NATURE AND THE NATURE RESEARCH JOURNALS PRESS RELEASE
For papers that will be published online on 23 March 2008
This press release is copyrighted to the Nature journals mentioned below.
This press release contains:
· Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Genomics: Digging through the genome of a beetle pest – Nature
Warming soot – Nature Geoscience
Shedding light on the bolt-from-the-blue – Nature Geoscience
Gases not to blame for mass extinction – Nature Geoscience
‘Superdense’ coding gets denser – Nature Physics
Therapeutic cloning treats neurodegenerative disease – Nature Medicine
The best of both worlds – Nature Medicine
How synaptic activity protects neurons – Nature Neuroscience
· Mention of papers to be published at the same time with the same embargo
· Geographical listing of authors
PDFs of all the papers mentioned on this release can be found in the relevant journal’s section of http://press.nature.com. Press contacts for the Nature journals are listed at the end of this release.
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PLEASE CITE THE SPECIFIC NATURE JOURNAL AND WEBSITE AS THE SOURCE OF THE FOLLOWING ITEMS. IF PUBLISHING ONLINE, PLEASE CARRY A HYPERLINK TO THE APPROPRIATE JOURNAL’S WEBSITE.
****************************************************NATURE************************************************
(http://www.nature.com/nature)
[1] Genomics: Digging through the genome of a beetle pest
DOI: 10/1038/nature06784
The omnivorous red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum, is a renowned consumer of stored agricultural products, as well as being a member of perhaps the most successful animal taxon on the planet. A paper online in this week’s Nature, by a large consortium headed by Stephen Richards, provides a draft sequence of the organism’s genome, providing remarkable insight into the biology of this insect — as well as creating a valuable reference resource for biologists everywhere.
Their analysis reveals clues to the beetle’s success even in a diverse chemical environment — it has a striking number of taste and smell receptors, and impressive detoxification and pesticide-resistance capabilities. The genes needed for embryonic head development are essentially similar to those used by humans, although the beetle’s vision is probably poor.
Tribolium is already useful as a general model for scientists studying insect development. The information contained in the beetle’s draft genome sequence could eventually reveal further surprises as well as provide targets for selective control of the insect.
Author contact:
Stephen Richards (Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA)
Tel: +1 713 798 6667; E-mail: [email protected]
Other papers from Nature to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
[2] REST maintains self-renewal and pluripotency of embryonic stem cells
DOI: 10/1038/nature06863
[3] The aryl hydrocarbon receptor links TH17-cell-mediated autoimmunity to environmental toxins DOI: 10/1038/nature06881
[4] Control of Treg and TH17 cell differentiation by the aryl hydrocarbon receptor
DOI: 10/1038/nature06880
****************************************NATURE GEOSCIENCE******************************************
(http://www.nature.com/ngeo)
[5] Warming soot
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo156
The effects of black carbon from soot are the second most important human influence on climate warming, after carbon dioxide emissions, concludes a review article published online in this week’s Nature Geoscience.
V. Ramanathan and Greg Carmichael provide an overview of the effects of black-carbon aerosol on climate. Impacts include the direct absorption of sunlight by black carbon and the formation of transcontinental atmospheric brown clouds of 3–5 kilometre thickness through mixing with other aerosols. In addition to absorbing radiation, these atmospheric brown clouds affect the hydrological cycle by dimming the solar radiation that reaches the Earth’s surface. Black-carbon deposition can also darken snow and ice, which increases local heat uptake and contributes to the melting of sea ice and glaciers.
Author contact:
V Ramanathan (Scripps Institute of Oceanography, San Diego, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 858 534 8815; E-mail: [email protected]
[6] Shedding light on the bolt-from-the-blue
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo162
The different pathways that lightning can take may be more predictable using a common framework for electric discharges from thunderclouds that is introduced in a study published online in this week’s Nature Geoscience.
Lightning from thunderstorms can take the form of gigantic jets, blue jets and bolts-from-the-blue that exit the top of the thundercloud, as well as the more readily observed cloud-to-ground lightning.
Paul Krehbiel and colleagues use observations of lightning as well as model simulations to work out what determines which form the lightning discharge will take. They suggest that the smaller blue jets result from electrical breakdown at the cloud top, whereas the energetic gigantic jets (extending upwards into the atmosphere for tens of kilometres) and bolts-from-the-blue (curving back down to Earth) originate from the dominant charge at mid-level in the cloud.
Author contact:
Paul Krehbiel (Langmuir Laboratory, Socorro, NM, USA)
Tel: +1 505 835 5423; E-mail: [email protected]
[7] Gases not to blame for mass extinction
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo154
Hydrogen sulphide and methane releases were not the cause of the end-Permian mass extinction, about 251 million years ago. A study published online this week in Nature Geoscience reexamines the possible causes of the most severe extinction event in Earth’s history. Previous studies have suggested that massive releases of hydrogen sulphide and methane were the most likely cause for the mass extinctions of terrestrial life at that time, through the destruction of the Earth’s protective ozone layer.
David Beerling and colleagues simulated the effect of a massive release of hydrogen sulphide and methane with a two-dimensional atmospheric chemistry model. In the model, the oxidizing capacity of the tropical lower atmosphere is maintained, preventing the hydrogen sulphide from rising to the upper layers and destroying the ozone shield.
The authors conclude that, even with gas releases vastly in excess of previous estimates for the ozone collapse, the Earth system does not enter lethal conditions for life.
Author contact:
David Beerling (University of Sheffield, UK)
Tel: +44 114 222 4359; E-mail: [email protected]
Other papers from Nature Geoscience to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
[8] Spatial complexity of soil organic matter forms at nanometre scales
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo155
******************************************* NATURE PHYSICS *******************************************
http://www.nature.com/naturephysics)
[9] ‘Superdense’ coding gets denser
DOI: 10.1038/nphys919
The record for the most amount of information sent in a single photon has been broken, according to a paper published online this week in Nature Physics. The study reports the transmission, on average, of 1.63 bits of information per photon.
According to classical physics, a photon can transport only one bit of information, by encoding a message that is limited to two possible statements, for example, 0 and 1. But when quantum-mechanical effects are exploited, a photon can carry, in theory, a two-bit message, which can encode four different statements. This protocol is known as ‘superdense coding’.
Practical implementations, however, have so far been limited in how much of this quantum advantage could actually be exploited. Julio Barreiro and colleagues now overcome inherent limitations of earlier approaches, and introduce a technique that, in an optimized setting, would enable to use the full strength of ‘superdense’ coding.
Author contact:
Julio Barreiro (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA)
Tel: +1 217 244 1608; E-mail: [email protected]
Other papers from Nature Physics to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
[10] d-wave duality and its reflections in high-temperature superconductors
DOI: 10.1038/nphys910
[11] Scaling strong-field interactions towards the classical limit
DOI: 10.1038/nphys914
[12] Evolution of the electronic excitation spectrum with strongly diminishing hole density in superconducting Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d
DOI: 10.1038/nphys917
*******************************************Nature MEDICINE********************************************
(http://www.nature.com/naturemedicine)
[13] Therapeutic cloning treats neurodegenerative disease
DOI: 10.1038/nm1732
Therapeutic cloning can be used to treat Parkinson’s disease in mice, reports a study published online this week in Nature Medicine. The method may be an effective way to reduce transplant rejection and enhance recovery in other diseases and in other organ systems.
In therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), the nucleus of a somatic cell from a donor subject is inserted into an egg with the nucleus removed. This cell then develops into an embryo from which stem cells can be harvested and differentiated for therapeutic purposes. As the genetic information in the resulting stem cells comes from the donor subject, SCNT would yield subject-specific cells that would be spared by the immune system after transplantation.
Lorenz Studer and colleagues show that therapeutic cloning can treat Parkinson’s disease in a mouse model. They obtained stem cells after SCNT and differentiated them into dopaminergic neurons—the missing neurons in Parkinson’s disease. The mice that received neurons derived from their own clones exhibited neurological improvement. But when these neurons were grafted into mice that did not genetically match the transplanted cells, the cells did not survive and the mice did not recover.
This is the first time that SCNT has been successfully used to treat disease in the same subjects from whom the cells were derived.
Author contact:
Lorenz Studer (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, USA)
Tel: +1 212 639 6126; E-mail: [email protected]
[14] The best of both worlds
DOI: 10.1038/nm1700
The creation of a combined positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner is reported online this week in Nature Medicine.
PET and MRI are widely used techniques in imaging studies as well as in clinical practice. The value of PET lies in its high sensitivity to track labelled molecules in vivo, but its anatomical resolution is limited. MRI, by contrast, has a lower sensitivity but very high resolution.
Bernd Pichler and his colleagues now describe a three-dimensional PET scanner that is built into a high-power MRI machine. Both imaging modalities preserve their functionality in this dual system, even when operated simultaneously. With this combined imaging system, they acquired high-quality functional and morphological PET-MRI data from different organs of living mice.
This dual PET-MRI system is a powerful tool for preclinical research and has great potential for clinical applications.
Author contact:
Bernd Pichler (Eberhard-Karls-University, Tübingen, Germany)
Tel: +49 7071 298 3427; E-mail: [email protected]
Other papers from Nature Medicine to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
[15] Simian immunodeficiency virus–induced mucosal interleukin-17 deficiency promotes Salmonella dissemination from the gut
DOI: 10.1038/nm1743
[16] Cell-free HTLV-1 infects dendritic cells leading to transmission and transformation of CD4+ T cells
DOI: 10.1038/nm1745
*******************************************NATURE NEUROSCIENCE ***********************************
(http://www.nature.com/natureneuroscience)
[17] How synaptic activity protects neurons
DOI: 10.1038/nn2071
Scientists have identified a key signalling pathway that could protect areas of the brain at risk of damage from ageing and neurodegenerative diseases. The study, published online in Nature Neuroscience this week, reports that activation of NMDA receptors increases the expression of enzymes that protect neurons from damage by molecules called free radicals, which disrupt many normal cellular functions. Because these receptors are activated by events, including strokes, that increase the risk of such damage, this signalling pathway could serve to target the protective response to areas of the brain that need it most.
Giles Hardingham and colleagues report that the same receptor type also increases the effectiveness of cellular defences against free radicals. Activation of NMDA receptors at synapses increases the transcription of several enzymes that detoxify free radicals. Interfering with these enzyme systems made cells more susceptible to damage by free radicals. The authors also showed that some of these enzymes can reverse a chemical reaction that increases neural vulnerability; such reversal was not known to be possible in mammalian cells. Thus, this research may have identified a new potential target for therapies to decrease or reverse damage due to aging and neurodegenerative diseases.
Author contact:
Giles Hardingham (University of Edinburgh, UK)
Tel: +44 131 650 7961; E-mail: [email protected]
Additional contact for comment on paper:
Stuart Lipton (Burnham Institute for Medical Research, La Jolla, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 858 795 5260; E-mail: [email protected]
Other papers from Nature Neuroscience to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
[18] The evolution of the arcuate fasciculus revealed with comparative DTI
DOI: 10.1038/nn2072
[19] Persistent restoration of sensory function by immediate or delayed systemic artemin after dorsal root injury
DOI: 10.1038/nn2069
[20] Development and spike timing–dependent plasticity of recurrent excitation in the Xenopus optic tectum
DOI: 10.1038/nn2076
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Items from other Nature journals to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
NATURE CHEMICAL BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/nchembio)
[21] Highly active and selective endopeptidases with programmed substrate specificities
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.80
[22] Novel targets for Huntington’s disease in an mTOR-independent autophagy pathway
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.79
NATURE MATERIALS (http://www.nature.com/naturematerials)
[23] Microscopic origin of the fast crystallization ability of Ge–Sb–Te phase-change memory materials
DOI: 10.1038/nmat2157
[24] Electrostatic electrochemistry at insulators
DOI: 10.1038/nmat2160
NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/naturebiotechnology)
[25] MicroRNAs accurately identify cancer tissue origin
DOI: 10.1038/nbt1392
NATURE NANOTECHNOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/nnano)
[26] Structural engineering of nanoporous anodic aluminium oxide by pulse anodization of aluminium
DOI:10.1038/nnano.2008.54
[27] Intrinsic and extrinsic performance limits of graphene devices on SiO2
DOI:10.1038/nnano.2008.58
[28] Terahertz time-domain measurement of ballistic electron resonance in a single-walled carbon nanotube
DOI:10.1038/nnano.2008.60
NATURE GENETICS (http://www.nature.com/naturegenetics)
[29] Stochastic switching as a survival strategy in fluctuating environments
DOI: 10.1038/ng.110
[30] Newly identified prion linked to the chromatin-remodeling factor Swi1 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
DOI: 10.1038/ng.112
[31] Fine mapping of regulatory loci for mammalian gene expression using radiation hybrids
DOI: 10.1038/ng.113
[32] Evolutionary plasticity of genetic interaction networks
DOI: 10.1038/ng.114
NATURE IMMUNOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/natureimmunology)
[33] Deactivation of the kinase IKK by CUEDC2 through recruitment of the phosphatase PP1
DOI: 10.1038/ni.1600
NATURE CELL BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/naturecellbiology)
[34] Phosphoregulation and depolymerization-driven movement of the Dam1 complex do not require ring formation
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1702
[35] EB1 regulates microtubule dynamics and tubulin sheet closure in vitro
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1703
[36] Tensile forces govern germ-layer organization in zebrafish
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1705
[37] Elipsa is an early determinant of ciliogenesis that links the IFT particle to membrane-associated Rab8
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1706
[38] Securin regulates entry into M-phase by modulating the stability of cyclin B
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1707
[39] A bistable Rb–E2F switch underlies the restriction point
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1711
Nature STRUCTURAL & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/natstructmolbiol)
[40] The retinitis pigmentosa 2 gene product is a GTPase-activating protein for Arf-like 3
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1396
[41] Crystal structures of two human vitronectin, urokinase and urokinase receptor complexes
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1404
[42] The Ino80 chromatin-remodeling enzyme regulates replisome function and stability
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1413
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GEOGRAPHICAL LISTING OF AUTHORS
The following list of places refers to the whereabouts of authors on the papers numbered in this release. 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: 1
St Lucia: 1
BELGIUM
Brussels: 3
Leuven: 1
CANADA:
Waterloo: 9
CHINA
Beijing: 33
Yangzhou: 1
Yunnan: 30
CZECH REPUBLIC
Ceske Budejovice: 1
DENMARK
Copenhagen: 1
FRANCE
Gif-sur-Yvette: 1
Lyon: 1
Marseille: 36
Palaiseau: 11
Paris: 17
Rennes: 35
Saint Martin d’Heres: 36
Strasbourg: 1
GERMANY
Berlin: 1, 17
Braunschweig: 3
Cologne: 1
Dortmund: 40
Dresden: 17, 36
Erlangen: 1
Essen: 3
Ettlingen: 14
Giessen: 1
Goettingen: 1
Halle: 1, 26
Heidelberg: 1
Jena: 1
Marburg: 1
Rostock: 1
Tubingen: 1, 14
ISRAEL
Beer-Sheva: 25
Haifa: 25
Petah-Tikva: 25
Rehovot: 25
Tel Aviv: 25
Tel-Hashomer: 25
ITALY
Naples: 1
JAPAN
Chiba: 1
Ibaraki: 1, 12
Kobe: 13
Nagoya: 1
Osaka: 37
Tokyo: 12
Wako: 12
NETHERLANDS
Amsterdam: 11
RUSSIA
Moscow: 1
SOUTH KOREA
Taejon: 26
SPAIN
Barcelona: 32
SWEDEN
Umea: 1
SWITZERLAND
Geneva: 1
Zurich: 1
UNITED KINGDOM
Cambridge: 4, 7, 17, 22, 23, 31, 32, 41
Edinburgh: 17
Liverpool: 15
London: 1, 3, 38
Oxford: 1, 18
Sheffield: 7
St Andrews: 12
Surrey: 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Arizona
Tucson: 19
California
Davis: 1, 14, 15
La Jolla: 2, 5
Los Angeles: 31
Merced: 28
Oakland: 1
Riverside: 1
San Diego: 41
Colorado
Boulder: 12
Florida
Gainesville: 12
Orlando: 27
Georgia
Atlanta: 18
Illinois
Chicago: 30
Urbana: 1, 9
Indiana
Bloomington: 1
Iowa
Iowa City: 5
Kansas
Manhattan: 1
Maryland
Baltimore: 10
Beltsville: 1
Bethesda: 1
College Park: 27, 31
Frederick: 16
Massachusetts
Boston: 4, 17, 19, 37, 41
Cambridge: 1, 4, 19, 29
Waltham: 37
Worcester: 42
Michigan
Detroit: 1
Missouri
St Louis: 1
New Jersey
Camden: 17
Princeton: 31
New Mexico
Jemez Springs: 6
Socorro: 6
New York
Ithaca: 1, 8, 12, 28
Mount Kisco: 1
New York: 13, 41
Stony Brook: 8
Upton: 12
North Carolina
Durham: 39
Ohio
Columbus: 11
Oklahoma
Stillwater: 1
Pennsylvania
Collegeville: 1
Pittsburgh: 15
University Park: 6
Rhode Island
Providence: 20
Tennessee
Knoxville: 14
Memphis: 1
Texas
Arlington: 1
Austin: 21, 24
College Station: 1, 11
Houston: 1, 2
Virginia
Blacksburg: 1
Washington
Seattle: 34
Wisconsin
Madison: 1
PRESS CONTACTS…
For media inquiries relating to embargo policy for all the Nature Research Journals:
Katherine Anderson (Nature London)
Tel: +44 20 7843 4502; E-mail: [email protected]
Ruth Francis (Senior Press Officer, Nature, London)
Tel: +44 20 7843 4562; E-mail: [email protected]
For media inquiries relating to editorial content/policy for the Nature Research Journals, please contact the journals individually:
Nature Biotechnology (New York)
Peter Hare
Tel: +1 212 726 9284; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Cell Biology (London)
Bernd Pulverer
Tel: +44 20 7843 4892; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Chemical Biology (Boston)
Andrea Garvey
Tel: +1 617 475 9241, E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Genetics (New York)
Orli Bahcall
Tel: +1 212 726 9311; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Geoscience (London)
Heike Langenberg
Tel: +44 20 7843 4042; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Immunology (New York)
Laurie Dempsey
Tel: +1 212 726 9372; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Materials (London)
Alison Stoddart
Tel: +44 20 7843 4593; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Medicine (New York)
Juan Carlos Lopez
Tel: +1 212 726 9325; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Nanotechnology (London)
Peter Rodgers
Tel: +44 20 7014 4019; Email: [email protected]
Nature Neuroscience (New York)
Sandra Aamodt (based in California)
Tel: +1 530 795 3256; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Physics (London)
Alison Wright
Tel: +44 20 7843 4555; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology (New York)
Michelle Montoya
Tel: +1 212 726 9326; E-mail: [email protected]
About Nature Publishing Group
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