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This press release is copyright Nature.
This press release contains:
• Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Materials: Glass as tough as steel
Neuroscience: Chills of musical pleasure
Geoscience: Ice-cap melt
Nature: A massive black hole in a nearby dwarf galaxy
Geoscience: Origin of lunar water
Immunology: Inflammatory skin recruits
And finally…Chemical Biology: To screen and protect
• 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] Materials: Glass as tough as steel
DOI: 10.1038/nmat2930
A metallic glass that is not only very strong but is also as tough as steel is reported this week in Nature Materials. The combined strength and toughness of this metallic glass exceeds that of any other material.
Metallic glasses are made of metallic elements, but in contrast to normal metals their atomic structure is not crystalline, and is much like that of window glass. Metallic glasses are known to be exceptionally strong and can bear high loads until they fail. But once they start to fail they are not very tough and cracks propagate quickly through the material. Marios Demetriou and colleagues adjusted the composition of a metallic glass based on palladium and other elements to arrive at a material that is not only strong but also exceptionally tough — that is, it deforms rather than breaks under stress — and is therefore able to stop cracks spreading.
Author contact:
Marios Demetriou (California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 626 395 4425; E-mail: [email protected]
[2] Neuroscience: Chills of musical pleasure
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2726
The pleasurable experience of listening to music releases dopamine, the neurotransmitter important for more tangible pleasures associated with rewards like food, psychoactive drugs and money, reports a study in Nature Neuroscience.
Valorie Salimpoor, Robert Zatorre and colleagues measured dopamine release in response to music that elicited “chills”, changes in skin conductance, heart rate, breathing, and temperature that were correlated with pleasurability ratings of the music. Two converging techniques suggested that dopamine release was greater for pleasurable versus neutral music, and that levels of release were correlated with the extent of emotional arousal and pleasurability ratings.
The authors found that even the anticipation of pleasurable music resulted in dopamine release. These results suggest why music is highly valued across human society.
Author contacts:
Valorie Salimpoor (McGill University, Montreal, Canada)
Tel: +1 514 398 1717; E-mail: [email protected]
Robert Zatorre (McGill University, Montreal, Canada)
Tel: +1 514 398 8903; E-mail: [email protected]
[3] Geoscience: Ice-cap melt
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1052
Mountain glaciers and ice caps are projected to lose between 15 and 27% of their volume by 2100, according to a study published online in Nature Geoscience. In some regions, losses in ice volume could be as high as 75%, with potential implications for regional water availability.
Valentina Radic and Regine Hock simulated the response of 2,638 ice caps and 120,229 mountain glaciers worldwide to the changes in climate projected by 10 state-of-the-art climate models. Upscaling these results to 19 regions that contain all of the mountain glaciers and ice caps, they found the smallest losses in glacier volume in Greenland and high-mountain Asia, and the largest losses in the European Alps and New Zealand.
The estimated sea level rise from global glacier wastage falls between 0.087 and 0.161 m which is broadly in line with the range projected by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change.
Author contact:
Valentina Radic (University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada)
Tel: +1 604 822 3036; E-mail: [email protected]
[4] Nature: A massive black hole in a nearby dwarf galaxy
DOI: 10.1038/nature09724
Observations of the nearby dwarf starburst galaxy, Henize 2-10, suggest that the galaxy harbours an actively accreting central black hole a million times more massive than the Sun. The finding, reported this week in Nature, confirms that nearby star-forming galaxies can indeed form massive black holes and suggests that this may also be true for their primordial counterparts in the early Universe.
Supermassive black holes are now thought to lie in the centre of every galaxy with a spheroidal component of old stars, including the Milky Way, but it has remained unclear whether they are found in other galaxy types. Amy Reines and colleagues report that Henize 2-10 contains a compact radio source at its centre that is spatially coincident with a hard X-ray source.
Henize 2-10 is a relatively close (~30 million light years away) dwarf galaxy in which stars are forming at a prodigious rate compared to other galaxies of a similar mass. The massive black hole in its centre is unusual because it is not associated with a bulge (a tightly packed group of stars within a larger formation), a nuclear star cluster or a well-defined nucleus. This may reflect an early phase of black-hole and galaxy evolution not previously observed.
Author contact:
Amy Reines (University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA)
Tel: +1 434 923 7933; E-mail: [email protected]
[5] Geoscience: Origin of lunar water
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1050
Comets are a significant source of water on the Moon, suggests a study published online in Nature Geoscience. Because lunar water is geochemically distinct from water on Earth, the research suggests that it must have been acquired after the formation of the Moon.
James Greenwood and colleagues analysed lunar rock samples that were collected during the Apollo missions. They found significant amounts of water in the rocks with a specific geochemical signature that points to a source in the lunar mantle, solar-wind protons or comets. Based on similarities with the known characteristics of the comets Hale-Bopp, Hyakutake and P/Halley, the researchers conclude that comets are the most likely source of this water.
Author contact:
James Greenwood (Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, USA)
Tel: +1 860 685 2545; E-mail: [email protected]
[6] Immunology: Inflammatory skin recruits
DOI: 10.1038/ni.1984
Scientists have identified a signal in mice that recruits immune cells to chronically inflamed skin, according to a report published this week in Nature Immunology. The research could lead to the development of treatments for common skin allergies such as dermatitis.
Some skin allergies are characterized by an influx of two types of white blood cells, known as T cells and eosinophils. Andrew Luster and colleagues report that a protein called CCL8 produced in allergen-inflamed skin can lead to a chronic form of dermatitis by attracting the white blood cells that express CCR8, a receptor that recognizes CCL8. These T cells produce copious amounts of the molecule interleukin 5 (IL-5), which recruits the eosinophils and exacerbates the allergic inflammation. The team notes that mice lacking either CCL8 or CCR8 display much less eosinophilic infiltration and less severe skin disease.
The authors also find human CCR8+ T cells are enriched for IL-5 expression. Blocking CCR8 function might be a useful method for providing relief to humans with skin allergies.
Author contact:
Andrew Luster (Massachusetts General Hospital; Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, USA)
Tel: +1 617 726 5710; E-mail: [email protected]
[7] And finally…Chemical Biology: To screen and protect
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio.510
An engineered enzyme that can protect mice against a close analog of the nerve agent sarin is described online this week in Nature Chemical Biology. This study offers new strategies for protein engineering and potentially new practical measures in the fight against bioterrorism.
Serum paraoxonase has previously been identified as an enzyme that could be used to break apart sarin. According to current estimates, the speed with which the natural enzyme can perform this reaction is not fast enough to protect someone exposed to the toxin. Engineered enzymes, or versions of the protein that have been modified to improve the enzyme’s function, offered more promise but still lacked sufficient power to function in the real world.
Now Dan Tawfik and colleagues have created ways to test the enzyme that more accurately reflect how the protein would need to function in humans. This allowed the authors to screen through a huge number of new enzymes, and resulted in the identification of an enzyme with only 6 mutations that could protect mice against a sarin analog in a
preventative assay.
Author contact:
Dan Tawfik (Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Tel: +972 8 934 3637; E-mail: [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)
[8] Identification of two genes causing reinforcement in the Texas wildflower Phlox drummondii
DOI: 10.1038/nature09641
NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/naturebiotechnology)
[9] Expression of therapeutic proteins after delivery of chemically modified mRNA in mice
DOI: 10.1038/nbt.1733
NATURE CHEMISTRY (http://www.nature.com/nchem)
[10] A biomolecule-compatible visible-light-induced azide reduction from a DNA-encoded reaction-discovery system
DOI: 10.1038/nchem.932
[11] Visible-light-mediated conversion of alcohols to halides
DOI: 10.1038/nchem.949
[12] Carbon oxidation state as a metric for describing the chemistry of atmospheric organic aerosol
DOI: 10.1038/nchem.948
[13] Cis-dicarbonyl binding at cobalt and iron porphyrins with saddle-shape conformation
DOI: 10.1038/nchem.956
NATURE GENETICS (http://www.nature.com/naturegenetics)
[14] Mutations in SMAD3 cause a syndromic form of aortic aneurysms and dissections with early-onset osteoarthritis
DOI: 10.1038/ng.744
[15] INTERMEDIUM-C, a modifier of lateral spikelet fertility in barley, is an ortholog of the maize domestication gene TEOSINTE BRANCHED 1
DOI: 10.1038/ng.745
[16] Genome-wide association study of leaf architecture in the maize
nested association mapping population
DOI: 10.1038/ng.746
[17] Genome-wide association study of quantitative resistance to southern leaf blight in the maize nested association mapping population
DOI: 10.1038/ng.747
[18] Tartrate resistant acid phosphatase deficiency causes a bone dysplasia with autoimmunity and a type I interferon expression signature
DOI: 10.1038/ng.748
[19] Genetic deficiency of tartrate-resistant acid phosphatise associated with skeletal dysplasia, cerebral calcifications and autoimmunity
DOI: 10.1038/ng.749
NATURE GEOSCIENCE (http://www.nature.com/ngeo)
[20] Ongoing climate change following a complete cessation of carbon dioxide emissions
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1047
[21] Formation of manganese oxides by bacterially generated superoxide
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1055
NATURE IMMUNOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/natureimmunology)
[22] Ribose 2′-O-methylation provides a molecular signature for the distinction of self and non-self mRNA dependent on the RNA sensor Mda5
DOI: 10.1038/ni.1979
[23] Eosinophils are required for the maintenance of plasma cells in the bone marrow
DOI: 10.1038/ni.1981
[24] ECM1 controls TH 2 cell egress from lymph nodes through re-expression of S1P1
DOI: 10.1038/ni.1983
NATURE MATERIALS (http://www.nature.com/naturematerials)
[25] From local structure to nanosecond recrystallization dynamics in AgInSbTe phase-change materials
DOI: 10.1038/nmat2931
[26] Disorder-induced localization in crystalline phase-change materials
DOI: 10.1038/nmat2934
[27] Suppression of electronic friction on Nb films in the superconducting state
DOI: 10.1038/nmat2936
[28] Slow dynamics and internal stress relaxation in bundled cytoskeletal networks
DOI: 10.1038/nmat2939
Nature MEDICINE (http://www.nature.com/naturemedicine)
[29] The NLRP3 inflammasome instigates obesity-induced inflammation and insulin resistance
DOI: 10.1038/nm.2279
NATURE METHODS (http://www.nature.com/nmeth)
[30] Knocking out multi-gene redundancies via cycles of sexual assortment and fluorescence selection
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1550
[31] Simultaneous 2-photon calcium imaging at different cortical depths in vivo with spatiotemporal multiplexing
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1552
[32] A photo-protection strategy for microsecond resolution single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1553
NATURE NANOTECHNOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/nnano)
[33] Visualization of the self-assembly of silica nanochannels reveals growth mechanism
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2010.258
Nature NEUROSCIENCE (http://www.nature.com/natureneuroscience)
[34] Biophysical mechanisms underlying olfactory receptor neuron dynamics
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2725
[35] Population receptive fields from ON and OFF thalamic inputs to an orientation column in visual cortex
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2729
[36] Decoding the activity of neuronal populations in macaque primary visual cortex
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2733
NATURE PHOTONICS (http://www.nature.com/nphoton)
[37] Experimental measurement-based quantum computing beyond the cluster-state model
DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2010.283
[38] Sequential femtosecond X-ray imaging
DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2010.287
[39] Single molecule imaging by optical absorption
DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2010.290
[40] Ultrasharp nonlinear photothermal and photoacoustic resonances and holes beyond the spectral limit
DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2010.280
Nature PHYSICS (http://www.nature.com/naturephysics)
[41] Cold melting and solid structures of dense lithium
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1864
[42] Quantum fluctuations can promote or inhibit glass formation
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1865
[43] Evolution of microscopic localization in graphene in a magnetic
field from scattering resonances to quantum dots
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1866
[44] Few femtosecond, few kiloampere electron bunch produced by a laser–plasma accelerator
DOI: 10.1038/nphys1872
Nature STRUCTURAL & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY (http://www.nature.com/natstructmolbiol)
[45] Alternate rRNA secondary structures as regulators of translation
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1962
[46] Structural basis for MOF and MSL3 recruitment into the dosage compensation complex by MSL1
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1960
[47] A conserved motif within RAP1 plays diversified roles in telomere protection and regulation in different organisms
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1974
[48] RNA secondary structure in mutually exclusive splicing
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1959
[49] The heads of the measles virus attachment protein move to transmit the fusion-triggering signal
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1967
[50] Structure of the measles virus hemagglutinin bound to its cellular receptor SLAM
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1969
[51] Substrate discrimination of the chaperone BiP by autonomous and
co-chaperone regulated conformational transitions
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb.1970
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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
Warwick: 15
AUSTRIA
Innsbruck: 18, 19, 37
BELGIUM
Antwerp: 14
Brussels: 19
Leuven: 18
BRAZIL
Porto Alegre: 19
CANADA:
Calgary: 20
Montreal: 2
Toronto: 18, 19, 30
Vancouver: 3, 13
Victoria: 20
CHINA
Anhui: 38
Hong Kong: 30
Shanghai: 24, 47
Zhejiang: 48
FINLAND
Helsinki: 12
Jyvaskyla: 25
Kuopio: 12
Tampere: 25
FRANCE
Arpajon: 44
Grenoble: 41, 46
Lyon: 13
Montpellier: 28
Palaiseau: 44
Paris: 18
GERMANY
Aachen: 26
Berlin: 23, 38
Bonn: 22
Freiburg: 19
Freiburg im Breisgau: 46
Garching: 13, 28, 51
Giessen: 22
Hamburg: 19, 38
Heidelberg: 37, 46
Jena: 19
Julich: 25
Mainz: 19
Munich: 9, 33, 51
Muenster: 38
Rotenburg: 9
Tubingen: 9
INDIA
Davangere: 18
ISRAEL
Rehovot: 7
Tel Aviv: 42
JAPAN
Chiba: 25
Fukuoka: 50
Hyogo: 25
Osaka: 25, 47
Saitama: 50
Sapporo: 5, 50
Tokushima: 50
Tokyo: 19, 25
Tsukuba: 42
NETHERLANDS
Amsterdam: 14
Leiden: 14
Nijmegen: 14
Rotterdam: 14
SINGAPORE
Singapore: 22, 45
SPAIN
Bellaterra: 13
Madrid: 27, 32
SWEDEN
Alnarp: 15
Lund: 44
Uppsala: 3
SWITZERLAND
Basel: 27
Geneva: 47
Lausanne: 19
Reinach: 27
St Gallen: 22
Zurich: 22, 39
TURKEY
Ankara: 19
UNITED KINGDOM
Belfast: 22
Bristol: 18, 22
Cardiff: 6
Didcot: 46
Dundee: 15
Edinburgh: 41
Liverpool: 18
Manchester: 18
Oxford: 39
Reading: 22
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Alaska
Fairbanks: 3
Arizona
Scottsdale: 23
Arkansas
Little Rock: 40
Rogers: 12
California
Berkeley: 1, 12
Fremont: 1
Los Angeles: 5, 31
Palo Alto: 30
Pasadena: 1, 36
Riverside: 15
San Diego: 30
San Francisco: 6
Stanford: 32
Colorado
Boulder: 12
Golden: 21
Connecticut
Middletown: 5
New Haven: 47
Storrs: 35
Delaware
Newark: 17
District of Columbia
Washington: 41
Florida
Tallahassee: 26
Illinois
Argonne: 41
Maywood: 22
Urbana: 16, 41
Kansas
Wichita: 32
Kentucky
Louisville: 18
Louisiana
Baton Rouge: 29
Maryland
College Park: 32, 43
Gaithersburg: 43
Massachusetts
Billerica: 12
Boston: 6, 11, 19, 30, 34
Cambridge: 10, 12, 21, 28, 45
Watertown: 30
Michigan
Ann Arbor: 47
Houghton: 12
Minnesota
Rochester: 49
St Paul: 15
Missouri
Columbia: 16, 17
St Louis: 22
New Jersey
Princeton: 12
New York
Bronx: 36
Ithaca: 16, 17
New York: 6, 18, 35, 36, 42
North Carolina
Chapel Hill: 32
Durham: 8
Raleigh: 16, 17
Oregon
Corvallis: 15
Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh: 12
Tennessee
Knoxville: 5
Memphis: 51
Texas
Galveston: 49
Houston: 47
Virginia
Charlottesville: 4
Norfolk: 12
Washington
Seattle: 18, 36
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]
Neda Afsarmanesh (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 Biotechnology (New York)
Michael Francisco
Tel: +1 212 726 9288; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Cell Biology (London)
Sowmya Swaminathan
Tel: +44 20 7843 4656; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Chemical Biology (Boston)
Carrie Meggs
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)
Myles Axton
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)
Vincent Dusastre
Tel: +44 20 7843 4531; 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 Photonics (Tokyo)
Oliver Graydon
Tel: +81 3 3267 8776; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Physics (London)
Alison Wright
Tel: +44 20 7843 4555; E-mail: [email protected]
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology (New York)
Sabbi Lall
Tel: +1 212 726 9326; E-mail: [email protected]
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