NATURE AND THE NATURE RESEARCH JOURNALS PRESS RELEASE
This press release contains:
· Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Opinion: Climate pledges fall short
Astrophysics: Where’s the methane?
Virology: Combating hepatitis C
Environment: Ecosystem nitrate flows
Materials science: A new route to supercooled liquids
· Mention of papers to be published at the same time with the same embargo
· Geographical listing of authors
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Opinion: Climate pledges fall short (pp 1126-1128)
Current pledges to reduce emissions are nowhere near enough to keep the planet's warming to below 2 °C, argue Joeri Rogelj, Malte Meinshausen and colleagues in an Opinion in Nature this week. They analysed the pledges accompanying the Copenhagen Accord, taking into account major loopholes that are likely to make emissions worse.
First, they say, most nations will only meet the higher ends of their emissions-reduction target ranges if there is a binding international agreement in place, therefore it is more realistic that the lower ends of target ranges will be achieved. Second, many nations will bank surplus emissions allowances from 2008–12 that they are likely to use. Third, some nations will probably be permitted extra allowances thanks to land-use change, such as planting forests, that go beyond actual emissions savings. All of this paints a poor picture of future emissions. The team estimates that emissions will reach 47.9–53.6 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalents by 2020 — 10–20% higher than today's levels, and far higher than the 40–44 gigatonnes that the team estimates must be achieved to keep warming to below 2 °C.
The team concludes that even if nations halve their emissions by 2050, there is still a 50% chance that warming will exceed 2 °C by 2100. It is crucial, they argue, that a better, binding agreement is established.
Author contact:
Joeri Rogelj (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany)
Tel: +49 331 288 2482
E-mail: [email protected]
Malte Meinshausen (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany)
Tel: +49 331 288 2652
E-mail: [email protected]
[1] Astrophysics: Where’s the methane? (pp 1161-1164)
Thermal emissions detected from the nearby extrasolar planet GJ 436b — labelled as a ‘hot Neptune’ — show high carbon monoxide levels, low methane, and some trace levels of water and carbon dioxide. The findings, published this week in Nature, report methane levels that are at least 100,000 times smaller than previously predicted.
Viewed from Earth, GJ 436b is revealed by the dimming of light as it crosses in front of its parent star (known as the primary transit) and behind it (known as the secondary eclipse). Using the Spitzer Space Telescope, Kevin Stevenson and colleagues made multiple observations of the secondary eclipses of the extrasolar planet at various wavelengths. This allowed them to more accurately gauge the planet’s atmospheric composition, detecting thermochemical disequilibrium in GJ 436b.
The scientists state that processes such as vertical mixing and polymerization of methane into other compounds such as ethylene may explain the small methane-to-carbon-monoxide ratio observed.
Author contact:
Kevin Stevenson (University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA)
Tel: +1 407 668 5698
E-mail: [email protected]
[2] Virology: Combating hepatitis C (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature08960
***This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 21 April 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 22 April, but at a later date. ***
A compound called BMS-790052 is the most potent in vitro inhibitor of the chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) described so far, reveal Nicholas Meanwell and colleagues in this week’s Nature.
Around 200 million people are currently infected with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV), and are at considerable risk of developing liver problems including liver cancer. To date, the only available treatment causes severe side effects and is less than 50% effective.
Through screening more than 1 million compounds, Meanwell and his team have identified BMS-790052 as a potent inhibitor of HCV replication. When a single 100-mg dose of this compound was given to HCV-infected subjects, the average viral load in the infected individuals was reduced by 3.6 log10. This effect persisted for 144 hours after treatment.
The result provides the first clinical validation of an inhibitor of NS5A, an HCV protein with no known enzymatic role, as a way of halting viral replication.
Author contact:
Nicholas Meanwell (Bristol-Myers Squibb, Wallingford, CT, USA)
Tel: +1 203 677 6679
E-mail: [email protected]
[3] Environment: Ecosystem nitrate flows (pp 1178-1181)
Nitrate in the environment exhibits a consistent, nonlinear, inverse relationship with organic carbon and this pattern can be explained by carbon-to-nitrate ratios, according to research published in Nature this week. Nitrate accumulation in aquatic environments, largely a result of the use of artificial fertilizers (which increase food production), causes environmental problems. The work may provide a testable framework for unravelling the fate of nitrate — and the influence of human interventions — in ecosystems across the world.
Philip Taylor and Alan Townsend show that there is a consistent inverse relationship between nitrate and organic carbon concentrations across soils, freshwater ecosystems and the ocean, including ecosystems that experience substantial anthropogenic nitrogen addition. They demonstrate that this pattern can be explained by carbon-to-nitrate ratios that influence nitrate accumulation by regulating the microbial processes coupling dissolved organic carbon and nitrate cycling.
Author contact:
Philip Taylor (University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA)
Tel: +1 303 905 7612
E-mail: [email protected]
[4] Materials science: A new route to supercooled liquids (pp 1174-1177; N&V)
A molten alloy in contact with a particular kind of crystalline surface can remain liquid when cooled several hundred degrees below its normal freezing point. This unusual behaviour, reported in this week's Nature, sheds new light on the physics of solidification, and suggests new ways to control crystallization in technological processes such as welding and casting.
In the well known 'seed crystal' effect, contact with a crystalline surface induces layering in the adjacent atoms of a liquid, helping it to solidify at its freezing temperature. Now Tobias Schülli and colleagues have observed the opposite effect, in gold-silicon droplets sitting on a silicon substrate. After annealing at high temperature in the presence of gold, the silicon surface adopts a periodic structure, incorporating gold atoms in a pentagonal arrangement. On this surface, gold-silicon droplets that would normally freeze at about 873 kelvin remain liquid down to 513 kelvin — a 'supercooling' of about 360 kelvin.
The authors propose that the pentagonal ordering of the substrate surface stabilizes icosahedral clusters believed to be the basic structural element in the liquid, thereby inhibiting crystallization. This suggests that 'containerless processing' techniques, currently required to achieve large degrees of supercooling, might in future be replaced by solid containers with suitably coated surfaces.
Author contact:
Tobias Schülli (European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Grenoble, France)
Tel: +33 47688 2280
E-mail: [email protected]
A. Lindsay Greer (University of Cambridge, UK) N&V Author
Tel: +44 1223 334308
E-mail: [email protected]
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ALSO IN THIS ISSUE…
[5] Lateral competition for cortical space by layer-specific horizontal circuits (pp 1155-1160; N&V)
[6] Listeria monocytogenes impairs SUMOylation for efficient infection (pp 1192-1195; N&V)
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ADVANCE ONLINE PUBLICATION
***These papers will be published electronically on Nature's website on 21 April 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 them on this release to avoid multiple mailings they will not appear in print on 22 April, but at a later date. ***
[7] Cell signalling by microRNA165/6 directs gene dose-dependent root cell fate
DOI: 10.1038/nature08977
[8] Oxidation of methane by a biological dicopper centre
DOI: 10.1038/nature08992
[9] An RNA polymerase II- and AGO4-associated protein acts in RNA-directed DNA methylation
DOI: 10.1038/nature09025
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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. 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
Herston: 9
Melbourne: 7
AUSTRIA
Vienna: 9
BELGIUM
Ghent: 6
CHINA
Shanghai: 9
ESTONIA
Tartu: 7
FINLAND
Helsinki: 7
FRANCE
Grenoble: 4
Martin d’Hères: 4
Paris: 6
Perpignan: 9
KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA
Thuwal: 9
SWEDEN
Uppsala: 7
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
California
La Jolla: 5
Riverside: 9
Colorado
Boulder: 3
Connecticut
Wallingford: 2
Florida
Orlando: 1
Illinois
Evanston: 8
Indiana
Bloomington: 9
Maryland
Greenbelt: 1
Massachusetts
Cambridge: 1
Michigan
Detroit: 8
Missouri
St Louis: 9
New Jersey
Princeton: 2
New York
Ithaca: 7
New York: 1
North Carolina
Durham: 7
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From Japan, Korea, China, Singapore and Taiwan
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E-mail: [email protected]
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