are the recent breakthroughs in
stem cell generation, the new Hobbit discoveries on Flores and the human
genome HapMap project.
Hosted by Chris Smith, whose own show The Naked Scientists is in the top
100, the Nature Podcast will go from strength to strength. The show for 3
November issue includes interviews with researchers on the papers in this
press release, including:
Photonics: Silicon puts the brakes on light
Microbiology: Malaria parasite 'wired' differently
Earth science: Volcanoes slow sea level
and
Algal physiology: Many algae need their vitamins
For more information on how to listen to the Nature Podcast, go to
www.nature.com/nature/podcast <http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast>
Or contact: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
[3] Photonics: Silicon puts the brakes on light (pp 65-69)
Light can be effectively slowed down to 1/300th of its usual speed by
directing it down channels of perforated silicon, a team at the IBM T. J.
Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, demonstrates in this
week's issue of Nature. This 'slow light' could be useful for light-based
information technology (optical computing), which is increasingly being used
in conjunction with conventional electronic data processing.
Light normally travels at dazzling speed. But in the past decade or so,
researchers have found that certain materials with so-called nonlinear
optical properties can act as a kind of molasses that slows light down. In
extreme cases, pulses of light have been brought to a standstill. More
strictly, the 'group velocity' of a pulse, which is made up of a whole bunch
of photons, can be reduced to zero. In principle, this can enable
light-based information to be stored as well as transmitted.
But getting this to happen in a miniaturized light channel or 'waveguide' on
a silicon chip - so that it can be incorporated into conventional
microelectronics - is very challenging. Yurii Vlasov and his co-workers have
now succeeded by using photonic crystal waveguides, which consist of
channels of silicon punctured with regular arrays of holes that scatter
light. The holes give the silicon a very high refractive index (a measure of
how much light is slowed down as it moves through the material). Localized
heating of the waveguide with a tiny microheater alters the refractive index
and thus offers control over the speed of the slow light, without blurring
the sharpness of a pulse. Some problems remain, however - in particular,
coping with a spread of colours in a pulse, and getting the pulse
efficiently into the waveguide in the first place - before the approach can
be implemented in practical photonic circuitry.
CONTACT
Yurii A. Vlasov (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA)
Tel: +1 914 945 2028; E-mail: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
[4] & [5] Microbiology: Malaria parasite 'wired' differently (pp 103-107 &
108-112)
Two studies in this week's Nature focus on the malarial parasite Plasmodium
falciparum. One research group presents the first extensive dataset of
protein-protein interactions in Plasmodium falciparum, which is responsible
for 90% of human deaths from malaria, killing up to 2.7 million people per
year. The second study uses these data to show that this network of
interactions sets this parasite apart from other species.
Stanley Fields and colleagues have identified 2,846 unique protein-protein
interactions in Plasmodium. As this network of interactions reflects
pathways and processes of the parasite, the information should aid our
understanding of the basic biology of the organism and speed up the
discovery of new vaccines and drug targets.
In a second paper, Silpa Suthram and colleagues show that most of these
protein-protein interactions are unique to Plasmodium and are not shared by
other species such as bacterial pathogens, yeast, worms or fruitflies. In
principle, this finding should make it possible to develop anti-malarial
drugs that exclusively attack Plasmodium falciparum
CONTACT
Stanley Fields (Howard Hughes Medical Institute and University of
Washington, Seattle, WA, USA)
Tel: +1 206 616 4522; E-mail: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
Silpa Suthram (University of California, San Diego, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 858 822 4665; E-mail: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
[6] Earth science: Volcanoes slow sea level rise (pp 74-77; N&V)
Volcanic eruptions can slow sea level rise, according to research published
in this week's Nature.
When volcanoes erupt, they release particles and gases into the atmosphere
that tend to reflect the Sun's radiation back out into space, helping to
cool the surface of the ocean. Sea levels rise for two main reasons - the
influx of water from melting ice, and the fact that warmer water occupies
more volume - so the volcanic material can thus put a brake on the oceans'
expansion.
John A. Church and colleagues used observations of ocean heat content and a
set of climate simulations to reach their conclusions. They show that the
eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 was responsible for a 5 millimetre drop
in sea level, for example.
"Although surface air temperature recovers within a few years, the cooling
effects on the ocean persist for at least a decade. This is because of the
large heat capacity of the oceans compared with that of the atmosphere and
the slow redistribution of heat by the ocean circulation", comments Anny
Cazenave in a related News and Views article.
The effect may also help to explain the relatively rapid rate of sea level
rise seen since 1993, compared to data from the previous four decades. Some
of that recent rise may have been caused by the 'recovery' of the oceans as
Pinatubo's effects wore off, the scientists suggest.
CONTACT
John A. Church (CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Hobart, Tasmania,
Australia)
Tel: +61 3 6232 5207; E-mail: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
Anny Cazenave (Laboratoire d'Etudes en Geophysique et Oceanographie
Spatiales/CNES, Toulouse, France)
Tel: +33 5 61 33 29 22; E-mail: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
[7] Algal physiology: Many algae need their vitamins (pp 90-93; N&V)
Many people pop vitamin pills to supplement their diets. But a new survey of
more than 300 algal species shows that more than half of them do the
microbial equivalent - they rely on an external source of vitamin B12
because they cannot make it themselves.
The algae probably get their vitamin fix from bacteria, suspect Alison Smith
and her colleagues, who unveil the research in this week's Nature. After
studying the growth of 326 different algal species, they discovered that 171
lack the ability to make this vitamin, which is important for protein
synthesis and growth.
The researchers add that the ability to make this vitamin has probably been
lost several times during the evolution of algae, and that many different
species may have developed close associations with bacteria as a result. "It
is likely that additional vitamin B12-producing bacteria will be
identified," comments Robert Andersen in an accompanying News and Views
article.
CONTACT
Alison G. Smith (University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK)
Tel: +44 1223 333952; E-mail: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
Robert Andersen (Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, West Boothbay
Harbor, ME, USA)
Tel: +1 207 633 9600; E-mail: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
[8] Marine microbiology: Bacteria use light to drive 'animal' metabolism (pp
82-85)
One of the most abundant bacteria in the oceans has been found to produce a
light-harvesting protein similar to pigments found in animal eyes. The
discovery shows how this member of the SAR11 family of bacteria uses light
as a source of energy to drive its unusual metabolism.
Although the SAR11 family accounts for up to 25% of all marine bacteria,
researchers have been puzzled as to how it became so abundant, because
bacteria grow by 'feeding' on other organic matter (much as animals in the
food chain rely ultimately on plant material). The identified protein,
called a proteorhodopsin, works by using energy from sunlight to drive this
feeding process, report Stephen Giovannoni and his colleagues in this week's
Nature.
Proteorhodopsins have previously been found in seawater, but have not
previously been identified in a specific cultured bacterial species.
Giovannoni and his team found that the proteorhodopsin is produced when
SAR11 bacteria are cultured in sterilized seawater, showing that these
bacteria are able to produce the protein themselves.
CONTACT
Stephen J. Giovannoni (Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA)
Tel: +1 541 737 1835; E-mail: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
[9] And finally... Bridging a wobbly gap (p 43-44)
An analysis of the behaviour of London's wobbly Millennium Bridge on opening
day looks set to help engineers estimate the damping needed to make
footbridges of the future pedestrian proof. Instabilities on crowded
footbridges have been reported in other locations around the world and the
work, reported in a Brief Communication in this week's Nature, could make
this a thing of the past.
The bridge began to sway from side to side as soon as large numbers
of people started to walk across it, and the situation grew worse as they
fell into step with the vibrations, inadvertently amplifying them. This
problem was eventually solved, after twenty months of closures, by the use
of giant shock absorbers. Steven Strogatz and colleagues adapt ideas
originally developed to describe the collective synchronization of
biological oscillators, such as neurons and fireflies, to explain the
phenomenon.
By generalizing ideas developed in mathematical biology, they
provide a unified picture of what happened five years ago by taking into
account both the Millennium Bridge vibrations and the crowd dynamics.
CONTACT
Steven H. Strogatz (Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA)
Tel: +1 607 255 5999; E-mail: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE...
[10] Simulating micrometre-scale crystal growth from solution (pp 70-73)
[11] Crustal rheology of the Himalaya and Southern Tibet inferred from
magnetotelluric data (pp 78-81)
[12] The transcription factor Engrailed-2 guides retinal axons (pp 94-95)
[13] A putative stimulatory role for activator turnover in gene
expression (pp 113-116)
[14] Intrinsic dynamics of an enzyme underlies catalysis (pp 117-121;
N&V)
[15] Enhanced flow in carbon nanotubes (p 44)
GEOGRAPHICAL LISTING OF AUTHORS...
The following list of places refers to the whereabouts of authors on the
papers numbered in this release. For example, London: 4 - this means that
on paper number four, there will be at least one author affiliated to an
institute or company in London. The listing may be for an author's main
affiliation, or for a place where they are working temporarily. Please see
the PDF of the paper for full details.
AUSTRALIA
Hobart, Tasmania: 6
Melbourne: 6
Perth: 10
CANADA
Edmonton: 11
Toronto: 11
CHINA
Beijing: 11
Shanghai: 1
Taipei, Taiwan: 1
FRANCE
Paris: 12
Strasbourg: 11
GERMANY
Marburg: 9
INDIA
Mumbai: 11
IRELAND
Dublin: 11
REPUBLIC OF KOREA
Incheon: 8
SPAIN
Barcelona: 14
SWEDEN
Umea: 14
UNITED KINGDOM
Cambridge: 7, 12, 19
Canterbury: 7
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
California
La Jolla: 14
Novato: 4
Pasadena: 1, 13
San Diego: 5, 8
Colorado
Boulder: 6
Florida
Tallahassee: 14
Hawaii
Kaneohe: 8
Kentucky
Lexington: 15
Maryland
College Park: 9
Greenbelt: 2
Massachusetts
Cambridge: 1
Milford: 8
New York
Ithaca: 9
Yorktown Heights: 3
Oregon
Corvallis: 8
Utah
Salt Lake City: 4, 14
Virginia
Charlottesville: 1
Washington
Seattle: 4, 13
PRESS CONTACTS...
For North America and Canada
Katie McGoldrick, Nature Washington
Tel: +1 202 737 2355; E-mail: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
For Japan, Korea, China, Singapore and Taiwan
Rinoko Asami, Nature Tokyo
Tel: +81 3 3267 8751; E-mail: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
For the UK/Europe/other countries not listed above
Ruth Francis, Nature London
Tel: +44 20 7843 4562; E-mail [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
Katharine Mansell, Nature London
Tel: +44 20 7843 4658; E-mail: [email protected]
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