WWW.NATURE.COM/NATURE
VOL.450 NO.7172 DATED 13 DECEMBER 2007
This press release is copyright Nature.
This press release contains:
· Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Geochemistry: Efficient energy recovery
Mammals: Patterns of evolution
Climate change: Remote control of tropical cyclones
Astrophysics: A rotating ring current around Saturn
Wave forms: Fathoming giant rogue waves
Books: Seasonal kids' special
Structural biology: A gallery of protein pumps
Space: Halo halo
Chemistry: New compound comes out of the cool
And finally... Why pregnant women don’t tip over
· Mention of papers to be published at the same time with the same embargo
· Geographical listing of authors
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[1] Geochemistry: Efficient energy recovery (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature06484
Crude oil degradation in subsurface reservoirs occurs mainly as a result of fermentation, involving the anaerobic breakdown of hydrocarbons to produce methane. If encouraged to accelerate, this naturally occurring mechanism could offer a route to economic production of difficult-to-recover energy from oilfields using existing technology and infrastructures.
Biodegradation of crude oil to heavy oil in subsurface petroleum reservoirs has had a detrimental effect on oil fields, making recovery and refining difficult and costly. Recent studies have suggested that this process could be caused by oxygen-using aerobic bacteria.
Steve Larter and colleagues report in Nature this week that the dominant process in biodegradation is in fact fermentation - during which energy is released without oxygen. Using a combination of microbiological studies, laboratory experiments and oilfield case studies they demonstrate the anaerobic degradation of hydrocarbons to produce methane. They conclude that the acceleration of this natural process in reservoirs is a practical route to recover energy from heavy-oil fields in the form of methane rather than oil. They propose that it could also pave the way for a reduction in carbon emissions through the microbial capture of injected carbon dioxide as methane, which could then be recycled as a fuel.
CONTACT
Steve Larter (University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada)
Tel: +1 403 220 7484; E-mail: [email protected]
Martin Jones (University of Newcastle, UK) Co-author
Tel: +44 191 222 8628; E-mail: [email protected]
[2] Mammals: Patterns of evolution (pp 1011-1019)
Mammalian evolution is less linear than previously thought, suggests a review article in Nature this week. The study uses the newly improved fossil record to build up a more complex picture of the evolution of key anatomical features.
Mammals are an important group for understanding life and its evolution. From the bumblebee bat to the blue whale, the group has evolved through time to display spectacular diversity and specialization. The evolution of mammals is commonly thought to involve a steady, orderly acquisition of key features from the reptile group - the ancestors from which mammals diverged. Characters such as the middle ear evolved from the reptilian jaw joint, and the ‘tribosphenic’ (crushing and biting) molar is thought to have come from the simpler, pointed teeth of reptiles.
Zhe-Xi Luo analyses a host of recently discovered fossils that alters this view radically, showing that mammal evolution was not quite so linear but more chaotic and subject to frequent changes - with many ‘dead-end’ lineages evolving. Lineage splits were accompanied by significant ecological diversification, with independent evolutionary ‘experiments’ evolving. The rapid accumulation of new data from recent finds and increasingly comprehensive ‘phylogenies’ have all contributed to this new approach of understanding how mammals evolved.
CONTACT
Zhe-Xi Luo (Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, PA, USA)
Tel: +1 412 622 6578; E-mail: [email protected]
[3] Climate change: Remote control of tropical cyclones (pp 1066-1070)
Natural climate variations, which tend to involve localized changes in sea surface temperature, may have a larger effect - per degree local warming - on tropical cyclone activity than the more uniform patterns of greenhouse-gas-induced warming, a report in this week’s Nature suggests.
The effect of global warming on tropical cyclone activity is widely debated. It is often assumed that warmer sea surface temperatures encourage more frequent and intense tropical cyclones, but several other factors, such as atmospheric temperature and humidity, also come into play.
Gabriel Vecchi and Brian Soden analysed climate model projections and observational reconstructions to explore the relationship between changes in sea surface temperature and tropical cyclone ‘potential intensity’ - a measure that provides an upper limit on cyclone intensity. They found that long-term changes in potential intensity are more closely related to the regional structure of warming than to local sea surface temperature change. Regions that warm more than the tropical average are characterized by increased potential intensity, and vice versa. This indicates that localized changes in sea surface temperature, such as those caused by natural climate variations, are more effective at altering potential intensity (per degree local warming) than more uniform patterns of warming, such as those expected in response to increasing greenhouse-gas concentrations.
CONTACT
Gabriel Vecchi (NOAA, Princeton, NJ, USA)
Tel: +1 609 452 6583; E-mail: [email protected]
[4] Astrophysics: A rotating ring current around Saturn (pp 1050-1053)
A ring of electrical current encircles the Earth at high altitudes that affects its magnetic field during geomagnetic storms. Jupiter has ring currents of a different type, and the Voyager missions indicated some 25 years ago that Saturn might have one too. A paper in this week’s Nature by S. N. Krimigis and colleagues confirms these suspicions with remarkable images of Saturn’s equatorial magnetosphere, captured aboard the Cassini spacecraft.
Unlike Earth’s ring current, suspected some 90 years ago and confirmed 50 years or so later, the discovery of Saturn’s ring current has resulted from a single mission.
CONTACT
S. N. Krimigis (The John Hopkins University, Laurel, MD, USA)
Tel: +1 240 228 5287; E-mail: [email protected]
[5] Wave forms: Fathoming giant rogue waves (pp 1054-1057; N&V)
Maritime folklore tells of huge waves that appear out of nowhere in the open ocean - mountainous monsters that pose a threat even to large modern ships and oil rigs. A paper published in this week’s Nature uses a model optical system to try to explain these rare and unpredictable events, showing that they result from power transfer seeded by a particular small disturbance in the experimental setup.
D. R. Solli and colleagues use a new real-time detection technique to reveal that extremely steep waves may arise from injection of almost identical optical pulses. Random variation, known as ‘noise’, in the system - which is based on a microstructured optical fibre - can upset the initially smooth pulses, and will generate a mighty wave if it causes a certain frequency shift within a well defined time window.
Rogue waves appear as solitary walls of water, without spreading. They are hard to monitor because they last for such a short time. But because of their similarities with those generated from the optical model, the researchers believe that their system provides some valuable clues to understanding them.
CONTACT
D. R. Solli (University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 310 206 4554; E-mail: [email protected]
Benjamin Eggleton (University of Sydney, Australia) (N&V Author)
Tel: +61 2 9351 3604; E-mail: [email protected]
Books: Seasonal kids' special (pp 946-952)
Books for young readers are the focus of a special six-page holiday season issue of the Books & Arts section of this week’s Nature, and an accompanying podcast. Expert reviewers, their children and their grandchildren weigh up the different approaches publishers are taking to communicating science to tomorrow’s lab heads and policy makers. From pop-ups to how-to’s, biographies to fiction, encyclopaedias to compendiums - find out how books are trying to hold their own against the other information sources now available to budding scientists.
CONTACT
Sara Abdulla (Chief Commissioning Editor , Nature)
Tel: +44 207 843 4587; E-mail: [email protected]
[6] [7] & [8] Structural biology: A gallery of protein pumps (pp 1036-1042; 1043-1049; 1111-1114; N&V)
An international team of structural biologists has created some of the most detailed images yet of three proteins that help cells shuttle charged ions across their membranes - an important process in maintaining intracellular stores of these chemicals.
The researchers, divided into three research groups, each of which is led by Poul Nissen, have used a technique called X-ray crystallography to study the structures of three different ‘ion pumps’ with unprecedented resolution - down to the level of individual atoms within these protein complexes. The research will provide more detailed insight into the structure of these pumps, each of which break down the energy-giving molecule ATP to force ions across membranes against a concentration gradient.
In three separate research papers in this week’s Nature, Nissen and colleagues unveil the structures of: the proton pump, which shuttles hydrogen ions across cell membranes in plants and fungi; the calcium pump, which moves calcium ions into cellular storage compartments and is essential for muscle function; and the sodium-potassium pump, which is important for a range of functions including transmission of nerve impulses along neurons.
The researchers report several unexpected properties of these protein complexes, including the remarkable similarity shared by the calcium and sodium-potassium pumps, which raises the question of how they manage to bind specifically to these different ions.
CONTACT
Poul Nissen (University of Aarhus, Denmark) Author papers [6], [7] & [8]
Tel: +45 8942 5025; E-mail: [email protected]
David Gadsby (Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA) (N&V Author)
Tel: Please check on the press site for updates
E-mail: [email protected]
[9] Space: Halo halo (pp 1020-1025)
The Milky Way’s halo actually consists of a pair of haloes, according to research published in Nature this week. Scientists have long suspected this may be the case, but the new work shows that the halo is clearly divisible into two overlapping structural components - inner and outer.
The halo provides unique insight into the first objects to form in the Universe, and the information can be used to improve models of galaxy formation and evolution. Timothy Beers and colleagues examine a sample of over 20,000 stars and show that the inner halo probably formed through successive mergers while the outer most probably came about through tidal disruption of proto-Galactic clumps. The two rotate in different directions, and those in the inner circle have a higher abundance of elements heavier than helium.
CONTACT
Timothy Beers (Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA)
Tel: +1 517 355 9200 (ext 2416); E-mail: [email protected]
[10] Chemistry: New compound comes out of the cool (pp 1062-1065; N&V)
A paper in this week’s Nature reports potentially useful chemical and magnetic properties in a new strontium iron oxide. The structure of the material is different from previous strontium iron oxides: this one has apparently infinite two-dimensional layers of iron and oxygen atoms organised in a square planar structure in which the iron lies in the centre of a square made up of four oxygen atoms. Low-temperature reduction and oxidation of the material suggests an oxygen ion mobility that could be beneficial in a variety of applications, including ion conductors and sensors. Furthermore, the material demonstrates a high degree of magnetic ordering far above room temperature.
H. Kageyama and colleagues needed a temperature of only about 280 degrees centigrade to create their strontium iron oxide. They used a chemical known as a hydride, often used as a drying agent, as a reducing agent to help lower the temperature of the reaction. Because there are a vast number of iron oxides available for similar treatment, there is scope for generating a large range of related materials with interesting properties, say the authors.
CONTACT
(Contact by E-mail is preferable)
H. Kageyama (Kyoto University, Japan)
Tel: +81 75 753 3991; E-mail: [email protected]
Werner Paulus (Université de Rennes 1, France) Co-author
Tel: +33 22 323 5741; E-mail: [email protected]
Matthew Rosseinsky (University of Liverpool, UK) (N&V Author)
Tel: +44 151 794 3499; E-mail: [email protected]
[11] And finally... Why pregnant women don’t tip over (pp 1075-1078)
Walking on two legs instead of four creates problems for humans at each end of life, and a susceptibility to backache in between. Pregnant women must also stay upright as their expanding cargo steadily shifts their centre of gravity - a challenge analysed in a paper in this week’s Nature.
Daniel Lieberman and colleagues show that female spines have evolved special features to balance the fetal load in front of their hip joints. To compensate, mothers-to-be tilt backwards as they walk, so their lumbar vertebrae are reinforced and slightly curved to offset back strain. Men don’t have these modifications; neither do chimps.
What’s more, fossil vertebrae from our australopithecine ancestors several million years ago indicate that they too had much the same adaptations. Presumably, these helped pregnant females to stay free of backache while busily foraging and dodging predators.
CONTACT
Daniel Lieberman (Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA)
Tel: +1 617 495 5479; E-mail: [email protected]
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE
[12] Molecular code for transmembrane-helix recognition by the Sec61 translocon (pp 1026-1030)
[13] Chromatin remodelling at promoters suppresses antisense transcription (pp 1031-1035; N&V)
[14] A distinct bosonic mode in an electron-doped high-transition-temperature superconductor (pp 1058-1061)
[15] Dynamics of Mid-Palaeocene North Atlantic rifting linked with European intra-plate deformations (pp 1071-1074)
[16] CLOCK-mediated acetylation of BMAL1 controls circadian function (pp 1086-1090)
[17] A viral microRNA functions as an orthologue of cellular miR-155 (pp 1096-1099)
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
Australian Capital Territory: 9
CANADA
Calgary: 1
DENMARK
Aarhus: 6, 7, 8, 15
Frederiksberg: 8
FRANCE
Grenoble: 10
Paris: 6
Rennes: 10
GERMANY
Berlin: 4
Dresden: 17
Heidelberg: 9
Katlenburg-Lindau: 4
GREECE
Athens: 4
ITALY
Pino Torinese: 9
JAPAN
Kyoto: 10
Sendai: 9
Tokyo: 16
NETHERLANDS
Amsterdam: 15
NORWAY
Bergen: 1
SLOVENIA
Ljubljana: 9
SWEDEN
Stockholm: 12
UNITED KINGDOM
Didcot: 7
Newcastle upon Tyne: 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Arizona
Flagstaff: 9
California
Irvine: 12, 16
Los Angeles: 4
Florida
Miami: 3
Illinois
Chicago: 9
Maryland
College Park: 4
Laurel: 4
Massachusetts
Cambridge: 11, 17
Chestnut Hill: 14
Worcester: 13
Michigan
E. Lansing: 9
New Jersey
Princeton: 3
North Carolina
Durham: 17
Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh: 2
Tennessee
Knoxville: 14
Oak Ridge: 14
Texas
Austin: 11
Lubbock: 9
Washington
Seattle: 13
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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
Rachel Twinn, Nature London
Tel: +44 20 7843 4658; E-mail [email protected]
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