RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
Selections from the
scientific literature
ASTRO PHYSICS
Two of the most energetic
neutrinos detected by a
telescope in the Antarctic may
have come from the cores of
distant galaxies.
Neutrinos are stable and
can travel far in space, so
they could shed light on
distant astrophysical and
galactic objects. The Antarctic
telescope IceCube picked up
signs of neutrinos in 2011
and 2012 that were the first
ever measured with energies
of 1 petaelectronvolt (1 × 1015
electronvolts), suggesting
a powerful source such as a
blazar — a type of high-energy
galaxy.
A team led by Clancy James
of the University of Erlangen
and Matthias Kadler of the
University of Würzburg, both
in Germany, studied six years
of data from the underwater
ANTARES neutrino telescope
off the coast of Toulon, France,
scanning six blazars for
further neutrinos. The two
blazars considered to be the
best candidates each yielded
events that were consistent with
the signature of a neutrino,
suggesting that they could be
the sources of the IceCube
neutrinos.
Astron. Astrophys. 576, L8 (2015)
NEURO SCIENCE
Brain zap stops
electrical fault
Deep-brain stimulation may
improve movement in people
with Parkinson’s disease by
reducing abnormally strong
coupling of electrical activity in
the brain.
Implanted electrodes are
used to treat some brain
disorders, particularly
Parkinson’s disease. Coralie de
Hemptinne at the University
THEODORE ALEXANDROV/PROC. NATL ACAD. SCI. USA
Neutrinos from a
galaxy far away
I M AG I NG
A 3D map of skin microbes and molecules
Researchers have glimpsed the complexities of
human skin by creating a three-dimensional
(3D) map of the chemicals and microbes found
on the body’s largest organ.
Pieter Dorrestein of the University of California
in San Diego and his colleagues swabbed
400 locations on the skin of two healthy human
volunteers who abstained from bathing for three
days before sampling. Using mass spectrometry
and DNA sequencing, the researchers identified
of California, San Francisco,
and her colleagues recorded
electrical potentials in the
motor cortex of 23 people
with Parkinson’s who were
undergoing surgery to implant
electrodes into their brains. The
researchers found that when
they switched the electrodes
on, the coupling of electrical
activity in the motor cortex was
reduced, and that the level of
uncoupling correlated with the
degree to which the patients’
movements improved.
The authors say that the
results could inform the
design of improved devices for
the chemical compounds and microbes on the
skin. They used a supercomputer to combine the
data and to build a map covering the whole body
(pictured is the chemical map for one volunteer;
blue is low molecular diversity, red is high).
The team now plans to characterize more
skin chemicals and microbes, and say that their
technique could be used in fields from forensics
to beauty-product development.
Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA http://doi.org/3h8 (2015)
deep-brain stimulation.
Nature Neurosci. http://dx.doi.
org/10.1038/nn.3997 (2015)
M A R I NE S CI E N CE
Fishing drives
population decline
Fishing magnifies natural
variations in numbers of
fish, increasing the risk of
population collapses.
Timothy Essington and his
colleagues at the University of
Washington in Seattle analysed
at least 25 years’ worth of
data on 55 stocks of small fish
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such as sardines, herrings and
anchovies that are preyed on by
others. The population sizes of
these species fluctuate naturally
and widely over time. But the
researchers found that when
populations collapsed to less
than 25% of their mean size, the
stocks were more likely to have
experienced exceptionally high
fishing rates before the collapse
than to have seen large natural
variations in size.
Modelling the fish
populations suggests that
fishery management practices
that do not respond quickly
to dips in species numbers
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS THIS WEEK
increase both the magnitude
and frequency of natural
population declines.
Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA
http://doi.org/3hk (2015)
SEISMO LO GY
NASA
San Francisco’s
quake hazard rises
Two geological faults in
northern California are linked,
meaning that the risk of a large
earthquake in the eastern San
Francisco Bay Area is greater
than was thought.
A team led by Estelle
Chaussard of the University
of California, Berkeley,
used satellite radar to study
ground deformation along
the Hayward fault, east of San
Francisco. The scientists found
that it connected with the
Calaveras fault. Both are part
of the San Andreas system and
were considered to be separate.
The combined fault system
could unleash an earthquake
greater than magnitude 7,
bigger than had been expected.
Geophys. Res. Lett. http://doi.
org/3hh (2015)
ATMO SPHERIC SCIEN C E
PETAR KUJUNDZIC/REUTERS/CORBIS
Asian pollution
hitchhikes south
Pollution from East Asia affects
air quality in the distant tropics.
A team led by Matthew
Ashfold at the University of
Cambridge, UK, detected
elevated levels of a chlorinecontaining gas at two remote
sites in tropical Borneo during
the Northern Hemisphere
winter of 2008–09. The team
used an atmospheric transport
model to show that the
chemical — an indicator of a
range of industrial pollutants —
was transported southward
from east Asia by rapidly
moving cold air masses.
During cold surges, east
Asian air pollution (pictured)
can reach the equator in a
few days. If ozone-degrading
chlorine pollutants are lifted
by convection into the tropical
atmosphere, even short-lived
compounds might have a
negative effect on stratospheric
ozone, the authors say.
Atmos. Chem. Phys. 15,
3565–3573 (2015)
M I C R O BI O LO GY
Downsides of lowdose antibiotics
Taking low doses of antibiotics
to prevent recurring bladder
infections could make the
illness worse than taking no
antibiotic at all.
Lee Goneau of the University
of Toronto in Canada and
his colleagues studied mice
previously infected with
urinary tract bacteria, and
treated the animals with
low doses of the antibiotic
ciprofloxacin. In mice that
had cleared their infections
before receiving the drug,
80% became reinfected.
Another group of mice with a
low level of infection had more
bacteria in their urine after
taking the antibiotics.
The antibiotic caused the
bacteria to produce proteins
that let them stick to bladder
and kidney cells, making it
easier for the pathogens to
colonize these tissues.
mBio 6, e00356-15 (2015)
M O L EC UL A R PATH O LOGY
Cancer spreads
among clams
Outbreaks of leukaemia-like
cancer in soft-shell clams may
have originated in a single clam.
Mysterious cancers have
been affecting clams and other
marine bivalves in the United
States and Europe since at
least the 1970s. Stephen Goff
at Columbia University in
New York and his colleagues
studied the DNA of cancerous
and non-cancerous cells
from several populations of
SOCIAL SELECTION
Popular articles
on social media
Scientists share happy hashtags
Online conversations about science can become mired in
negativity — job shortages, dwindling grant support and
breakdowns in peer review — but the Twitter streams of many
researchers recently turned positive. Researchers of all types
rallied around the hashtag #IAmAScientistBecause to share
their scientific inspirations. Chelsea Polis, an epidemiologist
at the Guttmacher Institute in New York City, tweeted:
“#IAmAScientistBecause practice of science values truth &
integrity. I get to be surrounded by colleagues motivated by
things other than $$.” A separate Twitter storm erupted thanks
to Melissa Vaught, a science editor in Bethesda, Maryland, who
tweeted: “Today a challenge: Let’s build a #womeninSTEM
list that goes beyond the usual suspects.
NATURE.COM
#BeyondMarieCurie.” The challenge
For more on
prompted a flood of tweets about
popular papers:
prominent female scientists, past and
go.nature.com/cnawio present.
soft-shell clams (Mya arenaria)
along the coast of the eastern
United States. The DNA from
cancerous cells did not match
that of the hosts’ other tissues,
but the cancer cells were
genetically similar to each
other, suggesting that they
arose from a single ancestor.
Only two other transmissible
cancers are known, affecting
dogs and Tasmanian devils.
However, invertebrates may
be particularly vulnerable
because they lack a part of the
vertebrate immune system that
identifies foreign invading cells,
the authors say.
Hot fluids act
strangely in space
Heat pipes suck excess heat
away from laptop computers
and other devices, and consist
of a tube filled with liquid that
evaporates at one end when
heated. The vapour flows to
the cool end, then condenses
and returns to the other end.
Joel Plawsky of Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute in Troy,
New York, and his colleagues
sent a heat-pipe experiment
to the International Space
Station (pictured), where
the transparent, pentanecontaining pipe was heated.
Surprisingly, the liquid did
not rush away from the hot end
as it does on Earth, but instead
flooded the heated area. In
zero gravity, capillary forces
pulled liquid towards the hot
end, whereas on Earth, gravity
counteracts these forces.
Boiling fluids behave
differently in space and on
Earth, suggesting that new
approaches are needed to cool
spacecraft in orbit.
NATURE.COM
For the latest research published by
Nature visit:
www.nature.com/latestresearch
Cell 161, 255–263 (2015)
P H YS I CS
Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 146105 (2015)
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