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This press release is copyright Nature.
VOL.449 NO.7160 DATED 20 SEPTEMBER 2007
This press release contains:
· Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Palaeontology: Primitive hominins outside Africa
Stem cells: Identifying self renewing cells
Climate change: British bog holds clue to ancient global warming
Geochemistry: Argon retention in terrestrial planets
· Mention of papers to be published at the same time with the same embargo
· Geographical listing of authors
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[1] Palaeontology: Primitive hominins outside Africa (pp 305-310; N&V)
Scientists have uncovered the remains of three adults and one adolescent individual, 1.77 million years old, from the Plio-Pleistocene sight of Dmanisi, Georgia. The remains — early evidence of the genus Homo outside Africa — are remarkably well preserved and the postcranial material displays a mixture of primitive and more advanced features. David Lordkipanidze and colleagues analyse the fossils and discuss their evolutionary context in this week’s Nature.
Over the last few decades the site of Dmanisi has yielded a rich fossil and archaeological record — animal remains, primitive tools, and fossil hominin skulls and jaws have all been unearthed. Scientists’ knowledge of the cranio-facial morphology of these early species is reasonably well developed, but there has been little ‘postcranial’ evidence from a complete skeleton.
The authors now present a partial skeleton of an adolescent individual associated with a skull, and the postcranial remains of three adults. The hominins have relatively small cranial capacities and primitive australopith-like upper limbs. However, their spines and lower limbs seem essentially modern, indicating the capability for long-distance travel.
The authors conclude that the Dmanisi hominins — the first hominin species currently known from outside Africa — did not display a full set of advanced locomotor features apparent in African Homo erectus and later hominins. The fossils therefore fill significant gaps in our knowledge of a critical period in human evolution — the transition from autralopith-like species to more modern human-like morphologies.
CONTACT
David Lordkipanidze (Georgian State Museum, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia)
Tel: +995 32 99 80 22; E-mail: [email protected]
Daniel Lieberman (Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA) N&V author
Tel: +1 617 495 5479; E-mail: [email protected]
[2] Stem cells: Identifying self renewing cells (pp 346-350)
Large numbers of adult stem cells can be efficiently obtained from testis, thanks to a newly identified molecule on the cell surface that will allow researchers to tell them apart from non-self-renewing cell types.
Shahin Rafii and colleagues report online this week in Nature that a newly discovered marker, GPR125, flags rapidly multiplying adult spermatogonial progenitor cells and does not appear on differentiated germ-cell counterparts. They developed a system whereby they can use this marker to generate large numbers of stem cells from mouse testicles. These stem-cell populations formed functioning blood vessels in mice, and it has been demonstrated that they convert to cardiac tissue in culture.
CONTACT
Shahin Rafii (Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, NY, USA)
Tel: +1 212 746 2070; E-mail: [email protected]
Marco Seandel (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Howard Hughes Medical Institute & Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York, NY, USA) Co-author
Tel: +1 212 746 2017; E-mail: [email protected]
Jonathan Weil (Director of Research Communications, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA)
Tel: +1 212 821 0566; E-mail: [email protected]
[3] Climate change: British bog holds clue to ancient global warming (pp 332-335)
Around 55 million years ago, the Earth underwent a period of intense global warming. An analysis of sediments from a British bog now suggests that methane levels increased during this time, indicating that the greenhouse gas may have contributed to global warming as part of a positive feedback loop.
Richard D. Pancost and colleagues analysed the geochemical composition of sediments spanning the onset of this warm period, taken from the Cobham Lignite wetland in southeast England. Their results are reported in this week’s Nature. Carbon isotope values of hopanoids, a biomarker derived from bacteria, decreased, suggesting that methane-munching bacteria increased during this time. This in turn, may reflect an increase in methane production and release from the terrestrial biosphere.
CONTACT
Richard D. Pancost (University of Bristol, UK)
Tel: +44 117 928 9178; E-mail: [email protected]
[4] Geochemistry: Argon retention in terrestrial planets (pp 299-304; N&V)
The Earth’s mantle may not be as efficient as previously thought at expelling gases, such as argon, suggests a paper in Nature this week. The study challenges the assumption that most argon escapes into the atmosphere through partial melting when mantle rocks are brought near the Earth’s surface, and concludes that atmospheric argon may therefore not be such a reliable indicator of the vigour of planetary convection.
Stable noble gases such as xenon, helium and argon are generally used as tracers of mantle degassing. It has generally been thought that the Earth releases a large percentage of the gases contained in rocks during episodes of partial melting in the mantle, followed by ascent of the melt to the surface where the gas can move into the atmosphere. That is, scientists believe that noble gases behave as ‘incompatible’ elements during mantle melting — partitioning into a melt as soon as melting begins.
Bruce Watson and colleagues question this theory with data showing that argon doesn’t actually behave in this way. They find that argon is much more compatible in mantle minerals than previously thought, and that the diffusion of argon through mantle minerals is much slower. They conclude that an alternative to magmatism is needed to explain the abundance of argon in the atmosphere, pointing to the hydration of oceanic crust containing argon-rich minerals as a possible source.
Because the mantles of the other terrestrial planets are dominated by similar minerals, the authors note that their results will affect theories of degassing on Mars and Venus as well as Earth.
CONTACT
Bruce Watson (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA)
Tel: +1 518 276 8838; E-mail: [email protected]
Chris J. Ballentine (University of Manchester, UK) N&V author
Tel: +44 161 275 3832; E-mail: [email protected]
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE…
[5] Structure of acid-sensing ion channel 1 at 1.9A° resolution and low pH (pp 316-323; N&V)
[6] Non-equilibrium coherence dynamics in one-dimensional Bose gases (pp 324-327; N&V)
[7] Generating single microwave photons in a circuit (pp 328-331)
[8] Calcineurin is required to release Xenopus egg extracts from meiotic M phase (pp 336-340; N&V)
[9] Transient activation of calcineurin is essential to initiate embryonic development in Xenopus laevis (pp 314-345)
ADVANCE ONLINE PUBLICATION
***These papers will be published electronically on Nature's website on 19 September 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 it on this release to avoid multiple mailings they will not appear in print on 20 September, but at a later date.***
[10] Anaerobic oxidation of short-chain hydrocarbons by marine sulphate-reducing bacteria
DOI: 10.1038/nature06200
[11] Recognition of DNA damage by the Rad4 nucleotide excision repair protein
DOI: 10.1038/nature06155
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.
AUSTRIA
Innsbruck: 6
Vienna: 6
GEORGIA
Tbilisi: 1
GERMANY
Aachen: 10
Bremen: 10
Hamburg: 10
Heidelberg: 6
Jena: 10
Potsdam: 10
Weimar: 1
ITALY
Firenze: 1
JAPAN
Gifu: 9
Yokohama: 9
SPAIN
Barcelona: 1
Tarragona: 1
SWITZERLAND
Zurich: 1
UNITED KINGDOM
Bristol: 3
London: 3
South Mimms: 8
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Connecticut
New Haven: 7
Georgia
Athens: 10
Illinois
Chicago: 3
Massachusetts
Boston: 2
Cambridge: 1
Woods Hole: 10
Minnesota
Minneapolis: 1
Missouri
St Louis: 1
New York
Cold Spring Harbor: 5
New York: 2, 11
Tarrytown: 2
Troy: 4
Oregon
Portland: 5
Texas
Denton: 1
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For North America and Canada
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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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