This press release contains:
• Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Planetary science: Questioning the standard model of lunar formation
Comment: In praise of memory-altering drugs
Fossils: How vertebrates got their jaws
Correspondence: Stem China’s demand for ivory
Immunology: Potent HIV antibodies with vaccine potential
Virology: HIV replication during antiretroviral therapy
Evolution: Predictable natural selection
Cancer: Identifying therapeutic targets for kidney cancer
And finally... Retraining a coffee stain
• Mention of papers to be published at the same time
• Geographical listing of authors
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[1] Planetary science: Questioning the standard model of lunar formation (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature10328
*** This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 17 August 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 18 August, but at a later date. ***
Earth’s Moon may not have had a global magma ocean or else it is considerably younger than previously thought, according to research in this week’s Nature. The findings imply that either the theory of lunar crust formation via a global magma ocean may be wrong or else the Moon solidified much later than previous estimates.
Evolutionary models of planetary formation generally include differentiation through solidification of deep magma oceans. Lunar rocks called ferroan anorthosites are considered to have crystallized in the latter stages of magma ocean solidification and are thus deemed to be the oldest lunar crustal rock type. Using improved isotopic techniques, Lars Borg and colleagues determine the age of crystallization of a lunar ferroan anorthosite to be 4,360 million years old, some 200 million years after formation of the Solar System and significantly later than is assumed by most lunar formation models.
This extremely young age of the ferroan anorthosite could suggest that the lunar crust may be produced by non-magma ocean processes, such as serial magmatism. The authors also speculate that the theory that these rocks represent the oldest type of lunar sample is incorrect.
CONTACT
Lars Borg (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 925 424 5722; E-mail: [email protected]
Comment: In praise of memory-altering drugs (pp 275-276)
Research on memory manipulation is moving fast. In fact, the use of memory-dampening drugs to treat victims of assaults, car accidents and natural disasters is looking increasingly promising. This prospect alarms many ethicists, who worry that such drugs could interfere with people’s ability to lead true and honourable lives, or undermine their sense of identity.
In a Comment in this week’s Nature, Adam Kolber argues that excessive hand-wringing over the ethics of manipulating memory “could deter researchers from pursuing studies on memory manipulation or funders from supporting them”. In his view, “the fears about pharmaceutical memory manipulation are overblown”.
In most countries, existing law would already prohibit particularly egregious uses of memory-dampening drugs, such as preventing a witness from testifying in court, says Kolber. And where unique problems arise, lawmakers could “easily add new restrictions”. For example, in cases where memory dampening could endanger people’s lives, physicians could be required to contact police before prescribing drugs.
For Kolber, the potential benefits of memory-altering drugs far outweigh the ethical difficulties they pose: such drugs could offer the millions of people debilitated by harrowing memories “the best hope yet of reclaiming their lives”, he says.
CONTACT
Adam Kolber (Brooklyn Law School, NY, USA)
E-mail: [email protected]
[2] Fossils: How vertebrates got their jaws (pp 324-327)
Analysis of a 400 million-year-old group of jawless fish from China and Vietnam is helping to explain how the vertebrate jaw evolved.
The study, published in this week’s Nature, used synchrotron radiation X-ray tomography to reveal the anatomy of the extinct jawless vertebrate’s head. Unlike modern jawless fish, such as lampreys and hagfishes, which have a single, median nostril, the fossil fish had paired nasal sacs. This, Zhikun Gai and colleagues say, is more akin to the anatomy of modern jawed vertebrates and may have ‘freed up’ the centre of the ‘face’ so that jaws could develop.
CONTACT
Zhikun Gai (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China)
Tel: +86 135 2018 4342; E-mail: [email protected]
Philip Donoghue (University of Bristol, UK) Co-author
Tel: +44 117 954 5440; or tel: +44 7598 189 545; E-mail: [email protected]
Philippe Janvier (Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France) Co-author
Tel: +33 1 40 79 34 50; E-mail: [email protected]
Correspondence: Stem China’s demand for ivory (pp 282-283)
A Correspondence in this week’s Nature from George Wittemyer and co-authors highlights an alarming surge in ivory poaching in Kenya’s iconic Samburu National Reserve. Almost all of this illegal ivory is finding its way to China.
The first five months of 2011 saw more elephants poached in the past two years than in the previous 11. The number of orphans is soaring and some herds are left with no mature females, who are crucial to the group’s social structure.
A recent near-doubling in black-market ivory prices is propelling the trend. At current local prices, the ivory of a large male elephant will fetch the equivalent of 1.5 years of a wildlife ranger's salary, or 15 years of an unskilled Kenyan worker's salary.
“Stemming the demand for ivory and eliminating black-market trade [are] actions that mandate leadership from and cooperation with China,” the authors stress.
CONTACT
George Wittemyer (Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA)
Tel: +1 970 491 6598; E-mail: [email protected]
[3] Immunology: Potent HIV antibodies with vaccine potential (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature10373
*** This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 17 August 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 18 August, but at a later date. ***
The discovery of a new collection of anti-HIV monoclonal antibodies, some of which have higher potency than previously characterized monoclonal antibodies, is reported in Nature this week. The antibodies identified recognize novel antibody-binding sites on viral antigens, representing new targets for potential HIV vaccines.
Dennis Burton and colleagues isolate a panel of monoclonal antibodies with broad neutralizing activity against HIV from a selection of patients shown to have a strong immune response to HIV infection. Many of these antibodies are ten times more potent compared to previously reported antibodies. Certain combinations of these broadly neutralizing monoclonal antibodies accomplish a favourable level of coverage against a large proportion of HIV variants. Such a wide-range coverage could have an important impact on the pandemic, the authors note.
CONTACT
Dennis Burton (The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 858 784 9298; E-mail: [email protected]
[4] Virology: HIV replication during antiretroviral therapy (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature10347
*** This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 17 August 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 18 August, but at a later date. ***
A potential underlying mechanism of ongoing HIV replication in the presence of antiretroviral drugs is proposed in Nature this week. The research identifies a source of virus replication that could contribute to drug-insensitive reservoirs of HIV in human cells. Such reservoirs prevent antiretroviral therapy (ART) from completely curing HIV infection.
David Baltimore and colleagues use a combination of mathematical modelling and a cell culture model of HIV infection and drug treatment to investigate HIV replication during ART. Their findings indicate that ongoing virus replication can occur in the presence of drugs if the cells become infected through cell-to-cell transmission. Infections involving cell-to-cell spread transmit high numbers of the virus, thus decreasing the probability that every virus will be inhibited by antiretroviral drugs.
If cell-to-cell spread has similar properties in living organisms, the authors suggest that this source of replication could have negative effects on the immune system and could contribute to viral persistence, thus reducing the sensitivity to ART.
CONTACT
David Baltimore (California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA)
Tel: +1 626 395 3581; E-mail: [email protected]
[5] Evolution: Predictable natural selection (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature10378
*** This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 17 August 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 18 August, but at a later date. ***
The question “Would evolution happen in the same way under the same starting conditions?” is addressed in this week’s Nature. Focusing on nematodes, the research shows that several lines independently accumulate mutations in a conserved set of genes. These observations indicate that the course of genetic changes during evolution is constrained and that adaptation can, to some extent, be predictable.
Several nematode species react to unfavourable environmental conditions by going into a stress-resistant, non-reproductive, hibernation-like dauer state, and then resume replication when conditions become more favourable. For example, if the nematodes become overcrowded — conditions associated with limited food availability — they release a pheromone that promotes dauer larva formation. However, if there is ample food during crowding, the non-reproducing nematodes would be at a disadvantage compared with those that continue to grow.
Cori Bargmann and colleagues show that various strains of nematodes from two Caenorhabditis species adapt to grow in high-density cultures by acquiring resistance to pheromone-induced dauer formation. Each strain develops mutations in a conserved set of pheromone receptor genes. Such convergence in the adaptation process shows that evolution can be reproducible — under certain specific environmental constraints.
CONTACT
Cori Bargmann (Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA)
Tel: +1 212 327 7241; E-mail: [email protected]
[6] Cancer: Identifying therapeutic targets for kidney cancer (AOP)
DOI: 10.1038/nature10363
*** This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 17 August 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 18 August, but at a later date. ***
A metabolic pathway that could provide a therapeutic target for a hereditary form of kidney cancer has been identified in this week’s Nature.
Hereditary leiomyomatosis and renal-cell cancer (HLRCC) is caused by mutations in a gene that encodes fumarate hydratase — an enzyme involved in the energy-generating tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle. In fumarate hydratase-deficient mouse cells, Eyal Gottlieb and colleagues identify the metabolic pathway that uses accumulated TCA metabolites and converts glutamine into bilirubin via synthesis and degradation of haem.
The authors suggest that inhibition of haem oxygenase, a key enzyme in this pathway, could be a therapeutic target for tumours associated with fumarate hydratase loss. Such inhibition would specifically target fumarate hydratase-deficient cells while sparing normal tissues.
CONTACT
Eyal Gottlieb (Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, Glasgow, UK)
Tel: +44 141 330 3981; E-mail: [email protected]
[7] And finally... Retraining a coffee stain (pp 304-307; N&V)
The so-called coffee-ring effect, which occurs when a coffee drop or, more generally, a solution with suspended particles dries on a solid surface and a dark halo of particles accumulates at the drop’s edge, is dependent on the shape of the particles. Spherical particles produce the characteristic ring, whereas ellipsoids form a uniform deposit, reports a paper in this week’s Nature.
Peter Yunker and colleagues tested water droplets containing a suspension of micrometre-sized polystyrene particles of several different shapes (spheres, slightly deformed spheres and ellipsoids). Spherical particles are transported to the edge of the droplet, leaving a dense ring after the evaporation has completed. Non-spherical particles are carried only as far as the air–water interface, at which point the interparticle attractions between these ellipsoids are strong enough to counteract the forces that drive spherical particles towards the drop’s edge. This results in a uniform distribution of ellipsoidal particles. The coffee ring effect can be eliminated by adding even a small amount of ellipsoidal particles into a suspension containing spherical particles, the team found.
The coffee-ring effect has presented problems for many applications where the uniform deposition of particles is required. The work could therefore have useful applications in inkjet printing, thin-film coating and DNA technology.
CONTACT
Peter Yunker (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA)
Tel: +1 215 573 7775; E-mail: [email protected]
Jan Vermant (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium) N&V author
Tel: +32 16 32 23 55; E-mail: [email protected]
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE…
[8] Central powering of the Largest Lyman-alpha nebula is revealed by polarized radiation (pp 304-307; N&V)
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
St Lucia: 6
CHINA
Beijing: 2
DENMARK
Copenhagen: 1
FRANCE
Clermont-Ferrand: 1
Paris: 2
Toulouse: 8
ISRAEL
Haifa: 6
Rehovot: 4
Tel Aviv: 6
SWITZERLAND
Versoix: 8
Villigen: 2
Zurich: 2
UNITED KINGDOM
Bristol: 2
Glasgow: 6
Oxford: 6
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
California
La Jolla: 3
Livermore: 1
Los Angeles: 4
Pasadena: 4, 8
South San Francisco: 3
District of Columbia
Washington: 1
Florida
Gainesville: 5
Massachusetts
Cambridge: 3
Minnesota
Minneapolis: 8
New York
New York: 3, 5
Pennsylvania
Bristol: 7
Philadelphia: 7
Texas
Dallas: 6
Utah
Salt Lake City: 5
Washington
Seattle: 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]
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