This press release contains:
Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Proton-proton collisions at the LHC
Engineering liquid quadrupoles
Propagation of B cells in culture
Mention of papers to be published at the same time
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 Communications 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
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/naturecommunications AS THE SOURCE OF THE FOLLOWING ITEMS. IF PUBLISHING ONLINE, PLEASE CARRY A HYPERLINK TO www.nature.com/naturecommunications
[1] Proton-proton collisions at the LHC
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1472
The first experimental measurement of the proton-proton cross-section at 7 TeV is reported by the ATLAS collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) this week in Nature Communications. This finding marks the highest energy collision for protons observed to date. These data are important for modelling cosmic ray showers and validating our understanding of high-energy particle interactions.
The cross-section describes the probability for two particles to collide and depends on the energy of the particles.
Understanding the rate of proton interactions is fundamentally important for particle physics but it cannot be worked out from existing theories. The team at ATLAS determined this rate by measuring the subatomic products resulting from the colliding protons using the ATLAS detector.
The results confirm previous predications for the behaviour of high-energy protons.
CONTACT
Klaus Mönig (CERN, ATLAS Secretariat, Geneva, Switzerland)
Tel: +41 227 674 279; E-mail: [email protected]
[2] Engineering liquid quadrupoles
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1471
Researchers have created the fluid analogue of an electrostatic quadrupole. The discovery, reported this week in Nature Communications, may find use in cell biology as a means to culture stem cells.
Quadrupoles have many engineering applications, most notably as magnets used to focus beams of charged particles in particle accelerators. However, experimental applications of fluid quadrupoles have not been reported until now.
The microfluidic quadrupole demonstrated by David Junker and colleagues consists of flowing liquids rather than magnetic fields. A stagnation point at the centre of the quadrupole can be readily adjusted in both size and position from which a concentration gradient can form, allowing solutions to move between poles. This could provide a platform for cultivating cell cultures that are normally hard to breed inside closed channels, such as stem cells.
CONTACT
David Juncker (McGill University, Montreal, Canada)
Tel: +1 514 398 7676; E-mail: [email protected]
[3] Propagation of B cells in culture
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1475
Naive B cells can be induced to proliferate in culture and can produce cells with a phenotype similar to germinal centre B cells. The findings, published in Nature Communications, suggest that this method can be used to propagate B cells in vitro facilitating the study of germinal centre B cell differentiation.
Daisuke Kitamura and colleagues culture B cells from mice on feeder cells in the presence of interleukin and show that this enhances the number of proliferating cells 180-fold after 6 days. The cells could also be transferred into mice and differentiate into memory B cell-like cells and can produce antibodies. Alternatively the cells can be cultured with another interleukin, IL-21, and to generate cells that are similar to long lived plasma cells.
This method allows the manipulation of the fate of B cells in culture and may permit the more in depth study of the differentiation of these cells.
CONTACT
Daisuke Kitamura (Tokyo University of Science, Chiba, Japan)
Tel: +81 4 7121 4071; E-mail: [email protected]
Papers to go live at the same time:
[4] Responsive nematic gels from the self-assembly of aqueous nanofibres
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1465
[5] Smad6-specific recruitment of Smurf E3 ligases mediates TGF-β1-induced degradation of MyD88 in TLR4 signalling
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1469
[6] Surfactant-enabled epitaxy through control of growth mode with chemical boundary conditions
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1470
[7] Bacterial Pili exploit integrin machinery to promote immune activation and efficient blood-brain barrier penetration
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1474
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.
ARGENTINA
Buenos Aires: 1
La Plata: 1
ARMENIA
Yerevan: 1
AUSTRALIA
Melbourne: 1
Sydney: 1
AUSTRIA
Innsbruck: 1
Wiener Neustadt: 1
AZERBAIJAN
Baku: 1
BELARUS
Minsk: 1
BRAZIL
Rio de Janeiro: 1
Sao Paulo: 1
CANADA
Burnaby: 1
Edmonton: 1
Montreal: 1, 2
Ottawa: 1
Saskatchewan: 1
Toronto: 1
Vancouver: 1
Victoria: 1
CHILE
Santiago: 1
Valparaiso: 1
CHINA
Anhui: 1
Beijing: 1
Guangzhou: 1
Jiangsu: 1
Shandong: 1
COLOMBIA
Bogota: 2
CZECH REPUBLIC
Olomouc: 1
Prague: 1
DENMARK
Copenhagen: 1
FRANCE
Annecy-le-Vieux: 1
Aubiere: 1
Gif-sur-Yvette: 1
Grenoble: 1
Marseilles: 1
Orsay: 1
Paris: 1
Villeurbanne: 1
GEORGIA
Tbilisi: 1
GERMANY
Berlin: 1
Bonn: 1
Dortmund: 1
Dresden: 1
Freiberg: 1
Giessen: 1
Gottingen: 1
Hamburg: 1
Heidelberg: 1
Mainz: 1
Mannheim: 1
Munich: 1
Siegen: 1
Wuppertal: 1
Wurzburg: 1
GREECE
Athens: 1
Thessaloniki: 1
Zografou: 1
HUNGARY
Budapest: 1
ISRAEL
Haifa: 1
Rehovot: 1
Tel Aviv: 1
ITALY
Bologna: 1
Frascati: 1
Genova: 1
Lecce: 1
Milan: 1
Naples: 1
Pavia: 1
Pisa: 1
Rende: 1
Rome: 1
Trieste: 1
Udine: 1
JAPAN
Chiba: 3
Hiroshima: 1
Ibaraki: 1
Kobe: 1
Kyoto: 1
Nagano: 1
Nagasaki: 1
Nagoya: 1
Okayama: 1
Osaka: 1
Shiga: 1
Tokyo: 1
Tsukuba: 1
MOROCCO
Casablanca: 1
Marrakesh: 1
Oujda: 1
Rabat: 1
NETHERLANDS
Amsterdam: 1
Nijmegen: 1
NORWAY
Bergen: 1
Oslo: 1
POLAND
Krakow: 1
PORTUGAL
Braga: 1
Coimbra 1
Lisbon: 1
ROMANIA
Bucharest: 1
Timisoara: 1
RUSSIA
Dubna: 1
Gatchina: 1
Moscow: 1
Novosibirsk: 1
Protvino: 1
SERBIA
Belgrade: 1
SLOVAK REPUBLIC
Bratislava: 1
Kosice: 1
SLOVENIA
Ljubljana: 1
SOUTH AFRICA
Johannesburg: 1
SOUTH KOREA
Seoul: 4, 5
Suwon: 5
SPAIN
Barcelona: 1
Granada: 1
Madrid: 1
Valencia: 1
SWEDEN
Lund: 1
Stockholm: 1
Uppsala: 1
SWITZERLAND
Bern: 1
Geneva: 1
TAIWAN
Taipei: 1
TURKEY
Ankara: 1
Gaziantep: 1
Istanbul: 1
Kutahya: 1
UNITED KINGDOM
Birmingham: 1
Brighton: 1
Cambridge: 1
Didcot: 1
Edinburgh: 1
Glasgow: 1
Lancaster: 1
Liverpool: 1
London: 1
Manchester: 1
Oxford: 1
Sheffield: 1
Surrey: 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Arizona
Tucson: 1
California
Berkeley: 1
Fresno: 1
Irvine: 1
La Jolla: 7
Los Angeles: 7
Pasadena: 1
San Diego: 7
Santa Cruz: 1
Stanford: 1
Connecticut
New Haven: 1
Illinois
Argonne: 1
Chicago: 1
DeKalb: 1
Urbana: 1
Indiana
Bloomington: 1
Iowa
Ames: 1
Iowa City: 1
Louisiana
Ruston: 1
Massachusetts
Boston: 1
Cambridge: 1
Medford: 1
Waltham: 1
Michigan
Ann Arbor: 1
East Lansing: 1
New Mexico
Albuquerque: 1
New York:
Albany: 1
Amherst: 1
Irvington: 1
New York: 1
Stony Brook: 1
Upton: 1
North Carolina
Durham: 1
Rayleigh: 6
Ohio
Columbus: 1
Oklahoma
Norman: 1
Stillwater: 1
Oregon
Eugene: 1
Pennsylvania
Philadelphia: 1
Pittsburgh: 1
South Carolina
Columbia: 1
Texas
Arlington: 1
Dallas: 1
Richardson: 1
Virginia
Hampton: 1
Washington
Seattle: 1
Wisconsin
Madison: 1
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
Rachel Twinn, Nature, London
Tel: +44 20 7843 4658; 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.
