This press release contains:
• Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Neuroscience: A new target for stroke therapy?
Astronomy: Early galaxies and the reionization of the Universe
Climate: Deep ocean reversal in the last ice age
Microbiology: The workings of a microbial immune system
Physics: Asymptotic freedom for the electric charge
Cryptic escape at the ocean surface
Materials science: Holographic display gathers speed
• Mention of papers to be published at the same time with the same embargo
• Geographical listing of authors
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[1] Neuroscience: A new target for stroke therapy? (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature09511
This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 03 November 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 04 November, but at a later date.
The identification of a neuronal signalling system implicated in the recovery of functions lost to stroke may aid the design of much-needed new therapies, reports a mouse study published in Nature.
Stroke causes massive, irreversible cell death in the brain that makes functional recovery difficult. S. Thomas Carmichael and colleagues show that stroke causes neurons in the tissue next to the stroke region to become constantly less excitable owing to a build up of the inhibitory signalling molecule GABA. Blocking this form of GABA activity genetically or with a specific drug improves recovery in a mouse model of stroke and, critically, the treatment remains successful when there is a delay between stroke and therapy.
At present the only effective therapies must be administered within hours of stroke and no therapies enhance recovery, leaving most patients to suffer the full effects. And although resurrecting dead neurons remains impossible, the study indicates that the surviving, neighbouring neurons retain a degree of plasticity for some time after injury that can be enhanced pharmacologically to possible clinical benefit.
Author contact
S. Thomas Carmichael (University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 310 206 0550
E-mail: [email protected]
[2] Astronomy: Early galaxies and the reionization of the Universe (pp 49-55)
Early star-forming galaxies seem to have produced enough ultraviolet radiation to ionize most of the intergalactic gas in the Universe by about 800 million years after the Big Bang. The evidence for this conclusion, which comes from recent observations made with the Hubble Space Telescope, is summarized by Brant Robertson and colleagues in a Review Article in this week’s Nature.
The first stars and galaxies formed in the cosmic ‘Dark Ages’, when electrons and protons had combined to form neutral hydrogen gas, but there were as yet no sources of light in the Universe. The transformation of this neutral hydrogen into the mostly ionized gas that we see today is thought to have been caused by ultraviolet photons generated by primitive stars and galaxies. To demonstrate this connection between early galaxies and cosmic reionization we need to know how much ultraviolet radiation was produced by young stars at early times, and what fraction of this ionizing radiation was able to escape from galaxies into the intergalactic medium.
Robertson and colleagues describe how recent Hubble observations constrain the abundance and properties of galaxies at redshifts near 7, when the Universe was only about ~800 million years old. The authors show that, with some uncertainties, the observed galaxy population at this time is sufficient to produce the photons required for cosmic reionization. Additional observations planned for the Hubble Space Telescope should improve the galaxy census sufficiently to resolve the remaining uncertainties, finalizing the connection between young galaxies and reionization.
Author contact
Brant Robertson (California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 626 395 2587
E-mail: [email protected]
[3] Climate: Deep ocean reversal in the last ice age (pp 84-88)
The deep circulation of the Atlantic Ocean seems to have been reversed during the last ice age — with deep water flowing northwards from the Southern Ocean, instead of today’s southwards flow from the North Atlantic. This finding, published in this week’s Nature, reconciles some previously contradictory results, and sheds new light on the contribution of the Atlantic circulation to the Earth’s climate.
Basin-scale flows in the world’s oceans redistribute large amounts of heat, and are accordingly important components of the global climate system. In the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf Stream brings warm surface water northwards from the tropics to high latitudes, where it cools, sinks and flows southwards at depth. Changes in this Atlantic ‘meridional overturning circulation’ (MOC) would have profound implications for climate, yet its behaviour during times of differing climate remains uncertain. In particular, different lines of evidence have suggested that, at the peak of the last ice age, the MOC may either have been much weaker than it is today, or substantially the same.
César Negre and colleagues now present evidence that the deep Atlantic circulation was indeed weaker then, and that it also flowed in the opposite direction. These conclusions are based on a
high-resolution record of protactinium and thorium isotopes obtained from a deep-ocean sediment core in the South Atlantic, and are consistent with information from palaeoceanographic proxies that trace the dispersal of nutrients through the ocean. It thus seems that the modern pattern of the Atlantic MOC arose only in the past 10,000 years.
Author contact
César Negre (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain)
Tel: +34 645 651 645
E-mail: [email protected]
[4] Microbiology: The workings of a microbial immune system (pp 67-71; N&V)
The discovery of a mechanism underpinning a microbial immune system is presented in a study in this week’s Nature.
The CRISPR/Cas system is a collection of proteins and genetic elements known to help protect prokaryotes from viral infection. Sylvain Moineau and colleagues show that, in Streptococcus thermophilus, the CRISPR/Cas system prevents infection by quickly cleaving invading double-stranded DNA both of viral and plasmid origin.
The system seems to be remarkably adapted to this end, and it’s thought that the CRISPR/Cas system could be used to naturally generate bacteria that are resistant to the acquisition and spread of
antibiotic-resistance genes.
Author contact
Sylvain Moineau (Université Laval, Québec City, Canada)
Tel: +1 418 656 3712
E-mail: [email protected]
Erik Sontheimer (Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA) N&V author
Tel: +1 847 467 6880
E-mail: [email protected]
[5] Physics: Asymptotic freedom for the electric charge (pp 56-59; N&V)
A calculation described in this week’s Nature seems to settle a debate that has been bubbling among theoretical physicists, concerning the consequences of incorporating Einstein’s theory of gravitation into the standard model of particle physics. The new analysis confirms that combining quantum gravity with quantum electrodynamics (which describes the interactions of electrons and photons) causes the strength of the electric charge to decrease to zero at high energies — a result known as asymptotic freedom.
It has long been known that the ‘coupling constants’ that describe the strength of the various fundamental forces are in fact not constant; they depend on the distance scale (or, equivalently, the
energy scale) at which they are measured. A recent claim that the strength of the electric charge (the coupling constant for the electromagnetic force) is affected by gravity has attracted great interest, but has also been controversial — with subsequent work casting doubt on the original conclusion.
David Toms now presents an analysis that should be free of the controversy that has surrounded the previous calculation, but which supports its main conclusion.
Author contact
David Toms (Newcastle University, UK)
Tel: +44 191 222 5354
E-mail: [email protected]
Giovanni Amelino-Camelia (Università di Roma La Sapienza, Italy) N&V author
Tel: +39 06 4991 4286
E-mail: [email protected]
[6] Cryptic escape at the ocean surface (pp 60-66)
A large-scale genomic analysis of ocean surface-dwelling plankton offers insights into the make-up and ecology of this unseen marine microbial community. The findings are reported in this week’s Nature.
Kenneth Nealson and colleagues used the newly derived genome sequences of 137 marine microbial isolates combined with previously obtained genomic data. The prokaryotic community can be split into two groups, they report. The first, which contains many microbial taxa that are rarely abundant, appear adapted to a “feast-or-famine” lifestyle — the plankton grow rapidly in energy-rich environments and slowly when food is scarce. The second, a group of abundant and cosmopolitan plankton, comprise just a few taxa that are nearly always plentiful. These largely uncultured microbes have smaller genomes, and it’s thought they may avoid predation by growing slowly and maintaining low biomass — so-called “cryptic escape”.
Author contact
Kenneth Nealson (University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 213 821 2271
E-mail: [email protected]
[7] Materials science: Holographic display gathers speed
The demonstration of a holographic display that can depict a scene in another location and update almost in real time — known as three-dimensional (3D) telepresence — is reported for the first time in a paper in Nature. The findings could lead to new applications of holographic 3D technology, including in the entertainment industry and in telemedicine.
In recent years, there has been a lot of interest from the public, the media and industry in 3D image rendering, as shown by the success of 3D films, such as Avatar. Since its appearance in the original Star Wars film in 1977, 3D telepresence has been a source of fascination but the absence of a large, updatable holographic recording medium meant the potential was never realised.
Nasser Peyghambarian and colleagues demonstrate a multicolour, holographic display that refreshes every two seconds and gives the effect of quasi-real-time updating, using a photorefractive polymer as the recording material. Two-dimensional images are taken at multiple angles in one location and sent to another location using Ethernet communication and then printed with the hologram set-up.
The work builds on a 2008 Nature paper by the same group, which reported an updatable, 3D holographic display; however, the hologram was monochrome and could only be updated every four minutes.
CONTACT
Nasser Peyghambarian (University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA)
Tel: +1 520 621 4649; E-mail: [email protected]
ADVANCE ONLINE PUBLICATION
These papers will be published electronically on Nature's website on 03 November 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 04 November, but at a later date.
[7] Integrating carbon–halogen bond formation into medicinal plant metabolism
DOI: 10.1038/nature09524
[8] Sequential faulting explains the asymmetry and extension discrepancy of conjugate margins
DOI: 10.1038/nature09520
[9] The amino-terminal disease hotspot of ryanodine receptors forms a cytoplasmic vestibule
DOI: 10.1038/nature09471
[10] Design, function and structure of a monomeric ClC transporter
DOI: 10.1038/nature09556
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
Québec City: 4
Vancouver: 9
CHINA
Shanghai: 7
FRANCE
Dangé-Saint-Romain: 4
GERMANY
Bremen: 3
NEW ZEALAND
Dunedin: 1
SPAIN
Barcelona: 3, 8
Bellaterra: 3
Seville: 3
UNITED KINGDOM
Cambridge: 2
Cardiff: 3
Edinburgh: 2
London: 8
Newcastle: 5
Oxford: 3
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
California
Los Angeles: 1
Pasadena: 2
Maryland
Rockville: 6
Massachusetts
Cambridge: 7
Waltham: 10
Wisconsin
Madison: 4
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]
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