This press release is copyright Nature Publishing Group.
The Nature journals press site is at http://press.nature.com
PICTURES: While we are happy for images from Nature journals to be reproduced for the purposes of contemporaneous news reporting, you must also seek permission from the copyright holder (if named) or author of the research paper in question (if not).
HYPE: We take great care not to hype the papers mentioned on our press releases, but are sometimes accused of doing so. If you ever consider that a story has been hyped, please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected], citing the specific example.
PLEASE CITE NATURE AND OUR WEBSITE www.nature.com/nature and www.nature.com/nmeth AS THE SOURCE OF THE FOLLOWING ITEMS. IF PUBLISHING ONLINE, PLEASE CARRY A HYPERLINK TO http://www.nature.com/nature or www.nature.com/nmeth
Nature’s newsmaker of the year: Lyn Evans
Each year the journal Nature acknowledges a Newsmaker of the Year to celebrate the role that individuals have in science, and in particular in public discussion about science. The person who did more than any other to build the world's newest and most powerful particle accelerator is named as Nature's newsmaker of 2008.
For almost 15 years, Lyn Evans has worked as the project manager of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), located at CERN, the European high-energy physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. The LHC is a 3.8 billion Swiss franc (US$3.2 billion) machine that will accelerate protons to close to the speed of light and then collide them together in the hopes discovering new physics.
The 27-kilometre machine was completed this year, and successfully circulated its first protons in September, but was sidelined by a major accident shortly afterwards. Evans has been there every step of the way — from its design, to negotiations with CERN’s 20 member nations, through to the collider’s eventual completion. He has seen the project through ups and downs, including the latest meltdown, which has left the machine incapacitated until next summer.
Although his loose management style has occasionally led to problems, the retiring Welshman from Aberdare has been a steady guide for the LHC. His technical skill and political savvy have been vital to the collider's completion, and Nature is pleased to honour his achievement as the 2008 newsmaker of the year.
Nature Methods: Method of the Year
Super-resolution fluorescence microscopy has revolutionized the field of molecular and cell biology, emerging as a powerful tool for scientists to view the inside of living cells at an unprecedented resolution. A flurry of advances in this field in 2008 has led Nature Methods to name the technique ‘Method of the Year’, with a series of special features published online this week.
It has been accepted for more than a century that light microscopy cannot resolve structures closer together than the so-called ‘diffraction limit’. Beginning in the 1990s, this assumption began to be challenged, and this pioneering work has led recently to fluorescence microscopy methods that can be used to ‘break’ the diffraction barrier. This means that cellular structures can be imaged, in live cells, at unprecedented nanometer-scale resolution. These methods are now poised for widespread application to biology, with tremendous potential for deeper understanding at the subcellular and even the macromolecular scale.
A perspective article by Stefan Hell, one of the trailblazers of this field, outlines the principles of microscopy and the various fluorescence nanoscopy techniques that have developed from them. A Commentary by Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz discusses the promise that these methods hold and limitations that must be considered when developing the tools for widespread applications in cell biology.
In addition, the package of online features contains a short movie about the method featuring some of the developers. The video will be here from 1800 London time on Wednesday 17 December: http://www.nature.com/nmeth/video/moy2008/index.html
There will also be a selection of ‘Methods to Watch’ – methods about to have a profound impact on their field, such as reprogramming somatic cells to pluripotency, and developments in the field of synthetic life.
Author contacts:
Stefan W. Hell (Max Planck Institute, Göttingen, Germany)
Tel: +49 551 201 2500; E-mail: [email protected]
Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz (NICHD, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA)
Tel: +1 301 402 1009; Email: [email protected]
Editorial contact:
Natalie de Souza (Nature Methods, New York)
Tel: +1 212 726-9652; E-mail: [email protected]
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]
About Nature Publishing Group (NPG):
Nature Publishing Group is a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd, dedicated to serving the academic and professional scientific and medical communities. NPG’s flagship title, Nature, was first published in 1869. Other publications include Nature research journals, Nature Reviews, Nature Clinical Practice and a range of prestigious academic journals including society-owned publications. NPG also provides news content through Nature News. Scientific career information and free job postings are offered on Naturejobs.
NPG is a global company with principal offices in London and New York and offices in Basingstoke, Boston, Buenos Aires, Delhi, Hong Kong, Madrid, Melbourne, Munich, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo and Washington DC. For more information, please go to www.nature.com.
