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This press release is copyright Nature.
VOL.457 NO.7226 DATED 08 JANUARY 2009
This press release contains:
· Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Astrophysics: Stars add weight to planetary ‘law’
Developmental biology: New theory of blood cell development
Essay: Love is the drug
Planetary science: Early crust formation on asteroids?
Quantum physics: Repulsive interactions
· Mention of papers to be published at the same time with the same embargo
· Geographical listing of authors
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[1] Astrophysics: Stars add weight to planetary ‘law’ (pp 167-169; N&V)
A simple scaling relationship linking energy and magnetic field strength can be applied to rapidly rotating stars as well as planets. The principle, described in this week’s Nature, can be used to help predict which astrophysical bodies should have detectable magnetic fields.
The scaling relation predicts that the energy flux available for generating the magnetic field of a rapidly rotating planet or star determines its magnetic field strength. The law, described by Ulrich Christensen and colleagues, fits the observed field strengths of Earth, Jupiter and two groups of rapidly rotating stars. The authors predict that rapidly rotating, intermediate-mass objects, such as brown dwarfs and large extrasolar planets, should have strong, detectable magnetic fields.
CONTACT
Ulrich Christensen (Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Lindau, Germany)
Tel: +49 5556 979 542; E-mail: [email protected]
Christopher Johns-Krull (Rice University, Houston, TX, USA) N&V author
Tel: +1 713 348 3531; E-mail: [email protected]
[2] Developmental biology: New theory of blood cell development (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature07619
***This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 07 January 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 it on this release to avoid multiple mailings it will not appear in print on 08 January, but at a later date. ***
How the blood system forms in a developing embryo is a topic of intensive research, and is addressed in a paper published online in this week’s Nature. The findings should help researchers who are trying to convert stem cells into therapeutically useful blood stem cells.
Specialized progenitor cells called haemangioblasts generate an intermediate endothelial cell type that then gives rise to blood cells. Nancy Speck and colleagues show that the protein Runx1 is involved as these endothelial cells generate blood cells. Previous theories suggested that blood cells developed from either a specialized progenitor or a type of endothelial cell. The new theory suggests that both were right as blood cells are formed from specialized progenitors and endothelial cells albeit in a sequential and linear manner.
CONTACT
Nancy Speck (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA)
Tel: +1 215 898 0247; E-mail: [email protected]
Essay: Love is the drug
Scientists are getting to grips with the neural and genetic components of love, says biologist Larry Young in an Essay in this week’s Nature. “Poetry it is not; nor is it particularly romantic,” he argues, “but reducing love to its component parts helps us to understand human sexuality and may lead to drugs that enhance or diminish our love for one another.”
He discusses how the animal studies that demystified emotions such as fear and anxiety are beginning to illuminate the mental states associated with love, and reveals that genetic tests for the suitability of potential partners might one day become available.
CONTACT
Larry Young (Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA)
Tel: +1 404 727-8272; E-mail: [email protected]
[3] Planetary science: Early crust formation on asteroids? (pp 179-182)
Two recently discovered meteorites found in ice fields near Graves Nunatak, Antarctica, are pieces of ancient asteroid crust that formed around 4.5 billion years ago, a paper published in this week’s Nature suggests. The results point to a previously unrecognized style of crust formation and diversity of materials in the early Solar System.
The paired meteorites, known as GRA 06128 and GRA 06129, are rich in the mineral feldspar and have an overall composition similar to andesite, a highly evolved rock found in the Earth’s continental crust. But whilst the Earth’s andesite is thought to be a product of plate tectonics, the asteroid’s crust was created by an entirely different method, James Day and colleagues suggest. They propose that the andesitic crust crystallized from magma generated by partial melting of a volatile-rich oxidized asteroid.
CONTACT
James Day (University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA)
Tel: +1 301 405 2707; E-mail: [email protected]
[4] Quantum physics: Repulsive interactions (pp 170-173; N&V)
Quantum energy fluctuations are everywhere in nature and are well known to cause tiny but measurable attractive forces between objects, typically at nanometre length scales. With the right choice of materials, repulsive forces can also be generated, finds a study in this week’s Nature. It’s thought that the phenomenon could lead to the quantum levitation of objects in fluids and the development of switchable nanoscale devices with ultra-low static friction.
Federico Capasso and colleagues chose a system consisting of a gold sphere interacting with a glass plate immersed in the chemical fluid bromobenzene, and careful measurements allowed them to detect tiny repulsive forces between the sphere and the plate. Replacing the glass plate with a gold plate resulted in more conventional attractive forces. The measured repulsive interaction is weaker than the attractive force, but in both cases the size of the force increases with decreasing surface separation.
CONTACT
Federico Capasso (Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA)
Tel: +1 617 384 7611; E-mail: [email protected]
Steve Lamoreaux (Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA) N&V author
Tel: +1 203 432 5276; E-mail: [email protected]
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE…
[5] Quality control by the ribosome following peptide bond formation (pp 161-166)
[6] Electrically pumped photonic-crystal terahertz lasers controlled by boundary conditions (pp 174-178)
[7] Diversity dynamics of marine planktonic diatoms across the Cenozoic (pp 183-186)
[8] Structural basis for androgen specificity and oestrogen synthesis in human aromatase (pp 219-223; N&V)
ADVANCE ONLINE PUBLICATION
***This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 07 January 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 it on this release to avoid multiple mailings it will not appear in print on 08 January, but at a later date. ***
[9] Intersubunit coordination in a homomeric ring ATPase
DOI: 10.1038/nature07637
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.
FRANCE
Paris: 6
GERMANY
Goettingen: 1
Lindau: 1
NETHERLANDS
Rotterdam: 2
UNITED KINGDOM
Cambridge: 6
Leeds: 6
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
California
Berkeley: 9
District of Columbia
Washington: 3
Illinois
Urbana: 9
Maryland
Baltimore: 5
Bethesda: 4
College Park: 3
Massachusetts
Cambridge: 4
Minnesota
Minneapolis: 9
New Hampshire
Hanover: 2
New York
Buffalo: 8
Ithaca: 7
Pennsylvania
Edinboro: 7
Philadelphia: 2
Tennessee
Knoxville: 3
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Tel: +1 202 737 2355; E-mail: [email protected]
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Tel: +81 3 3267 8751; E-mail: [email protected]
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Tel: +44 20 7843 4502; E-mail [email protected]
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