--- Summaries of newsworthy papers:
> Telling quantum and relativistic time apart
> Forgetting memories
--- 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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[1] Telling quantum and relativistic time apart
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1498
A test for distinguishing between the quantum and relativistic interpretations of time is proposed in Nature Communications this week. This could pave the way to measuring how quantum effects alter the general relativistic notion of time.
According to general relativity, time flows at different rates depending on the geometry of space-time. While this has been precisely verified by experiments, it has never been tested when quantum effects are relevant. Magdalena Zych and colleagues devise such a test for a particle with an evolving internal degree of freedom– in effect a quantum clock – and predict that its behaviour in a gravitational potential can only be explained using the general relativistic notion of time.
Because quantum mechanics and general relativity are based on different premises, this proposal could have far-reaching implications for physicists’ understanding of their interplay.
CONTACT
Magdalena Zych (University of Vienna, Austria)
Tel: +43 1 4277 72583; E-mail: [email protected]
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[2] Forgetting memories
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1515
Rewarding memories, related to food addiction, can be erased in rats through training suggests research published this week in Nature Communications. These findings may in future have important implications for the treatment of drug addiction.
Memory reconsolidation, or the reactivation of a memory followed by extinction is known to erase fear memories. Jonathan Lee and colleagues show that this procedure can also erase food memories in rats. Rats were trained to poke their noses into a feeder to receive food; this was associated with a light stimulus. To reactivate the memory, for 10 minutes the rats still received the light stimulus but did not receive the food,. The team found that when this procedure was carried out over a 60-70 minute period the memory was extinguished.
With further research, these findings may be translatable to a clinical setting.
CONTACT
Jonathan Lee (University of Birmingham, UK)
Tel: +44 121 414 2607; E-mail: [email protected]
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[3] Proliferating versus differentiating stem and cancer cells exhibit distinct midbody-release behaviour
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1511
[4] Superconductivity at 5 K in alkali-metal-doped phenanthrene
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1513
[5] Field-effect reconfigurable nanofluidic ionic diodes
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1514
[6] Engineering modular and orthogonal genetic logic gates for robust digital-like synthetic biology
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1516
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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.
AUSTRIA
Vienna: 1
CHINA
Anhui: 4
FRANCE;
Paris: 6
GERMANY
Dresden: 3
UNITED KINGDOM
Birmingham: 2
London: 6
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Connecticut
New Haven: 5
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From the UK
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Tel: +44 20 7843 4658; E-mail: [email protected]
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