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TATA box and attracts other
proteins required for transcription. Wang et al. studied fruit
flies, hoping to learn whether
the transcription of genes that
encode ribosomal proteins
(proteins that help translate
RNA to protein), which contain
a different promoter (a TCT
motif), work in the same way.
They found that the TBP-related
factor TRF2, rather than TBP,
bound to TCT motifs near the
transcription start site, and the
cell needed TRF2 to transcribe
ribosomal proteins. — BAP
Genes Dev. 10.1101/
gad.245662.114 (2014).
METABOLIC DISEASE
A vitamin’s dark side
in liver disease
Too much of a good thing can
be bad for the liver. Chen et al.
find that mice with high levels
of thiamine (vitamin B1) in their
livers develop fatty liver disease,
a metabolic disorder that affects
one-third of adults in the United
States. A protein called organic
cation transporter 1 (OCT1) carries dietary thiamine into the liver.
When the researchers deleted the
Oct1 gene in mice or fed mice a
diet low in thiamine, the mice did
not develop the disease. OCT1
also carries the diabetes drug
metformin into the liver, which
might explain why metformin
decreases symptoms of fatty
liver disease: By competing with
thiamine for OCT1, metformin
reduces the amount of dietary
thiamine that reaches the
liver. — PAK
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S. A. 10.1073/
pnas.1314939111 (2014).
NANOWIRE GROWTH
Avoiding instabilities
while creating wires
A template is a great tool for making an object of a particular size
and shape, but it works only if the
template fills completely. Shin et
al. show that ions race to fill the
pores in the template during tem-plate-assisted electrodeposition
of nanowires. When fast-growing
wires fill the template, however,
neighboring wires stop growing,
creating instabilities in the wire
growth. The authors show that
they can overcome this problem
of “diffusion-limited” deposition
by making the template hotter
at one end and colder at the
other. — MSL
Nano Lett. 10.1021/nl501324t (2014).
RANGE SHIFTS
Warming waters create
new bedfellows
Climate change alters the
geographical range of species.
Such shifts can affect species in
major ways, such as changing
their abundance or bringing
adjacent, closely related species
into contact. Potts at al. found
that rapidly warming waters in
the Angola-Benguela Frontal Zone
over the last three decades
caused the African kob fish
Argyrosomus coronus to move
southward, where they now
live—and spawn—in some of the
same places as a related species.
Species often overlap at range
boundaries, but climate-driven
overlap makes it harder for
people to manage economically
important species and changes
the way species fit into their
ecosystems. — SNV
Glob. Change Biol. 10.1111/
gcb.12612 (2014).
PLANETARY TOPOGRAPHY
Springtime sighting
at Titan’s coastline
Seasonal warming on Saturn’s
largest moon, Titan, is chang-
ing the shoreline of one of its
methane seas. Titan hosts
an active methane cycle like
the water cycle on Earth,
and a local year lasts 30 Earth
years. Titan’s northern sum-
mer solstice will occur in May
2017, and although seasonal
shoreline changes have been
seen in the south, they have
not yet been observed in the
north. Hofgartner et al. describe
Cassini RADAR images that
reveal a ~20-km feature
coming and going in Titan’s
northern sea Ligeia Mare in
July 2013. They interpret
this signal as a change in
the position of the boundary
between the frozen shoreline
and the liquid sea during
the thaw after the winter’s
freeze. — MMM
Nat. Geosci. 10.1038/
ngeo2190 (2014).
CONSERVATION
Making protection of biodiversity count
Global protected areas aim to protect biodiversity, but they do not currently protect threat- ened species very well. Venter et al. report that 85% of threatened vertebrates need greater protection. Governments plan to increase protected areas from 13 to 17% of the land surface by 2020. But if governments continue to select cheap, marginal lands to protect, the protected species will increase only marginally. The authors suggest that choosing to protect areas
where threatened species live would lead to a fivefold improvement in threatened species protection
for only 1.5 times the cost of purchasing and protecting the cheapest land. — AMS
PLOS Biol. 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001891 (2014).
Kenya’s Lake Nakuru
National Park
