RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
Selections from the
scientific literature
B IOTECHNO LO GY
Nature Chem. Biol. http://dx.doi.
org/10.1038/nchembio.1613
(2014)
ASTRO NO MY
Collision history
written in rock
Meteorites recovered in
California have yielded
details about their collisionfilled journey from the Solar
System’s asteroid belt.
The fragments
(pictured) originated
from a meteoroid
whose fiery
descent lit up the
night sky over
San Francisco
in 2012. Peter
M A R I NE ECOLOGY
Sick reefs repel young coral
Coral larvae actively avoid the smell of
degraded marine ecosystems — potentially
impeding efforts to rebuild damaged reefs.
Mark Hay at the Georgia Institute of
Technology in Atlanta and his team studied
coral reefs near Fiji (pictured). They focused
on the behaviour of coral larvae in water
from healthy, protected reefs and from reefs
overgrown with seaweed.
Given the choice between the two streams of
Jenniskens of NASA’s Ames
Research Center in Moffett
Field, California, and his
colleagues analysed the six
fragments and concluded that
the meteoroid is one of several
thought to have come from a
parent asteroid that shattered
in a collision 470 million years
ago. This meteoroid broke
apart again in collisions
9 million and
4 million years ago.
Measurements
of accumulated
radiation in the
rock suggest that
it suffered a final
collision within the past
water, Acropora coral larvae spent more than
85% of their time in water from the protected
areas. The organisms also showed a similar
preference for clean water containing chemical
cues from a variety of corals, whereas seaweed
cues decreased this preference.
Conservationists will probably need to boost
coral-attracting chemicals when rebuilding
seaweed-choked reefs, the authors suggest.
Science 345, 892–897 (2014)
100,000 years.
The team also detected
traces of carbon-rich organic
molecules that somehow
managed to survive.
Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 49,
1388–1425 (2014)
M I CR OB I OLOGY
Liquid layer for
lung defence
Inhaling bacteria increases
the production of mucus
and liquid that trap and kill
microbes in the airways.
A team led by Juan
Ianowski at the University of
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Saskatchewan in Saskatoon,
Canada, developed an imaging
technique to visualize the
depth of the protective layer
that lines the airways. The
researchers found that when
the bacterium Pseudomonas
aeruginosa was introduced
into isolated pig tracheas, the
airways secreted more of this
film than unexposed tracheas.
The results could explain
why patients with cystic
fibrosis, who do not produce
this layer properly, are prone
to respiratory infections and
inflammation. Boosting this
previously unknown part of
the immune response in these
P. JENNISKENS/NASA ARC
Baker’s yeast can be made to
produce morphine, codeine
and other pain medicines at
high levels.
Opioid production is
subject to the vagaries of the
opium poppy supply chain,
so Christina Smolke and
her colleagues at Stanford
University in California
wanted to find alternative
ways of making the drugs.
They engineered the yeast
(Saccharomyces cerevisiae) to
express genes from the poppy
(Papaver somniferum) and
the bacterium Pseudomonas
putida M10, then cultured
it with thebaine, an opioid
intermediary molecule
extracted from the poppy. The
yeast synthesized high enough
levels of several natural and
semisynthetic opioids to
make the method potentially
useful to the pharmaceutical
industry, the authors say.
The next step, they add,
is to engineer yeast to make
these painkillers from simple
sugars, eliminating the need
for poppies altogether.
JOÃO PAULO KRAJEWSKI
Yeast turned into
opioid-makers
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS THIS WEEK
patients could improve their
lung function, the authors say.
Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA
http://doi.org/vbc (2014)
NEURO SCIENCE
JOSÉ LUIS BENITO ALONSO
Light signals boost
stroke recovery
Mice that have had a stroke
regain motor function after
specific brain neurons are
stimulated by light.
Using a technique called
optogenetics, Michelle
Cheng, Gary Steinberg and
their colleagues at Stanford
University in California
studied mice that were
genetically engineered to
express a light-sensitive
protein in a group of neurons
in the brain’s motor cortex.
The team induced a stroke
on one side of this area and
then activated the engineered
neurons by switching on a
small, implanted light probe.
This stimulation increased
blood flow and the levels of
various growth factors in the
opposite, uninjured cortex.
Moreover, these animals
gained more weight and
walked faster and farther than
unstimulated stroke mice.
Further study of the
mechanisms of this recovery
could lead to new drug targets
or therapy techniques for
stroke, the authors say.
Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA
http://doi.org/vbj (2014)
LIMNO LO GY
Unlike earlier estimates,
the total count is dominated
by large and mediumsized lakes, not small ones.
Together, the lakes cover
about 5 million square
kilometres, or 3.7% of Earth’s
land not covered by ice.
Geophys. Res. Lett. http://doi.
org/t9v (2014)
VI R O LO GY
Polio killed the
vaccinated
The poliovirus strain that
caused an outbreak in the
Republic of the Congo in 2010
is able to resist the immune
responses generated by a
commonly used vaccine. The
finding could explain why the
outbreak, which killed nearly
half of the 445 people infected,
was so severe.
Christian Drosten at the
University of Bonn Medical
Centre in Germany and
his colleagues analysed the
virus strain responsible for
the outbreak. They found a
combination of two mutations,
both in the proteins of the
strain’s ‘coat’, which make it
harder for certain antibodies
to stick to the virus. People
who died in this outbreak had
been vaccinated in the past,
but people who were freshly
re-vaccinated could fight off
the virus.
The authors warn that other
resistant strains could emerge,
even as the world is close to
eradicating the disease.
Earth’s lakes
added up
Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA
http://doi.org/vbg (2014)
The world is home to
117 million lakes, according to
a satellite-based survey.
Lakes are important to
the planet’s carbon cycle, but
researchers have struggled
to estimate the number that
exist, in part because small
lakes have been difficult to
count. A team led by Charles
Verpoorter of the University
of Lille Nord in France used
high-resolution imagery
from the Landsat satellite to
catalogue all lakes larger than
2,000 square metres.
Algal boom and
bust tracked
EN VI R O N M EN TA L M I C R O B I OLOGY
Viruses that infect and kill
algae could influence the
ocean carbon cycle.
Ilan Koren and Assaf Vardi
at the Weizmann Institute of
Science in Rehovot, Israel, and
their colleagues used satellite
imagery to measure the
atmospheric carbon absorbed
by a roughly 1,000-squarekilometre algal bloom during
its 25-day life cycle in the
SOCIAL SELECTION
Popular articles
on social media
The cost of misconduct
A report detailing the supposedly meagre costs of scientific
misconduct has set off an online discussion about the real toll
of shoddy science. Using the records of the US government’s
Office of Research Integrity, researchers led by Ferric Fang
at the University of Washington in Seattle collected studies
funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that had
been retracted because of misconduct from 1992 to 2012.
All told, the NIH had spent about US$58 million on these
projects, less than 1% of its total budget over this time. On
Google+, mathematician Joerg Fliege at the University
of Southampton, UK, did what he does best: the maths.
“Multiply this figure with 100 if you believe that only 1% of
misconducts get detected,” he posted. “Still not much of an
expense, in the overall scheme of things.”
eLife 3, e02956 (2014)
Based on data from altmetric.com.
Altmetric is supported by Macmillan
Science and Education, which owns
Nature Publishing Group.
Altmetric
North Atlantic. They found
that the algae converted
around 22,000 tonnes of
atmospheric carbon into
organic carbon — about
as much as a rainforest of
equivalent size — before
viruses caused the bloom to
collapse.
Two-thirds of this carbon
was released back into the
atmosphere within a week
of the bloom’s collapse.
The rest could have been
transported deep into the
ocean, as infected algae sank
to the ocean floor, the authors
suggest.
Curr. Biol. http://doi.org/vbx
(2014)
P L A N T S CI E N CES
Plants drink
mineral water
Thirsty plants can extract
water from the crystalline
structure of gypsum, a rockforming mineral found in soil
on Earth and Mars.
Some plants grow on
gypsum outcrops and
remain active even during
dry summer months,
despite having shallow
NATURE.COM
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roots that cannot reach the
water table. Sara Palacio of
the Pyrenean Institute of
Ecology in Jaca, Spain, and
her colleagues compared the
isotopic composition of sap
from one such plant, called
Helianthemum squamatum
(pictured), with gypsum
crystallization water and
water found free in the soil.
The team found that up to
90% of the plant’s summer
water supply came from
gypsum.
The study has implications
for the search for life in
extreme environments on this
planet and others.
Nature Commun 5, 4660 (2014)
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