WWW.NATURE.COM/NATURE
This press release is copyright Nature. VOL.447 NO.7148 DATED 28 JUNE 2007
Wire services’ stories must always carry the embargo time at the head of each item, and may not be sent out more than 24 hours before that time.
Solely for the purpose of soliciting informed comment on Nature papers, you may show relevant parts of this document, and the papers to which it refers, to independent specialists – but you must ensure in advance that they understand and accept Nature’s embargo conditions.
This press release contains:
· Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Stem cells: New type of stem cell derived
Evolution: Good genes gender specific?
Interstellar chemistry: Blowing in the wind
Optics: Nanowire light source
Geochemistry: Silicon in the Earth’s core
· Mention of papers to be published at the same time with the same embargo
· Geographical listing of authors
Editorial contacts: While the best contacts for stories will always be the authors themselves, in some cases the Nature editor who handled the paper will be available for comment if an author is unobtainable. Editors are contactable via Ruth Francis on +44 20 7843 4562. Feel free to get in touch with Nature's press contacts in London, Washington and Tokyo (as listed at the end of this release) with any general editorial inquiry.
Warning: This document, and the Nature papers to which it refers, may contain information that is price sensitive (as legally defined, for example, in the UK Criminal Justice Act 1993 Part V) with respect to publicly quoted companies. Anyone dealing in securities using information contained in this document or in advanced copies of Nature’s content may be guilty of insider trading under the US Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
The Nature journals press site is at http://press.nature.com
· PDFs for the Articles, Letters, Progress articles, Review articles, Insights and Brief Communications in this issue will be available on the Nature journals press site from 1400 London time / 0900 US Eastern time on the Friday before publication.
· PDFs of News & Views, News Features, Correspondence and Commentaries will be available from 1400 London time / 0900 US Eastern time on the Monday before publication
PICTURES: While we are happy for images from Nature to be reproduced for the purposes of contemporaneous news reporting, you must also seek permission from the copyright holder (if named) or author of the research paper in question (if not).
HYPE: We take great care not to hype the papers mentioned on our press releases, but are sometimes accused of doing so. If you ever consider that a story has been hyped, please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected], citing the specific example.
PLEASE CITE NATURE AND OUR WEBSITE www.nature.com/nature AS THE SOURCE OF THE FOLLOWING ITEMS. IF PUBLISHING ONLINE, PLEASE CARRY A HYPERLINK TO http://www.nature.com/nature
[1] & [2] Stem cells: New type of stem cell derived (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature05972
DOI: 10.1038/nature05950
***These papers will be published electronically on Nature's website on 27 June at 1800 London time / 1300 US Eastern time (which is also when the embargo lifts) as part of our AOP (ahead of print) programme. Although we have included them on this release to avoid multiple mailings they will not appear in print on 28 June, but at a later date.***
A new type of rodent embryonic stem (ES) cell has been derived that is more similar to human ES cells than current mouse alternatives. With human ES cells hard to come by, it's hoped that the new cells will prove a useful model that will boost our understanding of human stem cell biology.
Previously, it was thought that mouse ES cells could only be obtained from embryos before they had implanted into the uterus wall. Ronald D. G. McKay and colleagues and Ludovic Vallier and colleagues have now isolated rodent ES cells from embryos after they had implanted, from a tissue called the epiblast. Their studies are described in two Nature papers this week.
Unlike pre-implantation mouse ES cells, these new cells share many defining features with human ES cells. They grow like human ES cells, have similar patterns of gene expression and cell surface markers, and can produce many different cell types — as has already been shown for mouse ES cells.
Human ES cells are of interest from a basic biology and a therapeutic point of view, but researchers still need to understand fully the signals and processes that control their differentiation into specific cell types. The derivation of this new type of ES cell provides an experimental model to accelerate the use of human ES cells in science and medicine.
CONTACT
Ronald D. G. McKay (NINDS-NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA) Author paper [1]
Tel: +1 301 496 5284; E-mail: [email protected]
Ludovic Vallier (University of Cambridge, UK) Author paper [2]
Please note the author is travelling and it may be easier to contact his co-author:
Roger Pedersen (University of Cambridge, UK)
Please contact Roger Pedersen through his PA, Paula McPhee
Tel: +44 1223 763 366; E-mail: [email protected]
Laure Thomas (Senior Press Officer, MRC, London, UK)
Tel: +44 207 670 5139 or 07818 428 297 out-of-hours; E-mail: [email protected]
A press briefing related to these papers will take place UNDER STRICT EMBARGO on:
Tuesday 26 June at 1100 London time / 0600 US Eastern time
Location: The Science Media Centre, 19 Albermarle Street, London W1S 4HS, UK
For more details please contact Claire Bithell at the Science Media Centre: [email protected]
The authors will speak about their research followed by questions from the media.
[3] Evolution: Good genes gender specific? (pp 1107-1110)
‘Good genes’ for males are not necessarily ‘good genes’ for females, a study in this week’s Nature suggests.
In a long-term study of red deer (Cervus elaphus), Katharina Foerster and colleagues show that males with relatively high fitness tend to father daughters with relatively low fitness. In addition, males that carry genes for high female fitness tend to be selected against.
The study, which suggests that the selective advantage of good genes can be gender-specific, backs up theoretical predictions and results from fruitfly experiments. It is thought that this may have profound effects on the selection and maintenance of genetic variation in natural populations.
CONTACT
Katharina Foerster (University of Edinburgh, UK)
The author is currently in Germany and can be contacted on:
Tel: +49 81 57 93 23 20; E-mail: [email protected]
[4] Interstellar chemistry: Blowing in the wind (pp 1094-1097; N&V)
Oxygen-rich stars may contribute more of our Galaxy’s chemical make-up than was previously thought, a Nature paper this week suggests.
Many of the chemicals that make up our Galaxy are spewed out from old, evolved stars, and until now carbon-rich stars were thought the most likely contributory source. With more oxygen than carbon, oxygen-rich stars were expected to lock away carbon in the form of stable carbon monoxide and so contribute little to our Galaxy's chemical richness.
Lucy M. Ziurys and colleagues now report a variety of unexpected chemical compounds in the oxygen-rich shell of the red supergiant star VY Canis Majoris. The results suggest that oxygen-rich stars may be as chemically diverse as their carbon counterparts, and so are also likely to contribute to the chemical diversity of our Galaxy.
CONTACT
Lucy M. Ziurys (University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA)
Tel: +1 520 621 6525; E-mail: [email protected]
Sun Kwok (Hong Kong University, China) N&V author
Tel: +852 2859 2682; E-mail: [email protected]
[5] Optics: Nanowire light source (pp 1098-1101)
A nanowire that functions as a light source has been developed, enabling researchers to probe nanoscale structures with high resolution. The new light source is compatible with a physiological environment and so is of interest for bio-imaging applications, according to a study in Nature this week.
Peidong Yang and colleagues developed a source of visible light based on an inorganic nanowire made from potassium niobate, a material that has nonlinear optical properties and so can convert light from one frequency to another. They then used optical tweezers to hold the nanowire and scanned it over a sample to make images of a test structure with subwavelength resolution.
The experimental set-up requires no electrodes or conventional electronic wiring, which means that the probe can be placed close to living tissue with minimum damage to the sample. This makes it an attractive bio-imaging tool, but the technique may also find use in advanced information technology, cryptography and signal processing circuits
CONTACT
Peidong Yang (University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 510 643 1545; E-mail: [email protected]
[6] Geochemistry: Silicon in the Earth’s core (pp 1102-1106; N&V)
Silicon may already have been present in the Earth’s core before the Moon formed, a Nature paper suggests. The finding could help explain the isotopic differences in silicon content that exist between various celestial bodies.
The iron isotopes found in basaltic rocks from the Earth and Moon have a relatively heavy atomic mass compared with those from Mars, Vesta and primitive meteorites. But the origin of this has been unclear because other elements do not seem to show the effect. Alex N. Halliday and colleagues now show that the silicon isotopic compositions of basaltic rocks from the Earth and Moon are also distinctly heavy.
That the Earth and Moon share similar isotopic compositions of bulk silicate is consistent with the idea that different isotopes of various elements were mixed up and then reached equilibrium when the young Earth collided with a Mars-sized body to form the Moon. And if so, the authors conclude that silicon was already a light element in the Earth’s core before the Moon formed.
CONTACT
Alex N. Halliday (Oxford University, UK)
Tel: +44 1865 272 969; E-mail: [email protected]
Tim Elliott (University of Bristol, UK) N&V author
Tel: +44 117 954 5426; E-mail: [email protected]
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE…
[7] Isotopic portrayal of the Earth’s upper mantle flow field (pp 1069-1074)
[8] Dual E1 activation systems for ubiquitin differentially regulate E2 enzyme charging (pp 1135-1138)
ADVANCE ONLINE PUBLICATION
***These papers will be published electronically on Nature's website on 27 June at 1800 London time / 1300 US Eastern time (which is also when the embargo lifts) as part of our AOP (ahead of print) programme. Although we have included them on this release to avoid multiple mailings they will not appear in print on 28 June, but at a later date.***
[9] Non-transcriptional control of DNA replication by c-Myc
DOI: 10.1038/nature05953
[10] The Rab8 GTPase regulates apical protein localization in intestinal cells
DOI: 10.1038/nature05929
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.
CANADA
Toronto: 2
FRANCE
Lyon: 7
Nantes: 7
Paris: 7
JAPAN
Gunma: 10
Itami: 10
Kanazawa: 10
Kumamoto: 10
Osaka: 10
SWEDEN
Stockholm: 2
SWITZERLAND
Zurich: 6
UNITED KINGDOM
Ascot: 3
Cambridge: 2, 3
Edinburgh: 3
London: 2
Nottingham: 7
Oxford: 1, 3, 6
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Arizona
Tucson: 4
California
Berkeley: 5
Los Angeles: 6
Maryland
Bethesda: 1
New York
New York: 9
Washington
Seattle: 9
PRESS CONTACTS…
For North America and Canada
Katie McGoldrick, Nature Washington
Tel: +1 202 737 2355; E-mail: [email protected]
For Japan, Korea, China, Singapore and Taiwan
Mika Nakano, Nature Tokyo
Tel: +81 3 3267 8751; E-mail: [email protected]
For the UK/Europe/other countries not listed above
Helen Jamison, Nature London
Tel: +44 20 7843 4658; E-mail [email protected]
About NPG
Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd, dedicated to serving the academic, professional scientific and medical communities. NPG's flagship title, Nature, was first published in 1869. Other publications include Nature research journals, Nature Reviews, Nature Clinical Practice and a range of prestigious academic journals including society-owned publications. NPG also provides news content through [email protected]. Scientific career information and free job postings are offered on Naturejobs.
NPG is a global company with headquarters in London and offices in New York, San Francisco, Washington DC, Boston, Tokyo, Paris, Munich, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Delhi, Mexico City and Basingstoke. For more information, please go to www.nature.com.
