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Summaries of newsworthy papers include The scare switch, Ebola structure reveals virus camouflage, A bridge from the historical to the contemporary, A handle on human proteins used by H5N1 virus, Could there be water in the Moon?, Spinning to destruction, The usefulness of social diversity, Monitoring stress at depth and Keeping an eye out

WWW.NATURE.COM/NATURE This press release is copyright Nature. VOL.454 NO.7201 DATED 10 JULY 2008 This press release contains: · Summaries of newsworthy papers: Neuroscience: The scare switch Virology: Ebola structure reveals virus camouflage X-ray physics: A bridge from the historical to the contemporary Commentary: Whatever happened to Avian influenza? Avian influenza: A handle on human proteins used by H5N1 virus Lunar science: Could there be water in the Moon? Astronomy: Spinning to destruction Game theory: The usefulness of social diversity Seismology: Monitoring stress at depth And finally… Keeping an eye out · 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. 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 · PDFs for the Articles, Letters, Progress articles, Review articles, Insights and Brief Communications in this issue will be available on the Nature journals press site from 1400 London time / 0900 US Eastern time on the Friday before publication. · PDFs of News & Views, News Features, Correspondence and Commentaries will be available from 1400 London time / 0900 US Eastern time on the Monday before publication 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 press@nature.com, 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 [1] & [2] Neuroscience: The scare switch (AOP) DOI: 10.1038/nature07166 DOI: 10.1038/nature07167 ***This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 09 July 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 10 July, but at a later date. *** Two papers published online this week in Nature offer an insight into the specific mechanisms in the brain that control fear. Andreas Lüthi and colleagues suggest that feelings of fear for stimuli previously linked to unpleasant consequences are triggered by rapid switching in the balance of activity between two circuits in the brain. The team discovered that two distinct populations of neurons in a part of the brain called the amygdala are involved in different aspects of fear memory — one in the elimination of established fear responses, and the other in the ability to refresh those memories. They found that selectively activating one of the two populations triggered large changes in behavioural state. The authors suggest that in normal situations, selective activation of these two types of cells is sparked by sensory and contextual information that we receive from our surroundings. In a related study, Denis Paré and colleagues uncovered another cellular mechanism underlying our ability to unlearn established fear memories. They propose that a different population of neurons within another part of the amygdala, called intercalated amygdala neurons, also helps us to become ‘not scared’ of previously scary stimuli. By destroying these neurons in rats they observed a decrease in the extinction of learnt fear memories, meaning the rats remained afraid. Both studies shed light on the various cells and circuits in the brain that maintain learned fear, and could provide therapeutic clues for fear and anxiety disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. CONTACT Andreas Lüthi (Univeristy of Basel, Switzerland) Author paper [1] Tel: +41 61 267 1644; E-mail: andreas.luthi@unibas.ch Denis Paré (Rutgers State University, Newark, NJ, USA) Author paper [2] Tel: +1 973 353 1080; E-mail: pare@axon.rutgers.edu [3] Virology: Ebola structure reveals virus camouflage (pp 177-182) The structure of the surface of the Ebola virus is described online in Nature this week. This research provides a mechanism for how the virus infects human cells and could help devise preventative measures to stop the virus spreading during an outbreak. Ebola virus causes death in over 50% of infections, making it one of the most menacing human pathogens. Using a technique called X-ray crystallography, Erica Saphire and colleagues solved the crystal structure of the glycoprotein GP — the only viral protein present on the surface of the Ebola virus particle. The structure illustrates important features of the virus architecture, offering clues as to how it attaches to cells prior to infection. The sample of GP protein used in the study was bound to a human neutralizing antibody from an outbreak survivor. By noting which parts of the virus interact with the antibody, the findings reveal how antibodies might prevent the virus from infecting, thus protecting immune individuals from fatal disease. The insight could help to potentially develop antiviral therapies to prevent infection in susceptible people. CONTACT Erica Saphire (The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA) Tel: +1 858 784 8602; Mobile: +1 858 775 5016; E-mail: erica@scripps.edu Please note this author may have limited availability on 9-10 July Dennis Burton (The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla CA, USA) Co-author Tel: +1 858 784 9298; E-mail: burton@scripps.edu [4] X-ray physics: A bridge from the historical to the contemporary (pp 196-199) A thick, opaque crystal can suddenly become transparent to X-rays — a phenomenon known as the Borrmann effect, which was first described in 1941. A paper in this week’s Nature exploits this effect to create a new kind of X-ray absorption spectroscopy technique that can probe electronic states that are otherwise extremely hard to measure. Under the precisely controlled conditions that lead to the Borrmann effect, X-rays pass through the crystal as a result of their diminished interaction with the electric dipoles created by the crystal’s atoms. Stephen Collins and colleagues find that at the same time the more elusive electric quadrupole transitions become stronger. This enhanced absorption is normally far too weak to observe directly. A wide range of modern techniques have been brought to bear in the unsuccessful quest to identify electric quadrupole transitions. The team’s new simple and elegant application of Borrmann spectroscopy could lead to a better understanding of such important properties of materials as magnetism, for example. CONTACT Stephen Collins (Diamond Light Source, Didcot, UK) Tel: +44 1235 778087; E-mail: steve.collins@diamond.ac.uk Commentary: Whatever happened to Avian influenza? (pp160-162) Media interest might have cooled, but experts are as worried as ever about an impending avian-influenza (H5N1) outbreak. A vaccine stockpile may prove to be invaluable for stemming the death toll if and when avian flu starts to spread among humans. This week in a Commentary in Nature, Tadataka Yamada, Alice Dautry and Mark Walport urge the vaccine research and development community not to become complacent about this important issue. Although their respective institutions — the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Pasteur Institute and the Wellcome Trust — are working with other parties to develop new resources and collaborative opportunities to provide vaccines where they may be needed most (the developing world), the authors say a wider community response is also needed. In a related Commentary, Steven Salzberg calls for greater transparency in the viral-strain selection proce ss for the human influenza vaccine. The vaccine for the 2007–2008 season failed for predictable and, says Salzberg, avoidable reasons. If the process remains closed, and researchers are denied access to sequencing data used in the selection process, future vaccine failures could be more dramatic and deadly. CONTACT Mark Walport (Wellcome Trust, London, UK) Co-author Commentary [1] This author is best contacted through: Katrina Nevin-Ridley (Wellcome Trust, London, UK) Media contact Tel: +44 20 7611 8866; E-mail: k.nevin-ridley@wellcome.ac.uk Tadataka Yamada (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) Co-author Commentary [1] E-mail: Tachi.Yamada@gatesfoundation.org Alice Dautry (Pasteur Institute) Co-author Commentary [1] E-mail: adautry@pasteur.fr Steven Salzberg (University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA) Author Commentary [2] Tel: +1 301 405 9611; E-mail: salzberg@umd.edu [5] Avian influenza: A handle on human proteins used by H5N1 virus (AOP) DOI: 10.1038/nature07151 ***This paper will be published electronically on Nature's website on 09 July 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 10 July, but at a later date. *** So far the avian influenza virus H5N1 has only rarely infected humans, but it is already showing signs of developing resistance to available treatments. So the hunt is on to identify new targets for antiviral therapy. A paper in this week’s Nature reports the discovery of three host proteins that are seconded by the virus in order to replicate itself — the findings might provide a loophole for blocking viral proliferation. Yoshihiro Kawaoka and colleagues genetically engineered the influenza virus so that it could infect cells of the fruitfly Drosophila, a model organism whose small genome made it relatively straightforward to search for genes that might be used by the virus for its own ends. Of the candidate genes they found, three existed in a corresponding version in human cells. The team showed that the proteins encoded by these human genes are borrowed by H5N1 and H1N1 influenza A viruses for replication. They say that their discovery could accelerate the development of a new class of drugs with a different mechanism of action against the virus. CONTACT Yoshihiro Kawaoka (University of Tokyo, Japan) Tel: +81 3 5449 5310; E-mail: kawaokay@svm.vetmed.wisc.edu [6] Lunar science: Could there be water in the Moon? (pp 192-195; N&V) The Apollo and Luna missions discovered that relative to Earth the Moon is deficient in highly volatile elements — perhaps not surprisingly, given the turbulent history of events that formed the Moon. Hydrogen would have been among the first to be lost, so it is commonly expected that the Moon is anhydrous. But a paper in this week's Nature indicates that the Moon may contain water after all. Alberto Saal and colleagues looked at the indigenous volatile contents of the most primitive basalt rocks on the Moon, known as lunar volcanic glasses. The authors' best estimate is that these contained 745 parts per million of water before being ejected by eruption from the lunar mantle. It is possible that the Earth–Moon system retained or accreted water shortly after the giant collision event that generated the Moon, suggest the authors. The presence of water must now be included in modelling the Moon's formation and its thermal and chemical evolution, they say. CONTACT Alberto Saal (Brown University, Providence, RI, USA) Tel: +1 401 863 7238; E-mail: asaal@brown.edu Marc Chaussidon (Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France) N&V author Tel; +33 3 83 59 42 25; E-mail: chocho@crpg.cnrs-nancy.fr [7] Astronomy: Spinning to destruction (pp 188-191; N&V) Binary asteroids — pairs of asteroids orbiting the same centre of gravity — are observed throughout the Solar System. In Nature this week, scientists suggest that these pairs are caused by the effect of sunlight, which ‘spins up’ an asteroid until material leaves its equatorial region and accumulates as a separate satellite. Recent studies have shown that radiation from an asteroid can spin it up or make it rotate slowly backwards — a phenomenon called the ‘YORP’ effect. Until now scientists have been unable to understand the mechanisms involved making binaries in two dynamically different populations — the ‘near-Earth’ asteroids, and those making up the ‘main belt’. Walsh and colleagues modelled different types of ‘rubble pile’ asteroids — chunks of rock that cling together under the influence of gravity. They show that over million-year timescales, binary asteroids are created by the slow spin up of a ‘rubble pile’ via the thermal YORP effect. The authors find that the mass shed from the equator of a spinning body then accretes into a satellite, as long as the material can shed its excess motion with respect to the other ejecta. The satellite forms mostly with material from the original asteroid’s equatorial region and enters into orbit around it. CONTACT Kevin Walsh (Observatoire de la Cote D'Azur, Nice, France) Tel: +33 4 9200 1944; E-mail: kwalsh@oca.eu William Bottke (Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, CO, USA) N&V author Tel: +1 303 546 6066; E-mail: bottke@boulder.swri.edu [8] Game theory: The usefulness of social diversity (pp 213-216) Humans often cooperate with each other, tackling situations ranging from family issues to global warming — but the temptation to forgo the public good can win over collective cooperative action. A paper in this week’s Nature shows how social diversity provides an escape from this apparent paradox. Existing models treat individuals as equivalent, ignoring real-life diversity and population structure. Jorge Pacheco and colleagues use theory to show that social diversity promotes the emergence of cooperation in ‘public goods’ games. Their results could help explain why people will cooperate even in the absence of concerns about their reputation or the threat of punishment. The authors also suggest that successful communities are those in which the act of giving is more important than the amount given. CONTACT Jorge Pacheco (University of Lisbon, Portugal) Tel: +351 21 790 4891; E-mail: pacheco@cii.fc.ul.pt [9] Seismology: Monitoring stress at depth (pp 204-208) Scientists have detected pre-rupture stress changes occurring before earthquakes on the San Andreas fault, according to a paper in Nature this week. During two months of continuous seismic observation, they noticed stress-induced changes in the elastic properties of the rocks at 1 kilometre depth. They suggest that active seismic monitoring provides a promising tool for understanding the stress changes that accompany and perhaps precede seismic activity. One of the most crucial parameters for understanding the earthquake triggering process is the time-varying stress field at depth within a fault. Scientists have built the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD) near Parkfield, California, to help understand the physics of earthquake initiation and rupture and other processes involved during an earthquake cycle. Instruments have been installed in a drill hole 3–4 kilometres below the Earth’s surface to record geophysical data, and samples have been collected to measure the chemical changes and mechanical properties of the fault zone. Fenglin Niu and colleagues measured seismic velocity changes along a fixed line between the SAFOD pilot hole and main hole at a depth of 1 kilometre. Over a two month period they observed a negative correlation between variations in barometric pressure and changes in the time required for a shear wave to travel through the rock. They also detected two large anomalies in the travel time data that corresponded with two earthquakes in the region. The two anomalies started approximately 10 and 2 hours before the events, respectively, suggesting that they may be related to pre-rupture stress induced changes in crack properties. CONTACT Fenglin Niu (Rice University, Houston, TX, USA) Tel: +1 713 348 4122; E-mail: niu@rice.edu [10] And finally… Keeping an eye out (pp 209-212; N&V) A fossil representing the most primitive member of the flatfish family is described this week in Nature. The finding offers a unique insight into the evolution of this remarkable group. We are perhaps most familiar with flatfish — such as plaice, sole and halibut — filleted and battered on our dinner plate. In their swimming form, they are lop-sided-looking creatures with both eyes on the same side of the head, enabling them to skulk around on the sea bed and hunt for prey. The biology of how this bizarre arrangement occurs is well understood — beginning life with eyes on opposite sides, one eye migrates over the top of the head during late development — but little is known as to how this peculiar asymmetry evolved. Matt Friedman examined fossils from the Eocene epoch of fish that had one eye on the side and the other on the top of the head, as though the development of these fish was incomplete. On closer inspection, he noted that the fossils were in fact from fully formed adult fish, representing intermediates in the flatfish evolutionary pathway. As such he describes a new genus of fish and one of the most dramatic examples of a transitional form spotted in the fossil record. CONTACT Matt Friedman (University of Chicago, IL, USA) Tel: + 1 773 834 8416; Mobile: +1 773 896 6735; E-mail: mattf@uchicago.edu Philippe Janvier (Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France) N&V author Tel: +33 140 79 34 50; E-mail: janvier@mnhn.fr ALSO IN THIS ISSUE… [11] A multi-component Fermi surface in the vortex state of an underdoped high-Tc superconductor (pp 200-203) ADVANCE ONLINE PUBLICATION ***These papers will be published electronically on Nature's website on 09 July 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 them on this release to avoid multiple mailings they will not appear in print on 10 July, but at a later date. *** [12] High-resolution mapping of meiotic crossovers and non-crossovers in yeast DOI: 10.1038/nature07135 [13] Crystal structure of the polymerase PAC–PB1N complex from an avian influenza H5N1 virus DOI: 10.1038/nature07120 [14] A discontinuous hammerhead ribozyme embedded in a mammalian messenger RNA DOI: 10.1038/nature07117 [15] Polo-like kinase-1 is activated by aurora A to promote checkpoint recovery DOI: 10.1038/nature07185 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. BELGIUM Brussels: 8 CANADA: Toronto: 11 Vancouver: 11 CHINA Beijing: 13 Tianjin: 13 FRANCE Nice: 7 GERMANY Heidelberg: 12 INDONESIA Suribaya: 5 JAPAN Kashiwa: 5 Kobe: 5 Tokyo: 5 NETHERLANDS Utrecht: 15 PORTUGAL Lisbon: 8 SINGAPORE Singapore: 13 SPAIN La Cuesta: 15 SWITZERLAND Basel: 1 UNITED KINGDOM Cambridge: 11, 12 Didcot: 4 Manchester: 15 Warrington: 4: Warwick: 4 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA California Berkeley: 9 La Jolla: 3 Santa Cruz: 14 District of Columbia Washington: 6, 9 Florida Tallahassee: 11 Illinois Argonne: 13 Chicago: 10 Maryland College Park: 7 Massachusetts Cambridge: 15 New Jersey Newark: 2 New Mexico Los Alamos: 11 Ohio Cleveland: 6 Pennsylvania Philadelphia: 15 Rhode Island Providence: 6 Texas Houston: 9 Wisconsin Madison: 5 PRESS CONTACTS… From North America and Canada Katherine Anderson, Nature New York Tel: +1 212 726 9231; E-mail: k.anderson@natureny.com Katie McGoldrick, Nature Washington Tel: +1 202 737 2355; E-mail: k.mcgoldrick@naturedc.com From Japan, Korea, China, Singapore and Taiwan Mika Nakano, Nature Tokyo Tel: +81 3 3267 8751; E-mail: m.nakano@natureasia.com From the UK/Europe/other countries not listed above Jen Middleton, Nature London Tel: +44 20 7843 4502; E-mail j.middleton@nature.com About NPG 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, was first published in 1869. Other publications include Nature research journals, Nature Reviews, Nature Clinical Practice and a range of prestigious academic journals including society-owned publications. NPG also provides news content through news@nature.com. Scientific career information and free job postings are offered on Naturejobs. NPG is a global company with headquarters in London and offices in New York, San Francisco, Washington DC, Boston, Tokyo, Paris, Madrid, Munich, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Delhi, Mexico City and Basingstoke. For more information, please go to www.nature.com.

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