NATURE AND THE NATURE RESEARCH JOURNALS PRESS RELEASE
For papers that will be published online on 08 March 2009
This press release is copyrighted to the Nature journals mentioned below.
This press release contains:
· Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Geoscience: Southern Ocean acidification causing shells to lose weight
Nature: Turning decision-making on its head
Chemistry: Weaving a web of tiny reactors
And finally...Neuroscience: Forming first impressions
· 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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[1] Geoscience: Southern Ocean acidification causing shells to lose weight
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo460
The shells of tiny amoeba-like creatures called foraminifera that live in the ocean’s surface have become thinner relative to shells from the pre-industrial age, according to a report online in Nature Geoscience. The finding proves that increasing carbon uptake in the ocean has a direct effect on the ability of microorganisms to make shells. Globally, foraminifera comprise up to 50% of the carbonate flux to the deep sea - sinking shells help to transport organic carbon from the surface ocean.
Using sediment traps located in the Southern Ocean, William Howard, Andrew Moy and colleagues collected the shells of one species of foraminifer, Globigerina bulloides, as they fell towards the sea floor. They compared the mass of the shells, which are about the size of a grain of sand, to the mass of older shells collected from the sea floor. The researchers found that modern shell weights were 30 to 35% lower than those that formed prior to the industrial period, which they attribute to the acidification of the Southern Ocean - a process driven by the uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide.
The effect of this weight loss on the survival of the species is not immediately clear, but the study confirms the findings of previous laboratory experiments that suggest increasing carbon dioxide in the oceans could reduce the ability of marine organisms to build their shells.
Author contacts:
William Howard (University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia)
Tel: +61 362267859; E-mail: [email protected]
Andrew Moy (University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia)
Tel: +61 362262954; E-mail: [email protected]
**William Howard will be discussing this paper at the IARU International Scientific Congress on Climate Change in Copenhagen 10-12 March. For further details about this meeting please contact the author**
[2] Nature: Turning decision-making on its head
DOI: 10.1038/nature07821
What we think we see changes what we are actually seeing, suggests a paper in Nature this week. The finding indicates that currently accepted theories about how decision-making occurs in the brain may be far too simplistic, and shows that even the simplest decisions involve complex interactions between thought processes and sensory neurons.
Animals, including humans, were though to make decisions 'from the top-down' - activity in sensory neurons directly causing the specific decision to be made. Hendrikje Nienborg and Bruce Cumming now show that the opposite is also true; a decision, once made, reinforces itself by changing the activity of sensory neurons. The team tested the decision-making strategy of monkeys when presented with highly ambiguous visual information, and concluded that the responses of sensory neurons involved very early in visual processing do not arise simply because of the information entering through the eyes, but instead conscious decisions made by the monkey about what it is seeing changes the state of the sensory neurons.
In other words, making a decision about what we see, actively changes what we see.
Author contact:
Hendrikje Nienborg (National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA)
Tel: +1 301 451 9909; E-mail: [email protected]
[3] Chemistry: Weaving a web of tiny reactors
DOI: 10.1038/nchem.125
Ultrasmall chemical reactors can be created at the fused junctions of crossed polymer nanofibres, reports a study online in Nature Chemistry this week. This method enables reactions to be carried out on as few as 1,500 molecules, and could eventually be used to find potential leads for new drugs as part of the screening process involved in the initial stages of drug development.
The ability to perform reactions on a very small scale is highly desirable because it reduces energy consumption, avoids potential problems associated with the toxicity of some starting materials, and minimizes the amount of waste material produced.
Pavel Anzenbacher and Manuel Palacios made very small polymer fibres - hundreds of times narrower than a human hair - that contain different reactive molecules. The fibres are laid across one another and then either heated or exposed to solvent vapours, which fuses them together at the crossing points and allows a chemical reaction to occur between the reactive compounds they contain. This technique has the potential to be scaled down to the point where a reaction can be instigated between just two molecules - one from each fibre.
In an accompanying News & Views article, Andrew deMello and Rob Wootton say that "ultra-high-throughput reaction screening is unquestionably an achievable target" for the system described by Anzenbacher and Palacios.
Author contact:
Pavel Anzenbacher (Bowling Green State University, OH, USA)
Tel: +1 419 372 2080; E-mail: [email protected]
Andrew deMello (Imperial College London, UK) N&V author
Tel: +44 20 7594 5820; E-mail: [email protected]
[4] And finally ... Neuroscience: Forming first impressions
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2278
People can rapidly form opinions, often within minutes, of individuals they have just met. A study published online this week in Nature Neuroscience suggests that the brain areas implicated in emotional information and value representations are the sources of these initial judgments.
Elizabeth Phelps and her colleagues asked participants to form impressions of people based on simple descriptions of their actions, whilst being imaged using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Half of the descriptions were positive and half were negative. Participants considered all of the information and then reported how positive or negative they felt about the individual. The authors then looked for areas of the brain that were more active during the descriptions themselves and active while encoding social information that was consistent, relative to inconsistent, with subsequent evaluation. Activation strength in these areas correlated with the strength of the evaluation.
A variety of brain areas responded to the character descriptions, irrespective of the subjective evaluation, including the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, which is known to be involved in processing social information. However, this area did not appear to be involved in the evaluation itself. Instead, different areas of the brain, known as the amygdala and the posterior cingulate cortex, seemed to contribute to these initial judgments.
Author contact:
Elizabeth Phelps (New York University, NY, USA)
Tel: +1 212 998 8337; Email: [email protected]
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Items from other Nature journals to be published online at the same time and with the same embargo:
Nature (http://www.nature.com/nature)
[5] Initial community evenness favours functionality under selective stress
DOI: 10.1038/nature07840
[6] Embryonic stem cells use ZFP809 to silence retroviral DNAs
DOI: 10.1038/nature07844
[7] Electromotive force and huge magnetoresistance in magnetic tunnel junctions
DOI: 10.1038/nature07879
[8] CBP/p300-mediated acetylation of histone H3 on lysine 56
DOI: 10.1038/nature07861
NATURE CELL BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/naturecellbiology)
[9] Two Beclin 1-binding proteins, Atg14L and Rubicon, reciprocally regulate autophagy at different stages
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1846
[10] Phosphorylation by Akt1 promotes cytoplasmic localization of Skp2 and impairs APC-Cdh1-mediated Skp2 destruction
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1847
[11] Phosphorylation-dependent regulation of cytosolic localization and oncogenic function of Skp2 by Akt/PKB
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1849
[12] Distinct regulation of autophagic activity by Atg14L and Rubicon associated with Beclin 1-phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase complex
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1854
[13] A mechanism for chromosome segregation sensing by the NoCut checkpoint
DOI: 10.1038/ncb1855
NATURE CHEMICAL BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/nchembio)
[14] Transition state analogs of 5'-methylthioadenosine nucleosidase disrupt quorum sensing
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.153
NATURE GENETICS (http://www.nature.com/naturegenetics)
[15] Validation of candidate causal genes for obesity that affect shared metabolic pathways and networks
DOI: 10.1038/ng.325
[16] Multiple recurrent genetic events converge on control of histone lysine methylation in medulloblastoma
DOI: 10.1038/ng.336
[17] Key susceptibility locus for nonsyndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate on chromosome 8q24
DOI: 10.1038/ng.333
[18] Segmental copy number variation shapes tissue transcriptomes
DOI: 10.1038/ng.345
[19] The impact of copy number variation on local gene expression in mouse hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells
DOI: 10.1038/ng.350
NATURE IMMUNOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/natureimmunology)
[20] CD98hc facilitates B cell proliferation and adaptive humoral immunity
DOI: 10.1038/ni.1712
[21] CD27 is a thymic determinant of the balance between interferon-gamma- and interleukin 17-producing gd T cell subsets
DOI: 10.1038/ni.1717
[22] Function of C/EBPd in a regulatory circuit that discriminates between transient and persistent TLR4-induced signals
DOI: 10.1038/ni.1721
NATURE MATERIALS (http://www.nature.com/naturematerials)
[23] A one-dimensional ice structure built from pentagons
DOI: 10.1038/nmat2403
Nature MEDICINE (http://www.nature.com/naturemedicine)
[24] A new role of substance P as an injury-inducible messenger for mobilization of CD29+ stromal-like cells
DOI: 10.1038/nm.1909
[25] Molecular therapy of obesity and diabetes by a physiological autoregulatory approach
DOI: 10.1038/nm.1933
NATURE METHODS (http://www.nature.com/nmeth)
[26] Neonatal desensitisation allows long-term survival of neuronal xenotransplants without immunosuppression
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1308
[27] Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation without irradiation
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1309
[28] Automated monitoring and analysis of social behavior in Drosophila
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1310
NATURE NANOTECHNOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/nnano)
[29] A highly sensitive and selective diagnostic assay based on virus nanoparticles
DOI:10.1038/nnano.2009.38
Nature NEUROSCIENCE (http://www.nature.com/natureneuroscience)
[30] Paracrine control of oligodendrocyte differentiation by SRF-directed neuronal gene expression
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2280
[31] Phase-to-rate transformations encode touch in cortical neurons of a scanning sensorimotor system
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2283
[32] D2R striatopallidal neurons inhibit both locomotor and drug reward processes
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2286
[33] Tuning of synapse number, structure and function in the cochlea
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2293
Nature PHYSICS (http://www.nature.com/naturephysics)
[34] One-dimensional topologically protected modes in topological insulators with lattice dislocations
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1220
Nature STRUCTURAL & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/natstructmolbiol)
[35] Regulation of active site coupling in glutamine dependent NAD+ synthetase
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1567
[36] Polyglutamine disruption of the huntingtin exon1 N-terminus triggers a complex aggregation mechanism
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1570
[37] Tertiary Interactions within the ribosomal exit tunnel
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1571
[38] Distinct transcriptional outputs associated with mono- and di-methylated histone H3 arginine 2
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1569
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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
Hobart: 1
Kingston: 1
BELGIUM
Brussels: 32
Ghent: 5
BRAZIL
Sao Paulo: 16
CANADA:
Hamilton: 16
Toronto: 16
FRANCE
Nice: 20
GERMANY
Berlin: 17, 23, 27, 30
Bonn: 17
Cologne: 17
Dresden: 27, 33
Duisburg-Essen: 17
Goettingen: 17, 33
Heidelberg: 27
Leipzig: 17
Magdeburg: 17
Mainz: 32
Martinsried: 20
Tubingen: 30
Ulm: 27
ITALY
Ferrara: 17
Milan: 5
Modena: 32
JAPAN
Fukuoka: 11
Kawaguchi-shi: 7
Mishima: 9
Osaka: 9
Sendai: 7
Tokyo: 7, 9
NETHERLANDS
Amsterdam: 21
Nijmegen: 17
Rotterdam: 17
POLAND
Warsaw: 16
PORTUGAL
Coimbra: 21
Lisbon: 21
Oeiras: 21
SOUTH KOREA
Seoul: 24, 29
Yong In: 24
SPAIN
Barcelona: 13
SWITZERLAND
Geneva: 18
Lausanne: 18
Zurich: 13, 32
UNITED KINGDOM
Cambridge: 7, 13, 38
Cardiff: 26
Dundee: 17
Liverpool: 23
London: 13, 21, 23
Nottingham: 16
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Alabama
Birmingham: 16
California
Berkeley: 34
La Jolla: 20
Los Angeles: 15
Pasadena: 28
San Diego: 31
Colorado
Aurora: 8
Connecticut
New Haven: 21
Florida
Coral Gables: 7
Kentucky
Lexington: 36
Maryland
Baltimore: 16
Bethesda: 2
College Park: 35
Massachusetts
Boston: 10, 11
Cambridge: 4
Medford: 4
Michigan
Ann Arbor: 18
Missouri
St Louis: 19
New Jersey
Rahway: 15
New York
Bronx: 12, 14
Long Island: 17
New York: 4, 6, 11, 12
North Carolina
Durham: 16
Ohio
Bowling Green: 3
Cleveland: 16
Columbus: 25
Pennsylvania
Philadelphia: 37
Pittsburgh: 16, 36
Tennessee
Memphis: 16
Nashville: 11
Texas
Houston: 11
Virginia
Richmond: 16
Washington
Seattle: 15, 22
Wisconsin
Madison: 38
PRESS CONTACTS
For media inquiries relating to embargo policy for all the Nature Research Journals:
Rachel Twinn (Nature London)
Tel: +44 20 7843 4658; E-mail: [email protected]
Katherine Anderson (Nature New York)
Tel: +1 212 726 9231; E-mail: [email protected]
Ruth Francis (Head of Press, 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 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 Chemistry (London)
Stuart Cantrill
Tel: +44 20 7014 4018; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Genetics (New York)
Lily Khidr
Tel: +1 212 726 9324; 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 Methods (New York)
Hugh Ash
Tel: +1 212 726 9627; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Nanotechnology (London)
Peter Rodgers
Tel: +44 20 7014 4019; Email: [email protected]
Nature Neuroscience (New York)
Kalyani Narasimhan
Tel: +1 212 726 9319; 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 (NPG):
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