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Flying fish fossils hint at ancient evolution
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IN BRIEF There’s no place like dung
Red alert: hair colour may contribute to cancer risk BAD news for fair-skinned red-heads: wearing a hat and sunblock and sitting in the shade won’t necessarily protect you from skin cancer. Studies in animals suggest the risk remains regardless of exposure to ultraviolet light. David Fisher at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and colleagues introduced a gene linked with melanoma – the most dangerous form of skin cancer – into mice engineered to be albino, or to have either red or black hair. The team had planned to study the incidence of melanoma after exposure to UV light – known to
be particularly damaging to the fair skin that often accompanies red hair. But before they could start, the red-haired mice developed tumours. “It was a big surprise,” says Fisher. To test whether it was the MC1R gene, which gives both mice and humans red hair, or the red pigment itself that was involved, the team created albino-red hair hybrids: mice with an MC1R gene but whose hair was white. Hybrid mice were protected from melanoma, says Fisher, indicating that the pigment itself plays a role. “Red pigment has a capacity to cause oxidative stress,” he says, which might lead to genetic mutations (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature11624). Discovering the mechanisms involved may lead to protective strategies that go beyond shielding the skin from UV, Fisher adds.
Fish catch early flight to avoid predators ANCIENT flying fish could make waves in our picture of prehistoric oceans. Fossils recently found in southern China suggest that these winged wonders evolved millions of years earlier than previously thought. Marine predators often try to trap their prey against the ocean’s surface. Flying fish have a clever escape strategy: they can leap out of the water altogether, and so 16 | NewScientist | 3 November 2012
elude some of the biggest hunters. Now Guang-Hui Xu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and his team have found fossils of a new flying fish species from the Middle Triassic period, which began 247 million years ago (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2012.2261). Previously the oldest flying fish fossils were from the Late Triassic, which began around 230 million
years ago, and were unearthed in Austria and Italy. Modern flying fish have either two or four “wings” – rigid fins that let them glide – which afford them different talents for dodging predators. The Chinese fossils are four-winged, suggesting these fish evolved to make longdistance glides and sophisticated mid-air manoeuvres. This might give clues to what type of ancient predators, such as marine reptiles, they were facing.
WE CAN make strange choices when it comes to our homes, but a newly discovered bee species takes it to a new level. It is the first to be found nesting in manure. Laura Sarzetti of the Bernardino Rivadavia Natural Sciences Museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina, discovered the Trichothurgus bolithophilus bees in the steppes of Patagonia. They live in tunnels burrowed into lumps of horse dung. The choice of nesting material is perplexing – dry dung is fragile and offers little protection from the cold Patagonian winters. It is also scarce. Horses are the only animals in the region that generate a habitable size of manure, and they are uncommon. Sarzetti believes that the bees usually nest elsewhere, possibly in cactuses or cushion plants, and may have been driven to dung as a last resort (Journal of Hymenoptera Research, doi.org/jjp).
Exoplanet rises from the dead A CONTROVERSIAL exoplanet whose existence was in doubt just got a new lease of life. In 2008, the Hubble Space Telescope spotted a bright object orbiting the star Fomalhaut. The trouble was that other telescopes could not see it. Even Hubble appeared to show the planet, Fomalhaut b, varying wildly in brightness and orbiting much too fast, as if it was a clump of dust. Now Thayne Currie at the University of Toronto, Canada, and colleagues have reanalysed Hubble data and made fresh observations with a telescope in Hawaii. After filtering the star’s light out in two different ways, they say the object does not vary in brightness and moves at the speed of a planet (arxiv.org/abs/1210.6620).
IN BRIEF There’s no place like dung
Red alert: hair colour may contribute to cancer risk BAD news for fair-skinned red-heads: wearing a hat and sunblock and sitting in the shade won’t necessarily protect you from skin cancer. Studies in animals suggest the risk remains regardless of exposure to ultraviolet light. David Fisher at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and colleagues introduced a gene linked with melanoma – the most dangerous form of skin cancer – into mice engineered to be albino, or to have either red or black hair. The team had planned to study the incidence of melanoma after exposure to UV light – known to
be particularly damaging to the fair skin that often accompanies red hair. But before they could start, the red-haired mice developed tumours. “It was a big surprise,” says Fisher. To test whether it was the MC1R gene, which gives both mice and humans red hair, or the red pigment itself that was involved, the team created albino-red hair hybrids: mice with an MC1R gene but whose hair was white. Hybrid mice were protected from melanoma, says Fisher, indicating that the pigment itself plays a role. “Red pigment has a capacity to cause oxidative stress,” he says, which might lead to genetic mutations (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature11624). Discovering the mechanisms involved may lead to protective strategies that go beyond shielding the skin from UV, Fisher adds.
Fish catch early flight to avoid predators ANCIENT flying fish could make waves in our picture of prehistoric oceans. Fossils recently found in southern China suggest that these winged wonders evolved millions of years earlier than previously thought. Marine predators often try to trap their prey against the ocean’s surface. Flying fish have a clever escape strategy: they can leap out of the water altogether, and so 16 | NewScientist | 3 November 2012
elude some of the biggest hunters. Now Guang-Hui Xu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and his team have found fossils of a new flying fish species from the Middle Triassic period, which began 247 million years ago (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2012.2261). Previously the oldest flying fish fossils were from the Late Triassic, which began around 230 million
years ago, and were unearthed in Austria and Italy. Modern flying fish have either two or four “wings” – rigid fins that let them glide – which afford them different talents for dodging predators. The Chinese fossils are four-winged, suggesting these fish evolved to make longdistance glides and sophisticated mid-air manoeuvres. This might give clues to what type of ancient predators, such as marine reptiles, they were facing.
WE CAN make strange choices when it comes to our homes, but a newly discovered bee species takes it to a new level. It is the first to be found nesting in manure. Laura Sarzetti of the Bernardino Rivadavia Natural Sciences Museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina, discovered the Trichothurgus bolithophilus bees in the steppes of Patagonia. They live in tunnels burrowed into lumps of horse dung. The choice of nesting material is perplexing – dry dung is fragile and offers little protection from the cold Patagonian winters. It is also scarce. Horses are the only animals in the region that generate a habitable size of manure, and they are uncommon. Sarzetti believes that the bees usually nest elsewhere, possibly in cactuses or cushion plants, and may have been driven to dung as a last resort (Journal of Hymenoptera Research, doi.org/jjp).
Exoplanet rises from the dead A CONTROVERSIAL exoplanet whose existence was in doubt just got a new lease of life. In 2008, the Hubble Space Telescope spotted a bright object orbiting the star Fomalhaut. The trouble was that other telescopes could not see it. Even Hubble appeared to show the planet, Fomalhaut b, varying wildly in brightness and orbiting much too fast, as if it was a clump of dust. Now Thayne Currie at the University of Toronto, Canada, and colleagues have reanalysed Hubble data and made fresh observations with a telescope in Hawaii. After filtering the star’s light out in two different ways, they say the object does not vary in brightness and moves at the speed of a planet (arxiv.org/abs/1210.6620).