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This press release is copyright Nature.
VOL.451 NO.7180 DATED 14 FEBRUARY 2008
This press release contains:
· Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Relics: Flying deaf
Astrophysics: Progenitor of a type Ia supernova
Genomes: Last of the single cells
Mineralogy: What’s in the transition zone of Earth’s mantle
Food webs: Chaos reigns
And finally… Energy scavengers for power dressing
· Mention of papers to be published at the same time with the same embargo
· Geographical listing of authors
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[1] Relics: Flying deaf (pp 818-821; N&V)
The near-complete skeleton of the most primitive bat known is presented in this week’s Nature. The newly discovered species has fully developed wings and was capable of powered flight, but the morphology of the ear region suggests they could not echolocate. The discovery, by Nancy Simmons and colleagues resolves an ongoing debate about the evolution of bats, showing that they could fly before they acquired their famous ability to use echolocation to hunt and to generally get around.
The Green River formation in Wyoming has produced some important fossils, including Icaronycteris index, which for 40 years or so has been regarded as the oldest known bat. It had cranial features suggesting that it could locate its insect prey by echolocation, sparking a debate about bat evolution.
The latest fossil, from the Early Eocene, precedes Icaronycteris, and is a possible intermediate between bats and their non-flying, non-echolocating mammalian ancestors. Its limb characteristics indicate that the new bat may have been an agile climber, using quadrupedal locomotion and under-branch hanging behaviour.
CONTACT
Nancy Simmons (American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA)
Tel: +1 212 769 5483; E-mail: [email protected]
John Speakman (University of Aberdeen, UK) N&V author
Tel: +44 1224 272 879; E-mail: [email protected]
[2] Astrophysics: Progenitor of a type Ia supernova (pp 802-804; N&V)
Type Ia supernovae are exploding stars that can be used to measure the accelerated expansion of the Universe, but it is unclear how the explosion is triggered.
A paper in this week’s Nature reports the discovery of an object at the position of the recent type Ia supernova known as ‘SN2007on’ — a finding that may shed new light on the question.
Rasmus Voss and Gijs Nelemans reveal that this object — located in the elliptical galaxy known as NGC 1404 — is an X-ray source, identifying it as the likely progenitor of the supernova. Explosions are thought to be caused either by the merging of two white dwarfs — the hot, dense remains of a star’s core — or by a single white dwarf accreting material from a companion until it becomes so large that it collapses and explodes. The authors believe the latter possibility is a more likely explanation in the case of SN2007on.
CONTACT
Rasmus Voss (Max Planck Institute, Garching, Germany)
Tel: +49 89 358 317 126; E-mail: [email protected]
Gijs Nelemans (University Nijmegen Astrophysics, Nijmegen, Netherlands) Co-author
Tel: +31 24 365 2983; E-mail: [email protected]
Edward P. J. van den Heuvel (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands) N&V author
Tel: +31 20 525 7491; E-mail: [email protected]
[3] Genomes: Last of the single cells (pp 783-788)
The genome sequence of the marine choanoflagellate Monosiga brevicollis is determined in this week’s Nature, revealing more about the origin of multicellular organisms.
Choanoflagellates occupy an important place in the tree of life as they have been suggested to be the closest unicellular relative to animals. They are a non-free-moving group of protozoa resembling the ‘feeding cells’ of sponges. Because they occupy diverse freshwater and marine ecosystems, choanoflagellates create a critical link between nanoplankton and larger organisms in the marine carbon cycle.
Comparison of the M. brevicollis sequence with metazoan genomes suggests that the last unicellular ancestor of animals had intron-rich genes, some encoding protein domains characteristically associated with cell adhesion and the extracellular matrix in animals, report Nicole King and colleagues. This particular organism is strictly unicellular, but other choanoflagellates form colonies and may provide clues as to the origin of cell signalling and other systems in early metazoans.
CONTACT
Nicole King (University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 510 643 9395; E-mail: [email protected]
[4] Mineralogy: What’s in the transition zone of Earth’s mantle (pp814-817)
A paper in this week’s Nature makes an important contribution to the long-standing debate about the composition of part of the Earth’s mantle, a region almost 3,000 kilometres thick that surrounds the Earth’s core.
Tetsuo Irifune and colleagues investigate the mineral composition at depths of 400 to 700 kilometres beneath the Earth’s crust, a region characterized by anomalous seismic wave velocity and density changes. This transition zone is thought to be composed of either olivine-rich ‘pyrolite’ or pyroxene- and garnet-rich ‘piclogite’ minerals.
The team uses sound velocity measurements to study the seismological properties of minerals in the region — in particular the mineral majorite, which had not been measured with realistic mantle compositions before. They find that these properties are more consistent with an olivine-rich pyrolite chemical composition. The results should allow mineral elastic properties to be compared with seismological properties in the region and should also place constraints on features of the transition zone.
CONTACT
Tetsuo Irifune (Ehime University, Ehime, Japan)
Tel: +89 927 9645; E-mail: [email protected]
[5] Food webs: Chaos reigns (pp 822-825)
An eight-year experimental study of a marine plankton community reveals ‘naturally’ chaotic population dynamics, implying that our ability to predict the long-term dynamics of real ecosystems may be severely limited. The research, published in Nature this week, is the first study of its kind in a community derived from a natural ecosystem, rather than an artificial or greatly simplified model community.
Many mathematical models predict chaos in food webs, raising doubts over the extent to which we can predict future changes in species abundances as a result of climate change and habitat loss. This ‘ecological’ chaos has been demonstrated in simple model systems but not in complex communities from real ecosystems, leading to suggestions that it might apply to the real world.
Jef Huisman and colleagues argue that their work has important implications for ecology and ecosystem management.
CONTACT
Jef Huisman (Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Tel: +31 20 525 7085 or: +31 6 2679 2263; E-mail: [email protected]
**Please note that Jef Huisman will present his work at a conference under strict embargo:
Tuesday 12 February at 09.30 London time (GMT) / 10.30 Central European Time, as part of the Annual Meeting of the Netherlands Ecological Research Network (NERN)
LOCATION
Conference Centre 'De Werelt', Westhofflaan 2, 6741 KH Lunteren, Netherlands
For press registration please contact: [email protected]
For more information on the conference please go to: http://www.nern.nl/node/3 or contact: [email protected]
[6] And finally… Energy scavengers for power dressing (pp 809-813)
Harvesting energy from such mundane disturbances as heartbeats, footsteps and light winds is an enticing prospect. This week, Nature reports a step towards fashioning energy-scavenging fabrics, with nanoscale technology that converts low-frequency vibrations into electricity — a stitch towards fashioning mechanical energy-scavenging fabrics.
Zhong Lin Wang and colleagues grow zinc oxide nanowires around textile fibres and entwined the fibres into yarns. Electricity was generated when the piezoelectric nanowires around different fibres entangled with each other and were deflected as a result of low frequency mechanical oscillations. They show that the system acts as a flexible power source, which in principle could be scaled up into fabrics for power tents, curtains or clothes.
The authors estimate their nanogenerator output at up to 80 milliwatts per square metre of fabric — enough for personal electronics and some small-scale defence applications, they suggest.
CONTACT
Zhong Lin Wang (Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA)
Tel: +1 404 894 8008; E-mail: [email protected]
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE…
[7] Dual control of nuclear EIN3 by bifurcate MAPK cascades in C2H4 signalling (pp 789-795)
[8] Giant magneto-elastic coupling in multiferroic hexagonal manganites (pp 805-808)
[9] Removal of phospho-head groups of membrane lipids immobilizes voltage sensors of K1 channels (pp 826-829)
[10] Co-option of a default secretory pathway for plant immune responses (pp 835-840)
[11] Two levels of protection for the B cell genome during somatic hypermutation (pp841-845)
[12] The structural basis of protein acetylation by the p300/CBP transcriptional coactivator (pp 846-850)
ADVANCE ONLINE PUBLICATION
***These papers will be published electronically on Nature's website on 13 February 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 14 February, but at a later date. ***
[13] Facultative cheater mutants reveal the genetic complexity of cooperation in social amoebae
DOI: 10.1038/06558
[14] Gamete formation without meiosis in Arabidopsis
DOI: 10.1038/06557
[15] Transcriptional repression mediated by repositioning of genes to the nuclear lamina
DOI: 10.1038/06727
[16] Translational control of the innate immune response through IRF-7
DOI: 10.1038/06730
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
Canberra: 11
CANADA
Montreal: 16
Quebec: 16
Toronto: 1
GERMANY
Cologne: 10
Frankfurt am Main: 1
Freiburg: 10
Garching: 2
Heidelberg: 3
Neuglobsow: 5
Rostock: 5
Tubingen: 10
INDIA
Hyderabad: 14
JAPAN
Hyogo: 4
Matsuyama: 4
Sendai: 8
Tsukuba: 8
KOREA
Pohang: 8
Seoul: 8
Suwon: 8
NETHERLANDS
Amsterdam: 5
Nijmegen: 2
Wageningen: 5
SWITZERLAND
Villigen: 8
UNITED KINGDOM
Manchester: 13
Norfolk: 10
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
California
Berkeley: 3, 11
La Jolla: 3
San Francisco: 3
Walnut Creek: 3
Connecticut
New Haven: 11
Georgia
Atlanta: 6
Illinois
Chicago: 15
Maryland
Baltimore: 12
Massachusetts
Boston: 7
Cambridge: 11, 12
Waltham: 3
Michigan
Ann Arbor: 1, 3
New Jersey
Piscataway: 8
New York
Ithaca: 5
New York: 1
Stony Brook: 3
Pennsylvania
Philadelphia: 9, 12
South Carolina
Columbia: 12
Tennessee
Nashville: 3
Texas
Houston: 13
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
Katherine Anderson, Nature London
Tel: +44 20 7843 4502; E-mail [email protected]
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