This press release contains:
---Summaries of newsworthy papers:
Materials science: Slippery surfaces inspired by nature
Ageing: The role of sirtuins revisited
Neuroscience: Animal responses to chemical cues
Quantum physics: Electrons surfing on a sound wave
Genetics: Novel genes for recessive cognitive disorders
Quantum physics: Single-shot solid-state quantum register
Biology: How the gut stays friends with friendly bacteria
And finally… Why DEET is not to be sniffed at
---Mention of papers to be published at the same time with the same embargo
---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.
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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.
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[1] Materials science: Slippery surfaces inspired by nature (pp 443-447; N&V)
Inspired by the carnivorous Nepenthes pitcher plant, a technique for fabricating a synthetic slippery surface that outperforms its natural counterparts and other synthetic surfaces is described in Nature this week. The robust ‘omniphobic’ surface can repel liquids that are simple (water, hydrocarbons) or complex (blood, oil), and has potential applications in biomedical fluid handling and anti-icing, self-cleaning surfaces.
The Nepenthes pitcher plant has lubricated walls that cause insects to slide into a chamber filled with digestive fluids. Joanna Aizenberg and colleagues fabricated a synthetic surface that mimics the structured surface of the plant and wetted it with a low-surface-tension lubricant. Compared with previous efforts, this omniphobic surface has improved capacity to repel various liquids, resistance to ice-adhesion, can rapidly self-heal and functions at high pressures.
The surface may be particularly suitable for low-cost, large-scale fabrication. Aizenberg and colleagues show that randomly patterned structures can make a robust omniphobic surface, which are usually simpler to fabricate than ordered nanostructured surfaces. By selecting appropriate surface and lubricant materials, the researchers also demonstrate enhanced optical transparency, opening opportunities in optical sensing.
CONTACT
Joanna Aizenberg (Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA)
Tel: +1 617 495 3558; E-mail: [email protected]
Michael Nosonovsky (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, USA) N&V author
Tel: +1 414 229 2816; E-mail: [email protected]
[2] Ageing: The role of sirtuins revisited (pp 419-423; 482-485; N&V)
The role of specific sirtuin proteins in ageing and lifespan of worms and flies is revisited in a paper published in Nature today, and the robustness of past studies questioned.
High levels of a specific member of the family of sirtuin proteins had been shown to increase lifespan in nematodes (Caenorhabditis elegans) and fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster). New data — in a Nature paper and a Brief Communications Arising — indicate that most of those effects, if not all, were due to confounding background factors.
In the paper, David Gems and colleagues re-examine the reported effects of sirtuin over-expression on lifespan and found that standardisation of genetic background and use of appropriate controls abolished the effects in both species. They outcrossed a C. elegans strain that overexpressed Sir2.1 and did not see an effect on overexpression of this sirtuin, yet it abolished the effect on longevity. Although in Drosophila overexpression of dSir2 protein resulted in lifespan extension, it did not in comparison to an appropriate control fly strain. Additionally, they show that in Drosophila increased longevity due to dietary restriction is independent of dSir2 — the two had previously been linked.
Also this week, in a BCA relating to their 2001 Nature paper, Mohan Viwanathan and Leonard Guarente show that Sir2.1 overexpression leads to a significantly smaller increase in C. elegans lifespan than they had previously reported. Part of the previously reported longevity is due to a second site mutation.
A News and Views Forum presents two views from the field, arguing the different sides of this hotly debated topic.
CONTACT
David D. Gems (University College London, UK)
Tel: +44 207 679 4381; E-mail: [email protected]
Leonard L. Guarante (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA)
Tel: +1 617 253 6965; E-mail: [email protected]
Scott D. Pletcher (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA) N&V author
E-mail: [email protected]
Johan Auwerx (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale, Lausanne, Switzerland) N&V author
Tel: +41 216930951; E-mail: [email protected]
Comment: Killer apps (pp 401)
Academic, military and political leaders are ill-prepared for the issues that come with new ‘killer’ robots says P. W. Singer in a Comment in a special issue of Nature focusing on science in the military.
In the last year alone, Singer says, we have seen the US President argue that he wasn’t at war because his weapons were robotic; an arms-control meeting forlornly trying to ban the development of armed autonomous bots; and criminals using tiny robotic helicopters in a jewellery heist. The US military now has more than 7,000 unmanned aerial systems and 12,000 unmanned ground systems in its inventory; the US Air Force trains more unmanned systems operators than fighter pilots. Yet, Singer says, he has met top Pentagon strategists who have given little or no thought to the ramifications of all this. Far more needs to be done, he argues, to train military in the ethical, legal, and social implications of these ‘killer aps’.
CONTACT
Please contact the Nature Press Office with any queries for this paper on [email protected]
Comment: Fighting fit (pp 395-396)
Public-health official and the military should work together to detect and control global disease, argue David Blazes and Kevin Russell in a Nature Comment piece in a special issue focusing on science in the military. “The struggle between life and death plays out both on the battlefield and in the hospital. It is time we fought for global public-health security together,” they write.
The military has long contributed to public health, including by being first to work out that Anopheles mosquitoes transmit malaria, and, recently, developing the first partially effective HIV vaccine. Collaborations with public partners can be hugely effective. The Department of Defense, in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Maryland, has developed a way to use mobile phones to report disease, which has been trialled in Peru, the Philippines and Cambodia. “A healthy society is more stable than an unhealthy one,” the authors note — so such health advances are ‘win win’.
CONTACT
David L. Blazes (Forces Health Surveillance Center, Silver Spring, MD, USA
E-mail: [email protected]
[3] Neuroscience: Animal responses to chemical cues (AOP)
DOI 10.1038/nature10437
Specific proteins in rodents that respond to chemical cues from potential sexual partners or aggressors, and possible predators are identified in this week’s Nature. These findings establish the molecular foundation of the information coding behavioural responses to specific chemical signals, and could help to uncover mechanisms underlying behaviour specificity.
Although humans have retained only one functional chemosensing organ, many terrestrial vertebrates rely heavily on a secondary olfactory sense organ — the vomeronasal organ — which mediates social and defensive responses. Catherine Dulac and colleagues have identified specific chemoreceptor proteins in mice that respond specifically to subsets of chemical signals emitted either from other mice or different animals. They demonstrate the association of 88 different vomeronasal receptors with a range of chemosensory stimuli, which enables recognition of certain animal groups or chemical signals.
Previous efforts to gain information about the behavioural relevance of vomeronasal receptors in response to distinct animal cues have been largely unsuccessful. The ‘de-orphaning’ of vomeronasal receptors achieved by Dulac and co-workers paves the way for further dissection of the neural circuits that control innate behaviours in response to socially relevant chemical signals.
CONTACT
Catherine G. Dulac (Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA)
Tel: +1 617 495 7893; E-mail: [email protected]
[4] & [5] Quantum physics: Electrons surfing on a sound wave (pp 435-438; 439-442)
Two papers published in Nature this week demonstrate that it is possible to isolate and detect single moving electrons ‘hitching a ride’ on sound waves. These findings could have applications in quantum information processing and in quantum optics.
Strong interactions between electrons and their environment make it challenging to isolate and detect single moving electrons: a challenge that Tristan Meunier and co-workers and Robert McNeil and colleagues have now overcome in two separate experiments. Both groups show that they can emit a single electron from one quantum dot (a tiny semiconductor) and detect it again when it moves onto another quantum dot. The single electron is isolated from other electrons as it is sent into a one-dimensional channel where it is carried along on a surface acoustic wave. McNeil’s team observe the same electron being transferred back and forth up to 60 times over a total distance of 0.25 millimetres.
The work presented here could provide a platform for quantum information circuits based on single electrons and may open up a new range of quantum optics experiments with electrons.
CONTACT
Tristan Meunier (Institut Neel, Grenoble, France) Author paper [4]
Tel: +33 456387088; E-mail: [email protected]
Robert P. G. McNeil (University of Cambridge, UK) Author paper [5]
Tel: +44 1223 337271; E-mail: [email protected]
[6] Genetics: Novel genes for recessive cognitive disorders (AOP)
DOI 10.1038/nature10423
A study revealing 50 novel genes that may be involved in recessive cognitive disorders is reported in Nature this week. Identification of such candidate genes is of value for aiding the early diagnosis, prevention and, eventually, treatment of cognitive disorders.
A wide range of genetic defects can lead to cognitive impairment, or intellectual disability, with more than 90 defects identified for X-chromosome-linked intellectual disability alone. However, much less is known about autosomal intellectual disability, which accounts for 90% of intellectual disability cases. To address this imbalance in knowledge, Hilger Ropers and colleagues performed systematic mapping of genes in 136 families with autosomal-recessive intellectual disability. The study, one of the largest of its kind, identifies 50 novel candidate genes underlying intellectual disability as well as new mutations in a number of genes previously implicated in intellectual disability or related neurological disorders.
Many of the newly identified genes interact with known intellectual disability gene products, and are thought to be involved in processes that are important for normal brain development and function. The results have implications for our understanding of the aetiology and diagnosis of intellectual disability.
CONTACT
Hans Hilger Ropers (Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany)
Tel: +49 30 84131240; E-mail: [email protected]
[7] Quantum physics: Single-shot solid-state quantum register (AOP)
DOI 10.1038/nature10401
Scientists demonstrate control and read-out of a multi-spin data register in a diamond crystal in Nature this week. These findings may pave the way for building small-scale quantum information processors.
Electronic and nuclear spins in solids are attractive candidates for scalable quantum information (stored in units called qubits) processing. Being able to read the state of a multi-qubit register in a single shot (avoiding too much disturbance of the system) could enable further key steps, such as error correction and teleportation, but this has been achieved only for isolated qubits. Ronald Hanson and colleagues report the high-fidelity preparation and single-shot read-out of a few-spin, solid-state quantum register, in a nitrogen–vacancy centre in a micro-structured diamond device.
The results have implications for a broad range of spin-based applications, such as ultra-sensitive magnetic field detection.
CONTACT
Ronald Hanson (Delft University of Technology, Netherlands)
Tel: +31 15 278 7188; E-mail: [email protected]
[8] Biology: How the gut stays friends with friendly bacteria (AOP)
DOI 10.1038/nature10434
The mechanism that prevents the immune system from attacking microbes that have important roles in the gut is described in a mouse study published in Nature this week. Specifically, the mechanism by which colon-specific regulatory T (Treg) cells are generated, thereby preventing inflammation of the gut, is uncovered.
Treg cells are a specialized subpopulation of T cells that suppress activation of the immune system in response to other cells; Treg cells produced by the thymus help to maintain tolerance to self-antigens. Chyi-Song Hsieh and colleagues show that microbial antigens on commensal microbiota in the colons of mice induce the generation of antigen-specific, inducible, Treg cells. These Tregs are different from those derived from the thymus, which suggests an important role of local antigens in shaping of the colonic Treg cell population. The commensal-induced Tregs seem to maintain mucosal tolerance and protect mice from colitis, a form of inflammation of the colon.
This research demonstrates that commensal microbiota drive naive T cells into a tolerant pathway, preventing the alternative pro-inflammatory pathway.
CONTACT
Chyi-Song Hsieh (Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA)
Tel: +1 314 485 4485; E-mail: [email protected]
[9] And finally… Why DEET is not to be sniffed at (AOP)
DOI 10.1038/nature10438
The effectiveness of insect repellents containing DEET (N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide) against many disease-propagating insect species is thanks to the ability of DEET to scramble the odour receptor apparatus, according to research in Nature this week. By disrupting the odour code, DEET prevents insects from locating their preferred food source.
Whether DEET broadly blocks insect odour recognition or drives avoidance behaviour has been controversial. Its mechanism of action on the olfactory system is clarified by Leslie Vosshall and colleagues, who discover a natural polymorphism in an insect odorant receptor that renders it insensitive to DEET. These findings indicate that DEET corrupts messages from attractive scents, preventing insects, such as the fruit fly or mosquito, from detecting fruit or humans, respectively. This effect explains the observed activity of DEET against a broad range of insects, the authors conclude.
CONTACT
Leslie B. Vosshall (The Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA)
Tel: +1 212 327 7236; E-mail: [email protected]
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE…
[10] Structures of the RNA-guided surveillance complex from a bacterial immune system
DOI: 10.1038/nature10402
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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.
CANADA
Winnipeg: 6
FRANCE
Grenoble: 2, 4
Paris: 2, 3, 4
GERMANY
Berlin: 6
Bochum: 4
Essen: 6
Jena: 9
Köln: 2
Martinsried: 6
Muenchen: 6
HUNGARY
Budapest: 2
IRAN
Semnan: 6
Tehran: 6
Yazd: 6
JAPAN
Atsugi-shi: 4
Saitama: 4
Tokyo: 4
OMAN
Muscat: 6
THE NETHERLANDS
Delft: 7
Wageningen: 10
UNITED KINGDOM
Cambridge: 5
London: 2
Teddington: 5
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
California
Berkeley: 9, 10
Massachusetts
Cambridge: 1, 3
Maryland
Baltimore: 8
Maine
Lewiston: 7
Missouri
St. Louis: 8
Montana
Hamilton: 8
Nebraska
Lincoln: 8
New York
New York: 9
Washington
Seattle: 2
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]
