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Northern lights are tip of enormous space tornadoes
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Telltale signs that reveal the best egg
cumulus cells, which provide it with the nutrients it needs to grow. “The final state of the egg depends on the relationship with the cumulus cells,” says Samir Hamamah at the Montpellier University Hospital in France. So “Fertility doctors might be he and his colleagues wondered whether there are genetic markers able to check the level of gene expression to predict in these cells that could predict the viability of an egg” the quality of the resulting embryos and the likelihood of a successful pregnancy. 10.1093/molehr/gan067). BCL2L11 To investigate further, the is involved in triggering cell death team retrieved eggs and their in response to abnormalities, associated cumulus cells from PCK1 is associated with energy 30 women undergoing IVF. After production, and NFIB regulates extracting and freezing the some of the earliest processes in cumulus cells, they fertilised the embryo development. eggs by intra-cytoplasmic sperm Hamamah’s finding opens up injection (ICSI) and inspected the the possibility that doctors might
LInda Geddes
GENETIC clues contained in the cells that nurse and nurture developing eggs could help identify which ones to choose for IVF. There is currently little that can be done to predict which eggs are most likely to generate healthy embryos. After an egg has been fertilised, doctors can take biopsies from early embryos or examine their shape to predict which are most likely to implant and produce healthy children. Despite this, around 8 out of 10 embryos conceived through IVF fail to implant when transferred to the womb. While an egg is developing it is nurtured by specialised cells called
12 | NewScientist | 2 May 2009
NORBERT ROSING/NGS/GETTY
Northern Lights are just the tip of the tornado IF YOU think the Northern Lights are spectacular, you’ll be even more impressed by the phenomenon that creates their glow – the thin end of a humongous electrical space tornado. On the Earth’s dark side, the solar wind – the stream of charged particles that flows from the sun – stretches the Earth’s magnetic field, forming a region known as the magnetotail. This is like a rubber band: when it is stretched too far, “eventually it snaps and releases the energy”, says Andreas Keiling of the University of California, Berkeley, a member of NASA’s THEMIS programme. This looks into the interaction between the Earth’s magnetosphere and the solar wind. The sudden energy release creates a pair of counter-spiralling vortices in the magnetosphere, which THEMIS’s satellites detected when measuring
resulting embryos for quality. They then looked at the gene expression profiles of the cumulus cells corresponding to the eggs that produced good and bad embryos, as well as those that failed to fertilise. This analysis showed that the levels of expression of three genes, called BCL2L11, PCK1 and NFIB, were strongly associated with embryo quality (Molecular Human Reproduction, DOI:
the speed and direction of the solar wind in the magnetotail. Each vortex is 70,000 kilometres long and wide enough to envelop the Earth. One sends particles spiralling along Earth’s magnetic field lines until they hit molecules
be able to check the level of expression of these cumulus cell genes to predict the viability of the egg. “This is a novel concept, offering a new potential strategy for competent embryo selection,” he told a meeting of the Preimplantation Genetics Diagnosis International Society in Miami, Florida, last week. He plans to confirm that this strategy works by using the three genetic markers to select eggs to fertilise and implant, and then see how many of these result in healthy pregnancies compared with those from unscreened eggs. “Trying to establish the importance of particular gene products in assessing embryo viability is very important,” says Simon Fishel, managing director of the Care fertility clinic in Sheffield, UK. “Whether it will become a valuable clinical [tool] remains to be seen. Our understanding of genes in relation to embryo viability is still crude.” ■
The vortices appear roughly every 3 hours and create currents of around 100,000 amps. Keiling presented the work at the annual meeting of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, Austria, last week. Magnetometers across North America confirmed that auroral events happened about a minute after THEMIS registered the formation of vortices in the magnetotail. Also, the auroras moved towards the pole in pairs, mirroring the paired vortices in space. This simultaneous observation of the vortexes in space and auroras in the atmosphere is the most impressive part of the results, says John Richardson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and provides “very –Caused by space tornadoes?– good evidence that they are linked”. Unfortunately, the discovery in the ionosphere 400 kilometres won’t help us avoid a disaster above the surface. It is the energy caused by solar storms, says Michael released by these collisions that Wiltberger of the National Center Keiling believes creates the auroral for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, glow. Charged particles return Colorado. “We should not lose sight through the other vortex, completing of the larger phenomena,” he the electrical circuit. adds. Michael Brooks ■
Telltale signs that reveal the best egg
cumulus cells, which provide it with the nutrients it needs to grow. “The final state of the egg depends on the relationship with the cumulus cells,” says Samir Hamamah at the Montpellier University Hospital in France. So “Fertility doctors might be he and his colleagues wondered whether there are genetic markers able to check the level of gene expression to predict in these cells that could predict the viability of an egg” the quality of the resulting embryos and the likelihood of a successful pregnancy. 10.1093/molehr/gan067). BCL2L11 To investigate further, the is involved in triggering cell death team retrieved eggs and their in response to abnormalities, associated cumulus cells from PCK1 is associated with energy 30 women undergoing IVF. After production, and NFIB regulates extracting and freezing the some of the earliest processes in cumulus cells, they fertilised the embryo development. eggs by intra-cytoplasmic sperm Hamamah’s finding opens up injection (ICSI) and inspected the the possibility that doctors might
LInda Geddes
GENETIC clues contained in the cells that nurse and nurture developing eggs could help identify which ones to choose for IVF. There is currently little that can be done to predict which eggs are most likely to generate healthy embryos. After an egg has been fertilised, doctors can take biopsies from early embryos or examine their shape to predict which are most likely to implant and produce healthy children. Despite this, around 8 out of 10 embryos conceived through IVF fail to implant when transferred to the womb. While an egg is developing it is nurtured by specialised cells called
12 | NewScientist | 2 May 2009
NORBERT ROSING/NGS/GETTY
Northern Lights are just the tip of the tornado IF YOU think the Northern Lights are spectacular, you’ll be even more impressed by the phenomenon that creates their glow – the thin end of a humongous electrical space tornado. On the Earth’s dark side, the solar wind – the stream of charged particles that flows from the sun – stretches the Earth’s magnetic field, forming a region known as the magnetotail. This is like a rubber band: when it is stretched too far, “eventually it snaps and releases the energy”, says Andreas Keiling of the University of California, Berkeley, a member of NASA’s THEMIS programme. This looks into the interaction between the Earth’s magnetosphere and the solar wind. The sudden energy release creates a pair of counter-spiralling vortices in the magnetosphere, which THEMIS’s satellites detected when measuring
resulting embryos for quality. They then looked at the gene expression profiles of the cumulus cells corresponding to the eggs that produced good and bad embryos, as well as those that failed to fertilise. This analysis showed that the levels of expression of three genes, called BCL2L11, PCK1 and NFIB, were strongly associated with embryo quality (Molecular Human Reproduction, DOI:
the speed and direction of the solar wind in the magnetotail. Each vortex is 70,000 kilometres long and wide enough to envelop the Earth. One sends particles spiralling along Earth’s magnetic field lines until they hit molecules
be able to check the level of expression of these cumulus cell genes to predict the viability of the egg. “This is a novel concept, offering a new potential strategy for competent embryo selection,” he told a meeting of the Preimplantation Genetics Diagnosis International Society in Miami, Florida, last week. He plans to confirm that this strategy works by using the three genetic markers to select eggs to fertilise and implant, and then see how many of these result in healthy pregnancies compared with those from unscreened eggs. “Trying to establish the importance of particular gene products in assessing embryo viability is very important,” says Simon Fishel, managing director of the Care fertility clinic in Sheffield, UK. “Whether it will become a valuable clinical [tool] remains to be seen. Our understanding of genes in relation to embryo viability is still crude.” ■
The vortices appear roughly every 3 hours and create currents of around 100,000 amps. Keiling presented the work at the annual meeting of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, Austria, last week. Magnetometers across North America confirmed that auroral events happened about a minute after THEMIS registered the formation of vortices in the magnetotail. Also, the auroras moved towards the pole in pairs, mirroring the paired vortices in space. This simultaneous observation of the vortexes in space and auroras in the atmosphere is the most impressive part of the results, says John Richardson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and provides “very –Caused by space tornadoes?– good evidence that they are linked”. Unfortunately, the discovery in the ionosphere 400 kilometres won’t help us avoid a disaster above the surface. It is the energy caused by solar storms, says Michael released by these collisions that Wiltberger of the National Center Keiling believes creates the auroral for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, glow. Charged particles return Colorado. “We should not lose sight through the other vortex, completing of the larger phenomena,” he the electrical circuit. adds. Michael Brooks ■