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This press release is copyright Nature.
VOL.448 NO.7156 DATED 23 AUGUST 2007
This press release contains:
· Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Neuropathology: Mouse model of obsessive compulsive disorder
Evolution: New species of great ape found
Palaeoclimate: No need for an icy north
Quantum physics: How to measure light
And finally… Diamonds really are forever
· Mention of papers to be published at the same time with the same embargo
· Geographical listing of authors
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[1] Neuropathology: Mouse model of obsessive compulsive disorder (pp 894-900; N&V)
An unusually anxious, compulsively overgrooming mouse is presented in this week’s issue of Nature as a possible model for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Mice in which the gene known as Sapap3 has been deleted show many of the characteristic behaviours associated with OCD, and may be useful to researchers looking at the neuropathology and treatment of the disorder.
OCD is an incapacitating psychiatric disorder affecting around 2% of the world’s population. It is characterized by persistent intrusive thoughts (obsessions), repetitive actions (compulsions) and excessive anxiety. Although the symptoms are well known, the neurobiological basis of the disorder is less clear. In the current study, Guoping Feng and colleagues show that deleting Sapap3 in mice leads to OCD-like behaviour. These mice exhibit increased anxiety and compulsive grooming resulting in facial hair loss and skin lesions. They also have abnormal physiology in the neural circuits involving part of the brain called the striatum.
The authors report that the behavioural symptoms of Sapap3-deficient mice are alleviated by selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, the class of drugs frequently used to treat OCD in human patients. They also show that both the behavioural and the physiological symptoms are rescued by specific re-introduction of Sapap3 into the striatum. This suggests that this mouse model will provide new means for testing theories of the neurobiological defects and treatment strategies for OCD.
CONTACT
Guoping Feng (Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA)
Tel: +1 919 668 1657; E-mail: [email protected]
Natalie Frazin (NINDS Office of Communications and Public Liaison, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA)
Tel: +1 301 496 5924; E-mail: [email protected]
Steven E. Hyman (Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA) N&V author
E-mail: [email protected]
[2] Evolution: New species of great ape found (pp 921-924)
The fossilized remains of a new species of great ape have been found in Ethiopia. At around 10 million years old, the long-sought-after discoveries provide hard evidence helping to pin down the date when gorillas split from chimp–human stock.
Timing the divergence between the gorilla, chimp and human lineages has been the province of molecular phylogeny and largely unconstrained by fossil evidence. In this week's Nature, Gen Suwa and colleagues now present fossil teeth from Ethiopia's Chorora Formation, which look very similar to those of a modern gorilla.
If the teeth, assigned to a new species of fossil ape, come from a creature on the gorilla lineage, then the divergence between gorillas and the chimp–human stock must have happened before 10 million years ago, constraining divergence dates reached through the comparison of contemporary genetic sequences.
CONTACT
Gen Suwa (Tokyo University Museum, Japan)
Tel: +81 3 5841 2836; E-mail: [email protected]
Berhane Asfaw (Rift Valley Research Service, Addis Ababa, Ethiopa) Co-author
Tel: +251 9 223 194; E-mail: [email protected]
[3] Palaeoclimate: No need for an icy north (pp 908-911)
Recent evidence has suggested that large ice sheets may have been present in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres around 40 million years ago, but a study in this week’s Nature provides support for an alternative, more conventional view.
Kirsty M. Edgar and colleagues used marine sediment cores taken from the equatorial Atlantic Ocean to estimate the global volume of ice present around 41.6 million years ago. The ice could easily have fitted on Antarctica, they conclude, so it is unlikely that large ice sheets were present in both hemispheres at this time.
The finding contradicts conclusions gleaned from an earlier analysis of different cores, which suggested that large ice sheets were present in both the Northern and the Southern Hemispheres at this time. They also bring the geological record into line with climate model simulations, which indicate that the threshold for continental glaciation was crossed earlier in the Southern Hemisphere than in the Northern Hemisphere due to the different land–ocean distributions at the two poles.
CONTACT
Kirsty M. Edgar (National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK)
This author is temporarily working in the US but can be contacted by email on:
E-mail: [email protected]
Paul A. Wilson (National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK) Co-author
Tel: +44 23 8059 6164; E-mail: [email protected]
[4] Quantum physics: How to measure light (pp 889-893; N&V)
Researchers have devised a way to quantify photons precisely without destroying them. The technique, described in this week's Nature, nicely demonstrates the formal theory of quantum measurement.
Michel Brune and colleagues fired a stream of atoms across a photonic field held in a cavity. As the atoms came out the other side, the team were able to detect shifts in their internal frequencies and use this information to calculate the number of photons present.
Normally researchers use light to probe matter, but in this experiment matter is being used to probe light. And unlike regular photon detectors, the photons are not destroyed in the process.
The technique is also a good demonstration of the formal theory of quantum measurement. In quantum systems, the precise value of an observable quantity is uncertain until it is measured. But it is possible to probe a system progressively and converge towards a measurement outcome. Here, the researchers use a stream of atoms to extract information about the cavity field, converging from an uncertain number of photons to an exact value.
CONTACT
Michel Brune (Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, Paris, France)
Please note that many of the authors for paper [4] are travelling. You can contact the following co-author by email, who should then be able to call you back:
Serge Haroche (Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, Paris, France); E-mail: [email protected]
Luis A. Orozco (University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA) N&V author
Tel: +1 301 405 9740; E-mail: [email protected]
[5] And finally… Diamonds really are forever (pp 917-920; N&V)
Diamonds over four billion years old have been discovered in the Jack Hills region of Western Australia, according to a report in Nature this week. The diamonds — found trapped inside crystals of zircon — are nearly as old as the Earth itself and could provide unique insights into the early evolution of the planet's crust.
Zircon crystals are tough and relatively resistant to being melted, thereby retaining vital clues about past events occurring in the Earth’s crust and mantle. Recent studies of these ancient crystals have suggested that the Earth might have cooled much more quickly than previously thought, with the continental crust and oceans forming as early as 4.4 billion years ago.
Martina Menneken and colleagues investigated the mineral inclusions contained within the zircon crystals and found that some of them contained small diamonds. The zircons have been dated using uranium and lead isotopes and found to be over four billion years old — almost one billion years older than the previous oldest-known terrestrial diamonds, and present in material that crystallized within 300 million years of the formation of the Earth itself.
The authors examine possible scenarios in which the diamonds might have formed and conclude that the crystals most closely resemble those found in ultrahigh-pressure conditions. They suggest that these findings imply a relatively thick continental crust and crust–mantle interaction at least 4.25 billion years ago.
CONTACT
Martina Menneken (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Muenster, Germany)
Tel: +49 25 18 33 34 53; E-mail: [email protected]
Ian S. Williams (Australian National University, Canberra, Australia) N&V author
Tel: +61 6 249 5164; E-mail: [email protected]
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE…
[6] Integrating molecular and network biology to decode endocytosis (pp 883-888)
[7] Gap junction adhesion is necessary for radial migration in the neocortex (pp 901-907)
[8] Northern Hemisphere forcing of climatic cycles in Antarctica over the past 360,000 years (pp 912-916)
[9] Non-random coextinctions in phylogenetically structured mutualistic networks (pp 925-928; N&V)
[10] Regulation of IgA production by naturally occurring TNF/iNOS-producing dendritic cells (pp 929-933)
[11] p15Ink4b is a critical tumour suppressor in the absence of p16Ink4a (pp 943-946
[12] The effects of molecular noise and size control on variability in the budding yeast cell cycle (pp 947-951)
ADVANCE ONLINE PUBLICATION
***These papers will be published electronically on Nature's website on 22 August 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 23 August, but at a later date.***
[13] UTX and JMJD3 are histone H3K27 demethylases involved in HOX gene regulation and development
DOI: 10.1038/nature06145
[14] Structure of Dnmt3a bound to Dnmt3L suggests a model for de novo DNA methylation
DOI: 10.1038/nature06146
[15] IgH class switching and translocations use a robust non-classical end-joining pathway
DOI: 10.1038/nature06020
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
Bentley: 5
BRAZIL
Sao Paulo: 9
CHINA
Zhejiang: 1
DENMARK
Copenhagen: 13
ETHIOPIA
Addis Ababa: 2
FRANCE
Gif-sur-Yvette: 8
Grenoble: 8
Paris: 4
GERMANY
Bremen: 14
Mainz: 4
Munich: 11
Munster: 5
ISRAEL
Rehovot: 13
JAPAN
Akita: 10
Ibaraki: 8
Kagawa: 10
Osaka: 10
Sanda: 2
Sendai: 8
Tokyo: 2, 3, 8, 10
NETHERLANDS
Amsterdam: 11
PORTUGAL
Coimbra: 1
Oeiras: 1
SPAIN
Seville: 9
UNITED KINGDOM
Cambridge: 6, 8
Edinburgh: 13
Southampton: 3
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
California
La Jolla: 3, 8
San Francisco: 7
Georgia
Atlanta: 14
Massachusetts
Boston: 8, 15
New York
New York: 12
North Carolina
Chapel Hill: 1
Durham: 1
Research Triangle Park: 1
PRESS CONTACTS…
For North America and Canada
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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]
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