WWW.NATURE.COM/NATURE
This press release is copyright Nature.
This press release contains:
· Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Biology: Arteries from veins?
Neuroscience: How to predict memory strength
Materials science: Imaging and identifying atoms one-by-one
Microbiology: New oxygen-producing pathway discovered in bacteria
Astronomy: Finding missing galaxies
Biogeochemistry: Soil respiration mystery resolved
Materials science: Geometry holds the key to self-assembly
And finally… Cell biology: Muscle cells regenerate ‘broken’ hearts
· Mention of papers to be published at the same time with the same embargo
· Geographical listing of authors
Editorial contacts: While the best contacts for stories will always be the authors themselves, in some cases the Nature editor who handled the paper will be available for comment if an author is unobtainable. Editors are contactable via Ruth Francis on +44 20 7843 4562. Feel free to get in touch with Nature's press contacts in London, Washington and Tokyo (as listed at the end of this release) with any general editorial inquiry.
Warning: This document, and the Nature papers to which it refers, may contain information that is price sensitive (as legally defined, for example, in the UK Criminal Justice Act 1993 Part V) with respect to publicly quoted companies. Anyone dealing in securities using information contained in this document or in advanced copies of Nature’s content may be guilty of insider trading under the US Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
The Nature journals press site is at http://press.nature.com
· PDFs for the Articles, Letters, Progress articles, Review articles, Insights and Brief Communications in this issue will be available on the Nature journals press site from 1400 London time / 1000 US Eastern Time on the Friday before publication.
· PDFs of News & Views, News Features, Correspondence and Commentaries will be available from 1400 London time / 1000 US Eastern Time on the Monday before publication
PICTURES: While we are happy for images from Nature 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 AS THE SOURCE OF THE FOLLOWING ITEMS. IF PUBLISHING ONLINE, PLEASE CARRY A HYPERLINK TO http://www.nature.com/nature
[1] Biology: Arteries from veins? (pp 549-553; N&V)
Venous cells give rise to coronary arteries in the developing heart, a mouse study published in this week’s Nature suggests. A full understanding of this novel reprogramming process might lead to new and more natural ways of revascularizing the heart and engineering coronary arteries.
Coronary arteries are formed from angiogenic sprouts of the major vein that returns circulating blood to the embryonic heart, Mark Krasnow and colleagues show. This contradicts the prevailing model of coronary artery formation, which supposes that the blood vessels are formed from progenitor cells in the proepicardium, a tissue that spreads over and contributes to the developing heart.
The study suggests that the developing heart supplies signals that convert mature venous cells into coronary arteries, capillaries and veins. The authors hope that a full understanding of these signals will lead to new treatments for coronary artery disease, the leading cause of death worldwide.
CONTACT
Mark Krasnow (Stanford University, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 650 723 7191; E-mail: [email protected]
Paul Riley (UCL Institute of Child Health, London, UK) N&V Author
Tel: +44 20 7905 2345; E-mail: [email protected]
[2] Neuroscience: How to predict memory strength (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature08860
***This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 24 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 25 March, but at a later date. ***
Human memory strength can be predicted by looking at the relationship between single neuron activity and a particular brain waveform, a Nature study reveals. The study sheds light on the mechanisms that underpin learning and memory, and establishes a direct relationship between physiological changes at the neural circuit-level and human behaviour.
Erin M. Schuman and colleagues analysed brain recordings taken from electrodes implanted in human epileptic patients as they performed a memory test. In particular, they looked at the timing of nerve impulses relative to the theta rhythm, an ongoing waveform of a particular frequency previously implicated in learning and memory. A tight coordination between the two predicted success in the memory task, they found.
CONTACT
Erin Schuman (Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt, Germany)
Tel: +49 69 506 820 1000; E-mail: [email protected]
[3] Materials science: Imaging and identifying atoms one-by-one (pp 571-574)
An electron microscope that can directly image and identify the individual atoms in a thin sheet of a complex material is described in this week’s Nature. The achievement brings closer the realization of the electron microscope as a universal analysis tool, which can solve an atomic structure by ‘just looking’ at it.
In principle, the electron microscope, invented almost 80 years ago, should allow atom-by-atom mapping of the structure and composition of a wide range of materials. But progress towards this goal has been hampered by two problems: aberrations in the lenses that focus electrons on the sample, which limit the spatial resolution; and radiation damage to the sample caused by the electron beam.
Ondrej Krivanek and colleagues have incorporated recently developed aberration-corrected optics in a new microscope optimized to work with a low-energy electron beam. Using an ‘annular dark-field’ technique, which is sensitive to the atomic number of the imaged atoms, the authors distinguish boron from nitrogen in a monolayer film of boron nitride, and also identify individual atoms of carbon and oxygen that are present as impurities. The microscope’s resolution is sufficient to spot lattice distortions as small as 0.01 nanometre, caused by the impurity atoms.
With these results, the electron microscope comes closer to fulfilling the potential identified by the physicist Richard Feynman in 1959, when he predicted that one day it should be possible to “just look at [the sample] and see where the atoms are.”
CONTACT
Ondrej Krivanek (Nion Company, Kirkland, WA, USA)
Tel: +1 425 576 9060; E-mail: [email protected]
[4] Microbiology: New oxygen-producing pathway discovered in bacteria (pp 543-548; N&V)
The discovery of a novel oxygen-producing pathway in bacteria indicates that microbes could have been metabolizing oxygen before photosynthesis evolved. The find is reported in this week's Nature.
Anaerobic oxidation of methane can be linked to nitrite and nitrate reduction in certain microbes. Katharina F. Ettwig and colleagues now show, in bacteria, that this occurs through an intermediate production of oxygen from nitrous oxide by a novel enzymatic pathway.
To date, only three biological pathways are known to produce oxygen, so the discovery of this new pathway of oxygen production from nitrogen oxides adds a possible fourth to the list. The results also extend our understanding of anaerobic hydrocarbon degradation and explain the biochemical mechanisms of a poorly understood freshwater methane sink.
CONTACT
Katharina Ettwig (Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands)
Tel: +31 243 652 557; E-mail: [email protected]
Ronald Oremland (US Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA, USA) N&V Author
Tel: +1 650 329 4482; E-mail: [email protected]
[5] Astronomy: Finding missing galaxies (pp 562-565)
Telescopic surveys of the distant Universe based on a particular ultraviolet line in the hydrogen spectrum will fail to find around 90% of the galaxies that exist, suggests a paper in Nature this week.
Matthew Hayes and colleagues compare the Lyman-alpha line emission from galaxies at intermediate redshifts with observations using the H-alpha line, which is much less subject to absorption by dust in the galaxies. They find that for every Lyman-alpha photon produced, only 1 in 20 reaches the telescope. They suggest that these discrepancies need to be borne in mind when evaluating results from previous and future Lyman-alpha surveys.
CONTACT
Matthew Hayes (University of Geneva, Switzerland)
Tel: +41 22 379 24 32; E-mail: [email protected]
[6] Biogeochemistry: Soil respiration mystery resolved (pp 579-582; N&V)
The flux of carbon dioxide from the soil surface to the atmosphere comprises the second-largest terrestrial carbon flux. Known as soil respiration (RS), some believe that it should change as the climate does, but this has been difficult to confirm observationally. In Nature this week, Ben Bond-Lamberty and Allison Thomson show that the air temperature anomaly (the deviation from the 1961–1990 mean) is significantly and positively correlated with changes in RS.
Using a database of worldwide RS observations matched with high-resolution historical climate data, the researchers find a previously unknown temporal trend in the record after accounting for mean annual climate, leaf area, nitrogen deposition and changes in CO2 measurement technique. They estimate that the current (2008) annual global RS flux is around 98 petagrams of carbon — 1 Pg is a thousand trillion grams — and has increased by around 0.1 petegrams of carbon per year between 1989 and 2008. They also argue that the available data are consistent with an acceleration of the terrestrial carbon cycle in response to global climate change.
CONTACT
Ben Bond-Lamberty (University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA)
Tel: +1 301 314 6759; E-mail: [email protected]
Pete Smith (University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom) N&V Author
Tel: +44 1224 272702; E-mail: [email protected]
[7] Materials science: Geometry holds the key to self-assembly (pp575-578; N&V)
An ingenious new method for directing the self-assembly of small particles relies on the simplest of principles: the matching of complementary shapes. The ‘lock and key’ colloids described in this week’s Nature provide a simple yet general way of creating complex, flexible, switchable structures on the micrometre scale.
Many functional materials can be created by directing the assembly of colloidal particles into a desired structure. The assembly process can be controlled by coating the particles with molecules, such as complementary DNA strands, that recognize and bind to one another. Alternatively, electrically charged or polarizable particles can be manipulated by an external electric field.
Stefano Sacanna and colleagues have devised a new control method, which is independent of particle composition or surface chemistry, yet offers highly selective and directional bonding. Spherical ‘key’ particles, about a micrometre in diameter, fit snugly into dimples on the surface of somewhat larger ‘lock’ particles. The particles are bound together by a force called the depletion interaction, which is maximized for key particles that have the same radius of curvature as the dimples.
The attraction between complementary particles can be tuned by changing the temperature or solution composition, thus making binding fully reversible and offering the prospect of switchable structures.
CONTACT
Stefano Sacanna (New York University, NY, USA)
Tel: +1 917 517 7756; E-mail: [email protected]
Michael Solomon (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA) N&V Author
Tel: +1 734 764 3119; E-mail: [email protected]
[8] & [9] And finally… Cell biology: Muscle cells regenerate ‘broken’ hearts (pp 601-609)
Cardiac muscle cells help regenerate damaged zebrafish hearts, two Nature studies suggest. The findings may provide clues about how to coax injured human hearts to regenerate.
Zebrafish can efficiently regenerate lost cardiac muscle, but the cell type responsible for replacing these lost cardiomyocytes has been unclear. Kenneth D. Poss and colleagues show that the bulk of the job is done by a particular type of cardiomyocyte. The cells, which express the cardiogenesis gene gata4, enter the damaged area where they proliferate and help rebuild cardiac muscle. A related paper by Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte and colleagues agrees that the cells dedifferentiate and proliferate in order to repair and regenerate the cardiac muscle.
The studies suggest that, in zebrafish at least, cardiac regeneration does not necessarily involve activation of a stem cell population. Furthermore, the finding that these cardiomyocytes help renew even scarred cardiac muscle may be pertinent to human heart attack survivors with cardiac scar tissue.
CONTACT
Kenneth Poss (Duke University, Durham, NC, USA) Author paper [8]
Tel: +1 919 681 8457; E-mail: [email protected]
Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte (The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, USA) Author paper [9]
Tel: +1 858 453 4100; E-mail: [email protected]
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE…
[10] Anomalous structure in the single particle spectrum of the fractional quantum Hall effect (pp 566-570)
[11] Haploid plants produced by centromere-mediated genome elimination (pp 615-618)
ADVANCE ONLINE PUBLICATION
***These papers will be published electronically on Nature's website on 24 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 them on this release to avoid multiple mailings, they will not appear in print on 25 March, but at a later date. ***
[12] Chromatin signature of embryonic pluripotency is established during genome activation
DOI: 10.1038/nature08866
[13] Zscan4 regulates telomere elongation and genomic stability in ES cells
DOI: 10.1038/nature08882
[14] Genome-wide association study of 107 phenotypes in Arabidopsis thaliana inbred lines
DOI: 10.1038/nature08800
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
Queensland: 4
AUSTRIA
Vienna: 14
CHINA
Shanghai: 12
FRANCE
Evry: 4
Paris: 5
Toulouse: 5
Villeneuve d’Ascq: 14
GERMANY
Bielefield: 4
Bremen: 4
Cologne: 14
Frankfurt: 2
Tübingen: 14
ITALY
Ariano Irpino: 13
KOREA
Gyeongnam: 13
NETHERLANDS
Nijmegen: 4
SPAIN
Barcelona: 9
Madrid: 5
SWEDEN
Stockholm: 5
SWITZERLAND
Sauverny: 5
UNITED KINGDOM
Norwich: 14
Oxford: 3, 5
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
California
Davis: 11
La Jolla: 9, 14
Pasadena: 2
Los Angeles: 2, 14
San Francisco: 8
Stanford: 1
Illinois
Chicago: 14
Indiana
West Lafayette: 14
Maryland
Baltimore: 5, 13
College Park: 6
Massachusetts
Boston: 8, 12
Cambridge: 10, 12
New Jersey
Murray Hill: 10
Princeton: 10
New York
New York: 7, 8
North Carolina
Durham: 8
Tennessee
Nashville: 3
Oak Ridge: 3
Washington
Kirkland: 3
PRESS CONTACTS…
From North America and Canada
Neda Afsarmanesh, Nature New York
Tel: +1 212 726 9231; 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
Rebecca Walton, Nature, London
Tel: +44 20 7843 4502; E-mail: [email protected]
About Nature Publishing Group (NPG):
Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is a publisher of high impact scientific and medical information in print and online. NPG publishes journals, online databases and services across the life, physical, chemical and applied sciences and clinical medicine.
Focusing on the needs of scientists, Nature (founded in 1869) is the leading weekly, international scientific journal. In addition, for this audience, NPG publishes a range of Nature research journals and Nature Reviews journals, plus a range of prestigious academic journals including society-owned publications. Online, nature.com provides over 5 million visitors per month with access to NPG publications and online databases and services, including Nature News and NatureJobs plus access to Nature Network and Nature Education’s Scitable.com.
Scientific American is at the heart of NPG’s newly-formed consumer media division, meeting the needs of the general public. Founded in 1845, Scientific American is the oldest continuously published magazine in the US and the leading authoritative publication for science in the general media. Together with scientificamerican.com and 15 local language editions around the world it reaches over 3 million consumers and scientists. Other titles include Scientific American Mind and Spektrum der Wissenschaft in Germany.
Throughout all its businesses NPG is dedicated to serving the scientific and medical communities and the wider scientifically interested general public. Part of Macmillan Publishers Limited, NPG is a global company with principal offices in London, New York and Tokyo, and offices in cities worldwide including Boston, Buenos Aires, Delhi, Hong Kong, Madrid, Barcelona, Munich, Heidelberg, Basingstoke, Melbourne, Paris, San Francisco, Seoul and Washington DC. For more information, please go to www.nature.com.
