WWW.NATURE.COM/NATURE
This press release is copyright Nature. VOL.440 NO.7085 DATED 6 April 2006
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 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
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/nature AS THE SOURCE OF THE FOLLOWING ITEMS. IF PUBLISHING ONLINE, PLEASE CARRY A HYPERLINK TO http://www.nature.com/nature
Evolution: Fish out of water (pp 757-763, 764-771; N&V)
A remarkable new fossil published in Nature provides spectacular insight into a major evolutionary transition — when fish first transformed their fins into limbs, opening up the prospect of a migration on to land. In two Articles this week, Neil Shubin and Edward Daeschler and their colleagues describe the fossil of a flattened, alligator-like fish with robust, leg-like fins that lived around 383 million years ago in the shallows of what is now Nunavut Territory in Arctic Canada. The fins of the new form could have been flexed and extended like legs; other landlubber features include a distinct neck-region and large, robust ribs.
In an accompanying News and Views article, Per Erik Ahlberg and Jennifer A. Clack suggest that the new form could become an icon of evolution in action as potent as Archaeopteryx, a transitional fossil between reptiles and birds.
CONTACT
Neil H. Shubin (University of Chicago, IL, USA)
Tel: +1 773 834 7472; E-mail: [email protected]
Ted Daeschler (Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, USA)
Tel: +1 215 299 1133; E-mail: [email protected]
Per Ahlberg (Uppsala University, Sweden)
Tel: +46 18 47 12 641; E-mail: [email protected]
Jennifer A Clack (University of Cambridge, UK)
Tel: +44 1223 336613; E-mail: [email protected]
PRESS CONTACTS…
For North America and Canada
Katie McGoldrick, Nature Washington
Tel: +1 202 737 2355; E-mail: [email protected]
For Japan, Korea, China, Singapore and Taiwan
Rinoko Asami, Nature Tokyo
Tel: +81 3 3267 8751; E-mail: [email protected]
For the UK/Europe/other countries not listed above
Ruth Francis, Nature London
Tel: +44 20 7843 4562; E-mail [email protected]
Victoria Picknell, Nature London
Tel: +44 20 7843 4502; E-mail: [email protected]
About Nature Publishing Group
Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd, dedicated to serving the academic, professional scientific and medical communities. NPG's flagship title, Nature, is the world's most highly-cited weekly multidisciplinary journal and was first published in 1869. Other publications and services include Nature research journals, Nature Reviews, Nature Clinical Practice, a range of prestigious academic journals, including society-owned publications, news content from [email protected] and scientific career information from Naturejobs.
NPG is a global company, with headquarters in London and offices in New York, San Francisco, Washington DC, Boston, Tokyo, Paris, Munich, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Gurgaon and Basingstoke. For more information, please go to www.nature.com.
