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This press release is copyright Nature.
VOL.455 NO.7217 DATED 30 OCTOBER 2008
This press release contains:
· Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Geology: Ancient tsunami record in the Indian Ocean
Microbiology: You are what you eat
And finally… Pesticide problems
· Mention of papers to be published at the same time with the same embargo
· Geographical listing of authors
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[1] & [2] Geology: Ancient tsunami record in the Indian Ocean (pp 1228-1231; 1232-1234; N&V)
The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was not the first of its kind, according to research published in Nature this week. Two groups of scientists have found sedimentary evidence for possible predecessors to the 2004 event in Thailand and Sumatra, suggesting that the last similar-sized tsunami occurred in about ad 1400 — long before historical records of earthquakes in the region began.
There was no historical precedent for the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, either on the distant coasts it devastated or within its source area, which had gone hundreds of years or more without a similar disaster recorded. Sedimentary evidence of ancient tsunamis can also be hard to find — sand deposits are often destroyed by wind, running water and human or animal activity.
Brian Atwater and colleagues studied a grassy beach-ridge plain on an island north of Phuket, Thailand, where the 2004 tsunami reached maximum wave heights of 20 metres above sea level. A separate team led by Katrin Monecke looked the sedimentary record on coastal marshes in Aceh, northern Sumatra, where the waves reached up to 35 metres high. Both groups explored low areas between beach ridges called ‘swales’, which are known to trap tsunami sand between layers of peat and other organic matter. The teams looked at the contrast between the dark organic soil and the light-coloured tsunami deposits to identify a series of sand sheets, which they then dated with radiocarbon methods.
The results reveal a sand deposit beneath the most recent layer, from 600–700 years ago, which represents the last full-size forerunner to the 2004 event. The teams identified other older tsunamis, but the ages did not correlate on both beaches. The data suggest that the recurrence intervals of such destructive tsunamis in the Sumatra–Andaman Island region can span centuries, with the 2004 event separated from its youngest full predecessor by roughly 600 years. Such a long recurrence interval explains not just the lack of historical data, but perhaps also the enormity of the 2004 Sumatra–Andaman earthquake. The centuries-long time span between the separate tsunamis also adds to the challenge of preparing local communities for future tsunamis and maintaining their hazard awareness.
CONTACT
Brian Atwater (United States Geological Survey, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA) Author paper [1]
Tel: +1 206 553 2927; E-mail: [email protected]
Amy Prendergast (Geoscience Australia, Canberra, Australia) Co-author paper [1]
Geoscience Australia Media Hotline: +61 1800 882 035; E-mail: [email protected]
Katrin Monecke (University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown, PA, USA) Author paper [2]
Tel: +1 814 269 2942; E-mail: [email protected]
Stein Bondevik (University of Tromsø, Norway) N&V author
Tel: +47 77 64 64 19; E-mail: [email protected]
A press briefing related to these papers will take place on embargo lift on Wednesday 29 October at 1100 Pacific Time / 1800 London Time (GMT)
Portland State Office Building, 800 NE Oregon Street, Suite 965, Portland, OR 97232
Brian Atwater will talk about the research in the two papers and relevance to the Pacific Northwest, followed by updates from USGS, and NOAA.
Media contacts:
James Roddey (Oregon Dept. of Geology and Mineral Industries, Portland, OR, USA)
Tel: +1 971 673 1543; E-mail: [email protected]
Stephanie Hanna (USGS, Western Region, Seattle, WA, USA)
Tel: +1 206 220 4573; E-mail: [email protected]
Additional press briefings will be held after embargo lift in Bangkok, Thailand; and Tsukuba, Japan. Please contact the following authors for more information:
Kruawun Jankaew (Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand)
Tel: +66 2 2185449; E-mail: [email protected]
Yuki Sawai (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba, Japan)
Tel: +81 29 861 371; E-mail: [email protected]
[3] Microbiology: You are what you eat (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature07428
***This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 29 October at 1800 London time / 1400 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 it will not appear in print on 30 October, but at a later date. ***
Eating red meat and dairy products may influence our susceptibility to a particular type of E. coli, a Nature paper suggests.
Shiga toxigenic Escherichia coli causes severe gastrointestinal disease, which is partly mediated by a secreted toxin. Travis Beddoe, Ajit Varki and colleagues show that this toxin binds to N-glycolylneuraminic acid-containing saccharides — sugars that are not made but are eaten by humans. The molecule, which is found in red meats and cows’ milk, becomes incorporated into intestinal and kidney tissue after ingestion.
Ironically, foods that are rich in N-glycolylneuraminic acid are the most common source of Shiga toxigenic E. coli contamination, and it’s thought that eating them may pre-sensitize our tissues to a key E. coli virulence factor that occurs sporadically in the same foods.
CONTACT
Travis Beddoe (Monash University, Melbourne, Australia) Co-author paper [3]
Tel: +61 3 9905 4672; E-mail: [email protected]
Ajit Varki (University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA) Co-author paper [3]
Tel: +1 858 534 2214; E-mail: [email protected]
[4] And finally… Pesticide problems (pp 1235-1239)
Many reasons have been put forward for global amphibian declines but a paper in Nature this week suggests that widely used pesticides could have a crucial role.
In a field study, Jason Rohr and colleagues show that the herbicide atrazine was the best predictor (out of more than 240 plausible candidates) of the abundance of larval trematodes (parasitic flatworms) in the declining northern leopard frog Rana pipiens. An abundance of these parasites can often be debilitating for the frogs and can lead to limb malformation, kidney damage and death. Together with phosphate — which is also used in corn and grain production — atrazine was associated with immunosuppression in the frog, leading to greater parasitism, and also an increased number of the snails that harbour the parasites.
CONTACT
Jason Rohr (University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA)
Tel: +1 813 974 0156; E-mail: [email protected]
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE…
[5] Marginal breakdown of the Fermi-liquid state on the border of metallic ferromagnetism (pp 1220-1223; N&V)
[6] Low-speed fracture instabilities in a brittle crystal (pp 1224-1227)
[7] Small-amplitude cycles emerge from stagestructured interactions in Daphnia–algal systems (pp 1240-1243)
[8] Non-random segregation of sister chromosomes in Escherichia coli (pp 1248-1250)
ADVANCE ONLINE PUBLICATION
***These papers will be published electronically on Nature's website on 29 October at 1800 London time / 1400 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 30 October, but at a later date. ***
[9] Structure of the intact PPAR-c–RXR-a nuclear receptor complex on DNA
DOI: 10.1038/nature07413
[10] A fast, robust and tunable synthetic gene oscillator
DOI: 10.1038/nature07389
[11] The insect nephrocyte is a podocyte-like cell with a filtration slit diaphragm
DOI: 10.1038/nature07526
[12] Brain metabolism dictates the polarity of astrocyte control over arterioles
DOI: 10.1038/nature07525
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
Adelaide: 3
Canberra: 1
Melbourne: 3
CANADA:
Calgary: 7
Kingston: 7
Vancouver: 12
FRANCE
Villeurbane: 6
GERMANY
Dresden: 11
Düsseldorf: 11
Freiburg: 6
Hannover: 2
Karlsruhe: 6
INDONESIA
Meulaboh: 2
Yogjakarta: 2
ISRAEL
Haifa: 6
ITALY
Trieste: 6
JAPAN
Saitama: 5
Sendai: 5
Tokyo: 5
Tsukuba: 1
SPAIN
Madrid: 11
Valencia: 11
SWITZERLAND
Zurich: 2
THAILAND
Bangkok: 1
UNITED KINGDOM
Cambridge: 5, 6, 11
Edinburgh: 8
London: 6
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
California
Davis: 3
La Jolla: 3, 9
Santa Barbara: 7
District of Columbia
Washington: 6
Florida
Tampa: 4
Georgia
Atlanta: 3
Illinois
Champaign: 4
Urbana: 4
Indiana
Richmond: 2
Louisiana
Baton Rouge: 9
Minnesota
Duluth: 4
New Jersey
Monmouth Junction: 9
New York
Poughkeepsie: 2
Ohio
Huron: 2
Kent: 2
Pennsylvania
Johnstown: 2
Philadelphia: 12
University Park: 4
Tennessee
Knoxville: 4
Virginia
Charlottesville: 9
Washington
Seattle: 1
PRESS CONTACTS…
From North America and Canada
Katherine Anderson, Nature New York
Tel: +1 212 726 9231; E-mail: [email protected]
Katie McGoldrick, Nature Washington
Tel: +1 202 737 2355; E-mail: [email protected]
From Japan, Korea, China, Singapore and Taiwan
Mika Nakano, Nature Tokyo
Tel: +81 3 3267 8751; E-mail: [email protected]
From the UK/Europe/other countries not listed above
Jen Middleton, Nature London
Tel: +44 20 7843 4502; E-mail [email protected]
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