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This press release is copyright Nature.
VOL.458 NO.7237 DATED 26 MARCH 2009
This press release contains:
· Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Asteroids: To see and to hold
Volcanoes: Under my umbrella
Developmental biology: Molecule implicated in stem cell engraftment
Earth Science: The lingering effects of deglaciation
Commentary: Gene Patenting: new perspectives and potential problems
And finally… Oldest, well-preserved bony fish found
· Mention of papers to be published at the same time with the same embargo
· Geographical listing of authors
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[1] Asteroids: To see and to hold (pp 485-488)
October 2008: a small Earth-bound asteroid is spotted, tracked as it enters the atmosphere and observed as it disintegrated. Since then a dedicated search has recovered 47 fragments and their journey and composition is described in Nature this week. To have recovered meteorites from a known class of asteroids is a coup on a par with a successful spacecraft sample-return mission — without the rocket science.
Asteroid 2008 TC3 was spotted by the Catalina Sky Survey on 6 October last year. Some 19 hours — and many astronomical observations — later it entered the atmosphere and disintegrated at an altitude of 37 kilometres. Peter Jenniskens and colleagues describe how the search along the approach trajectory in a desert in northern Sudan has recovered 47 meteorites, fragments of a single body named Almahata Sitta, with a total mass of 3.95 kilograms. The asteroid and meteorite reflectance spectra identify the asteroid as 'F class’, composed of material so fragile that it was not previously represented in meteorite collections.
In an accompanying News Feature, Roberta Kwok describes the dramatic efforts by astronomers to capture the demise of the asteroid as it hit the atmosphere and then to find the fragments scattered across the desert.
CONTACT
Peter Jenniskens (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, Mountain View, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 650 810 0216; E-mail: [email protected]
[2] Volcanoes: Under my umbrella (pp 497-500)
Large volcanic plumes can behave in a similar way to tornadic thunderstorms, suggests a paper in Nature this week. An analysis of satellite data shows that the meteorological phenomena often observed with massive eruptions come from a ‘mesocyclone’ within the eruption column. This new model provides a unified explanation for these seemingly diverse events and may help scientists to better forecast and alleviate the impact of future volcanic eruptions.
Volcanic plumes have long been known to spawn tornado-like structures and sheets of lightning but the forces that lead to these events have until now been unclear. Classical eruption models tend to consist of a column of ash and debris topped by an ‘umbrella’ — where the column spreads out sideways, usually at the tropopause.
Pinaki Chakraborty and colleagues analysed satellite images from recent large volcanic eruptions, including Mount Pinatubo, Philippines (1991), and Mount Chaitén, Chile (2008). They found that the current plume models are missing a subtle but crucial feature — a volcanic mesocyclone that sets both column and umbrella spinning about their vertical axis, which causes the plume to spread into an asymmetric lobe-shape. The mesocyclone then destabilizes the plume’s umbrella, spawns waterspouts and dust devils, and sets up the formation of a lightning sheath around the plume.
CONTACT
Pinaki Chakraborty (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA)
Tel: +1 217 244 5840; E-mail: [email protected]
[3] Developmental biology: Molecule implicated in stem cell engraftment (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature07859
***This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 25 March 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 26 March, but at a later date. ***
A signalling pathway that helps to regulate the movement of blood-forming stem cells in the body is revealed in this week’s Nature. It is thought that the pathway could be pharmacologically targeted to improve transplantation efficiency.
Blood-forming stem cells, which generate the millions of new blood cells needed by the body every day, circulate around the body, shifting back and forth between the blood stream and bone marrow. However, blood-forming stem cells lacking the guanine-nucleotide-binding protein stimulatory alpha subunit (Gsa) do not home to or engraft in the bone marrow of adult mice, David Scadden and colleagues report.
At present, massive numbers of blood-forming stem cells have to be used in clinical transplants, in part owing to the limited efficiency of these cells to travel to and settle in the bone marrow. This is particularly problematic in umbilical cord blood transplants where the number of stem cells is limited. The team shows that Gsa activating drugs enhance homing and engraftment in mice, and speculates that similar strategies could be used to improve efficiency in transplants of human blood-forming stem cells.
CONTACT
David Scadden (Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Boston, MA, USA)
Tel: +1 617 726 5615; E-mail: [email protected]
[4] Earth science: The lingering effects of deglaciation (pp 493-496; N&V)
Our oceans may still be feeling the after effects of ‘chemical weathering’ from the last deglaciation, a Nature paper reveals.
Rivers are a dominant source of many elements and isotopes to the ocean, but this input from the continents is not perfectly balanced by the loss of these elements and isotopes from the ocean. Derek Vance and colleagues now offer an explanation for the observed imbalance in marine geochemical budgets. Our modern-day estimates of river flux are broadly accurate, they say, but a pulse of rapid chemical weathering initiated at the last deglaciation that ‘feeds’ the riverine flux with elements and isotopes has not yet decayed away. They find that taking into account this suggested temporal variability in riverine fluxes largely resolves the long-standing chemical and isotopic mass imbalances in the ocean.
CONTACT
Derek Vance (University of Bristol, UK)
Tel: +44 117 954 5400; E-mail: [email protected]
Louis Derry (Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA) N&V author
Tel: +1 607 255 9354; E-mail: [email protected]
Commentary: Gene Patenting: new perspectives and potential problems (pp 405-408)
Allowing the patenting of genes is supposed to encourage innovation, but many scientists have voiced fears about what other effects it might have. Some suggest that it could hinder the development and improvement of genetic testing for disease, or that monopolies would prevent cooperation or drive costs skyward. Two Commentaries in this week’s Nature explore how the patenting of some human gene sequences has affected the growing field of clinical genetic diagnostics.
Robert Cook-Deegan, Subhashini Chandrasekharan and Misha Angrist performed a series of case studies for the US health secretary’s advisory committee on genetics, health and society. The studies, which cover the practices of several major patent holders and testing labs, show that the picture isn’t as bleak as many feared — but it is not perfect. “Although our findings detect no pervasive effects that consistently help or hinder clinical access to genetic testing, there are some problems that could be addressed to the benefit of patients, researchers, health professionals and companies alike,” the authors say. They proceed to give recommendations on how to address these problems.
In an accompanying Commentary, Michael Hopkins and his colleagues reveal the attitudes to patenting in genetic-testing labs in the European Union. They are strikingly different from those on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. In a survey of 77 public-sector labs, only three were aware of paying licensing fees to use the genetic tests they performed. Only 32% reported having sufficient information and support to deal with patent-related issues. “Government and health-care systems can no longer afford to ignore patents on genetic inventions,” the authors write.
CONTACT
Robert Cook-Deegan (Duke University, Durham, NC, USA)
Tel: +1 919 668 0793; E-mail: [email protected]
Michael Hopkins (University of Sussex, Brighton, UK)
Tel: +44 1273 877 690; E-Mail: [email protected]
[5] And finally… Oldest, well-preserved bony fish found (pp 469-474; N&V)
The earliest known well-preserved bony fish has been found in southern China. The fossil, described in this week's Nature, sheds light on the history of jawed vertebrates.
The fish, described by Min Zhu and colleagues, dates back to the Silurian period, more than 418 million years ago. It is a basal member of the lobe-finned fishes, which today include the coelacanth, lungfishes and all land vertebrates. And as expected, it displays a mix of derived and primitive features. The study suggests that the split between ray-finned and lobe-finned fishes must have happened at least 419 million years ago, indicating a deep history for jawed vertebrates.
CONTACT
Min Zhu (Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Beijing, China)
Tel: +86 10 8836 9384; E-mail: [email protected]
Michael Coates (University of Chicago, IL, USA) N&V author
Tel: +1 773 834 8417; E-mail: [email protected]
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE…
[6] Crystal structure of human spliceosomal U1 snRNP at 5.5A° resolution (pp 475-480; N&V)
[7] Accretion disk winds as the jet suppression mechanism in the microquasar GRS 19151105 (pp 481-484; N&V)
ADVANCE ONLINE PUBLICATION
***This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 25 March 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 26 March, but at a later date. ***
[8] Zc3h12a is an RNase essential for controlling immune responses by regulating mRNA decay
DOI: 10.1038/nature07924
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.
CANADA
London: 1
CHINA
Beijing: 5
CZECH REPUBLIC
Ondřejov: 1
Prague: 1
FRANCE
Paris: 1
JAPAN
Nishinomiya: 8
Osaka: 8
Tokyo: 3
NETHERLANDS
De Bilt: 1
SUDAN
Juba: 1
Khartoum: 1
UNITED KINGDOM
Armagh: 1
Belfast: 1
Bristol: 4
Cambridge: 6
Southampton: 4
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
California
Camarillo: 1
Los Angeles: 3
Mountain View: 1
Pasadena: 1
District of Columbia
Washington: 1
Illinois
Urbana: 2
Maryland
Bethesda: 3
Massachusetts
Boston: 3, 6
Brookline: 1
Cambridge: 3, 7
Waltham: 6
New Mexico
Albuquerque: 1
New York
Bronx: 1
New York: 1
Texas
Houston: 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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