Bridging ancient Tibetan medicine and modern Western science

Tawni Tidwell amid Tibetan prayer flags in eastern Tibet. Photo by Shane Witnov.

By Carol Clark

Tawni Tidwell is the first Westerner to be certified in Tibetan medicine by Tibetan teachers in the Tibetan language. The PhD candidate in Emory’s Department of Anthropology is now working on a dissertation about how Tibetan physicians diagnose diseases, especially cancer.

“I see myself as a bridge between Tibetan medicine and Western science,” says Tidwell, who became a Tibetan physician in 2015. “I feel like each has something to offer the other.”

Tidwell was born in Colorado but lived from the ages of two to five in South Korea, where her father was a U.S. Army surgeon. Tidwell and her mother lived in mainstream Seoul, which gave her an affinity for Asia when she returned to Colorado. She was also influenced by the Native American ancestry on both sides of her family and by the ecology of Colorado, where she became involved in rock climbing and winter mountaineering.

Tidwell has trained as an animal tracker, worked as a ranger at a biological preserve, taught wilderness survival lessons, and led gap-year students on trips to learn about traditional cultures through the “Where There Be Dragons” program.

Tidwell studied at the premier Tibetan medical school outside of Tibet, in northern India (the cultural and intellectual capital of the displaced Tibetan community). In order to enroll, she had to pass a five-day exam of memorized Tibetan grammar and Buddhist logic, as well as general Tibetan cultural knowledge. From there on, each year she had to recite from memory 115 pages of a medical textbook in Tibetan, considered one of the most difficult languages for non-native speakers to master. She also had to complete written exams, coursework and attend classes, all in the Tibetan language among Tibetan peers.

Below is an interview with Tidwell, covering some of the milestones of her long and winding road to becoming a certified Tibetan medical practitioner.

Where did you spend your undergraduate years? 

I went to Stanford, where I started out majoring in physics and pre-med, with the idea of a career focused on aerospace medicine, exploring questions like how the body adapts to space.

In physics, you take the extremes of a problem to understand how an average system operates. I thought if you studied how humans respond to extremes, then maybe you could find out more about how the human body works and responds to illness.

I was also really interested in the relationship between our bodies and the land. I eventually switched my major to Earth Systems. Stanford has a 2,000-acre biological preserve – ranging from redwoods to chaparral and perennial grasslands – where I worked as a docent and a ranger. I learned to identify dozens of different species of grass. I wanted to know why this grass species survives in the desert and another one doesn’t, and why the bobcat patrols this area and not another.

While ascending Illimani, a peak in western Bolivia, Tidwell pauses to take in the view.

When did you become interested in Tibetan culture?

I took a gap year after my freshman year and went to the Emory Tibetan Studies Program in north India, led by Tara Doyle (senior lecturer in Emory’s Department of Religion). I studied Buddhist philosophy and the Tibetan language, which is exquisite and poetic. The word for computer translates as “brain of light.”

The Tibetan language pays special attention to the sacred. It reminds you of the pursuit of understanding the reality we all experience and how one should live. It’s very specific about cognition and the mind and provides a much more detailed description of the trajectory of perception.

I feel different when I speak in Tibetan. People have told me that my whole body language changes.

Why did you enroll in an animal-tracking course?

I went to Washington, D.C., to work with an environmental organization. I realized that most of the environmental specialists in our nation’s capital had no time to spend in the natural world. They are completely disconnected from it. I wondered, what were humans like as foragers and what have we lost by being academic specialists without first-hand experience?

I went to New Jersey for a 10-day course taught by Tom Brown, Jr., an animal tracker and wilderness guru. He basically teaches what it takes to survive when you are butt naked in the woods and have nothing. In just the first class, you learn about wild edibles, how to make fire by friction, how to make two different traps and two different snares, and how to tan a hide. Other classes build on those basics.

What was your favorite part of your survivalist training?

Fire. There is something so enigmatic about making fire by friction. The experience ignites something deep in our past. It’s almost like creating life. You have to get a feel for the spindle and the fireboard. You apply just the right speed and pressure and when the fire comes out it’s like magic. And you realize that you can have a relationship to everything like that in the natural world.

After I finished the initial course, I realized it was really about putting in the experiential “dirt time’ to learn the skills. I took more courses and helped with teaching. I lived in the New Jersey pine barrens for about a year in a pit shelter, which was dug about four feet into the ground and was about 10 feet in diameter. It was full-on immersion in ecology.

I saw how some people’s lives changed as their wilderness survival skills accumulated. It gives you a certain freedom. People realize they don’t necessarily have to live in the way that they thought they had to live.

Tidwell with classmates, gathering native plants from the Tibetan plateau.

Do you ever get scared being alone in the wilderness? 

Scary movies make me scared, but not being alone in the forest. I imagine, though, that I would be scared in grizzly bear or polar bear territory, since they hunt humans.

Wolves don’t scare me because I read everything I could about the Arctic wolf when I was in elementary school – I was that kind of kid – and I knew they weren’t a threat to humans.

It’s actually part of Buddhist philosophy: The more you learn about the world, the more you learn about what you should, and should not, fear.

How did you wind up in Tibetan medical school?

In 2008, Tara Doyle asked me to return as assistant director of the Emory Tibetan Studies Program in north India.

While working in South America, I had met a curandero in Bolivia who told me that his grandmother had known more than 5,000 healing plants, he knew 2,000 and his daughter would know a few hundred or even fewer. I realized that Tibetan medicine is really unique in that it is this ancient medicinal system connected to the land – using medicines made from plants and minerals gathered from the Tibetan plateau, the highest place in the world – and it is also written down.

I thought that if I had a chance to study Tibetan medicine I could really do something with it. Dr. Khenrab Gyamtso, the vice principal of the Men-Tsee-Khang medical institute in north India, agreed to tutor me for a few hours at the end of every day, after he and I had already put in a full day of work. He eventually encouraged me to apply for enrollment.

What did your studies involve?

Medicinal herb from the Tibetan plateau

The first few years were mainly memorization of parts of the medical canon, more than 100 pages a year. And then at the end of every year you recite them. At first I didn’t value memorization but I eventually realized that it’s an amazing technology. It feels like a profound meditation. It’s clever in the sense that it forces you to focus while also giving your mind a break. The text is written poetically and you start noticing associations and layers of meaning. Layers of your mind also start emerging. It’s a fascinating thing to observe.

After five years of classes, I transferred to eastern Tibet’s Tibetan Medical College of Qinghai University in Xining, China. Under the mentorship of senior doctors, I was able to do patient rounds in the gastroenterology department of the hospital there. All that memorization prepared my mind to have a strong presence with each patient and really focus on what each one said to me.

What are some of the distinctive aspects of Tibetan medicine? 

Tibetan medicine co-evolved with Buddhism. Contemplative introspection into the mind is complemented by introspection into the body. For example, in the case of chronic pain, Tibetan medicine prescribes medication along with recommendations for diet and ways to reduce mental distress and suffering. Research has shown that some meditators can identify physical pain locales on their body but they don’t have the same mental response that a lot of other people have to it.

We’re one of the few species in the animal kingdom that can evoke stress just by thinking about a threat. What are the changes in the mind when you become afraid, jealous, angry or sad? These emotions create biological changes in the body. Tibetan medicine treats the mind and the body at the same time. If you have diabetes or hypertension, it can get worse if you are highly reactive to circumstances in your life. This phenomenon is related to a concept called rlung (pronounced loong). These are wind pathways in the body that the mind rides on, which in Western medicine is related to the neuroendocrine system.

Connecting the mind and body to treat patients is ancient practice in Tibetan medicine, but it has only started gaining importance in Western medicine in the past decade or so.

Do you think Tibetan medicine is superior to Western medicine?

No. I feel like there is a lot of learning to do on both sides. My dad is an orthopedic surgeon. There are some things that Western medicine does very well.

Modern Tibetan medical practitioners don’t do surgery but they may advocate it at times – historically, we performed minor procedures like cataract surgery. Our canon says that anything that benefits a person is Tibetan medicine. So if the results of an X-ray or blood test could give you valuable information about a patient, you would welcome that. It’s a realist perspective more than anything else. And I would also say that it’s more holistic.

Some people have such a suspicion of anything that’s not Western medicine, they just refuse to consider it. I find that non-scientific. The research done on other medical systems is so poor we can’t say that we know whether these things don’t work on some level. Westerners sometimes forget that a human connection is healing and we try to operationalize everything. We’re not allowed to have art in medicine, but sometimes that art is what makes it more effective.

All photos courtesy of Tawni Tidwell

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Memoir details the making of a mathematician

From the cover of a memoir by Emory mathematician Ken Ono, recently published by Springer.

Quanta Magazine interviewed Emory mathematician Ken Ono about his new memoir, “My Search for Ramanujan: How I Learned to Count,” which he co-authored with the late Amir Aczel. The book describes how Ono grew up under such relentless pressure to succeed that he developed a crippling fear of failure that caused him to drop out of high school. He eventually found his way to the path of a successful math career, guided by various mentors and by the story of Indian math genius Srinivasa Ramanujan, who endured struggles of his own.

As Ono explains in the Quanta interview:

“For whatever reason, we live in a culture where we think that the abilities of our best scientists and our best mathematicians are somehow just God-given. That either you have this gift or you don’t, and it’s not related to help, to hard work, to luck. I think that’s part of the reason why, when we try to talk about mathematics to the public, so many people just immediately respond by saying, ‘Well, I was never very good at math. So I’m not really supposed to understand it or identify with it.’ I might have had some mathematical talent passed through my father genetically, but that was by no means enough. You have to be passionate about a subject.

“At the same time, I want it to be known that it’s totally okay to fail. In fact, you learn from your mistakes. We learn early on if that you want to be good at playing the violin, you’ve got to practice. If you want to be good at sports, you practice. But for some crazy reason, our culture assumes that if you’re good at math, you were just born with it, and that’s it. But you can be so good at math in so many different ways. I failed my [graduate-school] algebra qualifications! That doesn’t mean I can’t end up being a successful mathematician. But when I tell people I failed at this, nobody believes me.”

Read the whole interview in Quanta.

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Math shines with the stars in 'The Man Who Knew Infinity'

By Carol Clark

Call it a math bromance. Cambridge mathematician G. H. Hardy’s collaboration with the obscure, self-taught Indian Srinivasa Ramanujan – during the height of British colonialism – changed math and science forever. The story is finally going mainstream through a major motion picture, “The Man Who Knew Infinity," starring Dev Patel and Jeremy Irons.

“It’s the story of a man who overcame incredible obstacles to become one of the most important mathematicians of his day,” says Emory mathematician Ken Ono, who served as a consultant for the film. “It’s a great human story. It’s true. And I’m glad that the world is finally going to get to enjoy it.”

The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) will feature a sneak peak of “The Man Who Knew Infinity” on August 6, as part of its centennial celebration, MathFest 2015, in Washington D.C. Ono, a leading expert on Ramanujan’s theories, will lead a panel discussion at the screening event, which begins at 5 pm at the Marriott Wardman Park. Panelists will include Princeton mathematician Manjul Bhargava; Robert Kanigel, who wrote the 1991 book that the movie is based on; and Matt Brown, the screenwriter and director of the movie.

The movie’s world premier is set for September at the Toronto International Film Festival.

In 1913, Ramanujan wrote a letter to Hardy, including creative formulas that clearly showed his brilliance. Hardy invited Ramanujan to come to Cambridge to study and collaborate, a daring move during a time of deep prejudice.

“Together, they produced phenomenal results,” Ono says. “They changed mathematics and they changed the course of science.”

Ken Ono on the set with Jeremy Irons, who plays Cambridge mathematician G. H. Hardy. (Photo by Sam Pressman.)

A relatively unknown director, Matt Brown spent eight years trying to get the movie project off the ground. He eventually found backing from the producer Ed Pressman of Pressman Films.

“This is not your typical Hollywood film,” Brown says of the final product. “A lot of movies that deal with scientific subjects just mention the science and go straight to the human story. We wanted to honor the math in this film, so that mathematicians could appreciate it as well as other audience members. One way we tried to do that was to show the passion the characters have for the subject.”

When Brown called Ono out of the blue last August and asked him to help with the math on the film, Ono did not hesitate. He was soon on a plane from Atlanta to London to begin putting in 16-hour days on the set at Pinewood Studios with the cast and crew.

“I’ve never met anybody with more energy and enthusiasm for his work than Ken,” Brown says. “It was invaluable to me as a director to have him go over the script and make sure that the math was accurate. He was incredibly kind and patient. It gave me confidence.”

Ono also worked closely with the art department, to get details of the math visuals right, and coached the stars, Dev Patel and Jeremy Irons. “Ken helped the actors understand philosophically what was behind the mathematics,” Brown says. “He gave them a little window into it. That’s important because when an actor grasps the meaning of the lines, he can add nuance and subtext to a performance.”

Ultimately, the film is about the relationship between Hardy and Ramanujan, Brown says. “Hardy fought really hard to get Ramanujan honored and bring him into the elite of Trinity College at Cambridge. Hardy basically staked his career on him.”

It was especially risky since Ramanujan did not work like a traditional academic. He did not see the need of providing proofs for his fantastic formulas, and believed that they came to him as visions from a goddess.

“Ramanujan saw the world, and math, in a spiritual way,” Brown says. “It’s incredible that he wound up at Cambridge with Hardy, an atheist, as his mentor.”

Unfortunately, while Hardy proved a great academic mentor for Ramanujan, it took longer for their friendship to evolve. “This movie tells a story about the cost that comes when people wait out of fear to connect more deeply in their relationships,” Brown says.

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A physicist's guide to foam and fortune

From foam to Frankenstein: Sidney Perkowitz enjoys a cappuccino (extra foam) at the Ink and Elm in Emory Village. So far this year he has published his first e-book, Universal Foam 2.0, and started work on a new book project, "Frankenstein 2018." (Photo by Carol Clark)

By Carol Clark

You never know what’s going to bubble up on the agenda of physicist Sidney Perkowitz, Emory Candler Professor of Physics Emeritus. Since the 76-year-old Perkowitz retired in 2011, he seems to pop up everywhere, from the Atlanta Science Festival to South Korean national television to a high-level policy meeting in Washington DC.

After 42 years of research and teaching at Emory, he has shifted his focus from the lab and classroom to the wider world. His mission: Communicating science in ways that get people interested and better informed.

“You’re doing something good for society if you can convey science well to a lay person,” Perkowitz says. “You can have an influence over everyone from a child to a congressman.”

Perkowitz began writing about physics for a general audience when he was about 50. “It forced me to be humble because I had a lot to learn,” he says. “Several editors really helped improve my writing. One gave me this great tip: “Remember, you don’t want to simplify the science. You want to simplify the writing.’”

Perkowitz has written six books about physics geared for a lay audience. His most successful, “Universal Foam,” was published in 2001 and remained in print through 2008, including five foreign editions. The book describes the myriad incarnations and inherent mysteries of foam, from densely packed bubbles floating atop a cappuccino to ocean white caps, soap bubbles, and exotic foamy materials used in aerospace and medicine.

Watch a clip from an English-language version of a South Korean documentary inspired by Perkowitz' book on foam, including interviews with Perkowitz:


Last fall, the book brought a Korean television film crew to Perkowitz’s door. “The filmmakers had contacted me out of the blue and said they wanted to make a documentary for children based on the book,” he says. “They sent over a cameraman, a sound guy, a director and a translator.”

So that’s how Perkowitz found himself in his kitchen, brewing a cappuccino as he was being interviewed about the wonders of foam. “We had a wonderful time,” he says of the experience. “The most amazing part was they paid me! It wasn’t a lot, but I was just doing it for fun. So that was a pretty great deal.”

The documentary, “Bubbles That Can Change the World,” was funded by the South Korean government and shown throughout the country as a way to inspire children’s interest in science.

After the publisher stopped putting out new editions of “Universal Foam,” Perkowitz obtained the rights so that he could update it himself as an e-book in January. He titled it “Universal Foam 2.0” “It’s amazingly easy,” Perkowitz says of the process of producing an e-book. He adds that he primarily did it to gain experience with e-books, and doesn’t expect it to sell many copies at this stage. “I just love learning something new and being engaged,” he explains. “And I want to feel that I’m doing something useful for science.”

During the past four years, Perkowitz has also written 20 magazine articles, given public talks, and serves on the science outreach committee of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which takes him to Washington DC occasionally.

A selection of some of the many editions of Mary Shelley's classic "Frankenstein." (Andy Marbett)

Perkowitz is now at work on this seventh book, which has the working title "Frankenstein 2018." He is both contributing a chapter and co-editing the book, an anthology due out March 11, 2018, the bicentennial of the publication of Mary Shelley’s novel.

“There is something in humanity that wants to find a way to create life and to live forever. But that same desire is also full of fear,” Perkowitz says of the enduring appeal of Frankenstein.

The subject is more relevant than ever. Emory’s Center for Ethics is hosting a major international gathering in Atlanta May 17 to 19, to discuss both aspirations and guidelines for the era of synthetic biology. Biotechnology and the Ethical Imagination: A Global Summit (BEINGS) will bring together delegates from the top 30 biotechnology producing countries of the world.

“The idea of genetic engineering and creating an entirely new being is the 21st-century version of Frankenstein,” Perkowitz says. “Earlier, creating life was envisioned as stitching together dead body parts and zapping them with electricity. Now it’s about getting a micro-scalpel and moving around genes. Some people are afraid of genetically modified food. Imagine how they’ll feel about genetically modified animals and people.”

Perkowitz’ co-editor for the book project is Eddy Von Mueller, an Emory lecturer in film and media studies. The two have already rounded up a dozen contributors for the project, from religion, the arts and sciences, and secured a contract from Pegasus Books.

“Frankenstein is taught often in college classrooms, so we think this anthology might be a good seller as a textbook,” Perkowitz says. “The publisher agreed.”

Ebola's backstory: How germs jump species

Fruit bats are associated with an array of deadly viruses, including Nipah, Ebola and Marburg. As the bats' habitat shrinks, the odds increase that bats will cross paths with humans, wild primates and other animals.

By Carol Clark
From Emory Medicine

While virologists study pathogens like Ebola by zooming in on them with an electron microscope, primate disease ecologist Thomas Gillespie climbs 100-foot trees in the tropical forests of Africa to get the big picture view. He tracks pathogens in the wild to learn how they adapt to changing environments and jump between species.

It is physically challenging work that often takes him into remote forests where the wildlife has not yet learned to fear people. A chimpanzee turned Gillespie into a human yo-yo while he was ascending a tree with a rope and harness. “Chimpanzees have 10 times the strength of a man and they can be curious and playful,” he says. “I once had an adult male chimpanzee grab my rope and bounce me up and down.”

Wild primates pose a special risk for zoonotic diseases—those transmissible from animals to humans—due to our close genetic relationship. HIV/AIDS and Ebola are the two most dramatic examples of diseases linked to wild primates, but many other viral, bacterial, fungal, and parasitic pathogens found in apes and monkeys are readily passed to humans.

“The bottom line is that the majority of emerging infectious diseases are coming from wildlife and most of that wildlife is in tropical forests,” says Gillespie, a professor in Emory’s Department of Environmental Sciences and the Rollins School of Public Health. “We can’t afford to just focus on one pathogen or one animal. It’s really important to get a general understanding of the interactions of different species, and how changes in the environment are driving zoonotic disease transmission.”



Gillespie is investigating undisturbed forests, as well as sites where logging and other human activity is under way. He gathers fecal and blood samples from people and animals for analysis while also scouring the forest floor and treetops to learn about the diversity of pathogens in the environment. The data can then be mapped spatially and over time to connect the dots of disease ecology.

For one ongoing study in Uganda, Gillespie and his collaborators are following primates in and around fig trees. The researchers hang out near these ancient forest giants, observing the tableau of life feeding amid the branches and on the ground below.

Fig trees are a keystone species of rainforest ecosystems. Climate change is playing havoc with the seasonal fruiting of other types of trees. But fig trees have co-evolved with specific pollinators—fig wasps—and due to their complex interaction, there is always a fig tree fruiting somewhere in the forest, providing a critical, consistent food source for fruit bats, primates, and ground dwellers like the bush duiker, a shy, dainty antelope that darts amid the forest shrubbery.

Fruit bats, associated with an array of deadly viruses including Nipah, Ebola, and Marburg, are especially specific in their diet. “They’re looking for ripe fruit,” Gillespie says, “and that’s a rare resource in the environment.”

And it’s becoming even rarer. Logging companies are cutting down huge swaths of African forests. Mining operations are moving into new terrain. Villages are expanding, and homes and food crops are eating into the wilderness. All these factors bump up the odds that fruit bats will be living near people, and that the bats will be joined by a variety of other animals while they are feeding from a tree.

“Most viruses can only last outside of a host for minutes or hours, not days,” Gillespie says, “but now we have this changing landscape of food availability. That raises the probability that a gorilla or chimpanzee will eat a piece of fruit that a bat has just defecated on, or has bitten into and discarded.”

Diseases and parasites could be transmitted in this manner. Ebola is one of the rare ones, extremely difficult to find, much less study, in the wild. But Ebola looms large in the public imagination because it is hemorrhagic, capable of causing massive bleeding, and because of its high fatality rate. It is also frightening because it is so mysterious, popping up out of the forest to kill voraciously then disappearing again for years.

The virus was first identified in 1976, following an outbreak in a remote hamlet of Zaire (now the Republic of Congo) near the Ebola River. Subsequent outbreaks have also been associated with forested backwaters and have quickly burned themselves out. That is, until the current outbreak in West Africa. Ebola has now made the leap from rural, forested regions to Africa’s urban areas, where many people live in crowded conditions with poor sanitation.

One of the biggest mysteries is where the virus has hidden between these outbreaks. Evidence of Ebola antibodies, and remnants of Ebola RNA, have been found in the blood of three species of fruit bats, making them prime suspects as an Ebola reservoir: An organism that can carry the pathogen without dying or even becoming sickened by it.

“Fruit bats are the best guess as to the reservoir, but until a live virus is found in their blood, we cannot be sure,” Gillespie says. “What we do know is that bats are an important part of the equation. And gorillas, chimpanzees, and some other animals, like the bush duiker, can get infected with Ebola.”

During the past decade, human Ebola outbreaks in Gabon and Congo have been accompanied by reports of gorilla and chimpanzee carcasses in surrounding forests, and epidemiological studies have connected encounters with dead gorillas, chimpanzees, and bush duikers to human cases.

“A hunter might find a dead gorilla in the forest,” Gillespie says, “and instead of saying, ‘I shouldn’t butcher this animal and eat it, it may have died of an infectious disease,’ he throws up his hands and says, ‘Thank you, God, for this gift!’ ”

Fruit bats are also hunted for food in many parts of Africa.

But you don’t have to be a hunter going deep into a forest to catch Ebola. Now that fruit bats are feeling the squeeze of fewer food sources, they may choose to roost under the eaves of a home, feasting on trees in the village orchard as children play below.

Widespread education about what is safe to eat and what is not, and how to identify animals that may have died from an illness, is becoming a vital part of preventing the spread of these diseases.

Just as people are encroaching on wilderness, pathogens are expanding their range into human habitats.

“We’re changing the environment in ways that may be promoting Ebola,” Gillespie says. “As the human population grows and the demand for resources pushes us into new areas, we’re going to see more diseases emerge. Anytime we alter a pristine natural system there are going to be unintended consequences.”

Photos: Thinkstock

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The psychology of evil

Gaining a new perspective on the roots of evil and its effects on society.

By Maria Lameiras, Emory Magazine

Psychology 341 is a new Emory course focused on the study of “evil” behavior. It includes critical analyses of the distinctions between normal human behavior, moral depravity and psychopathology. In addition to individual acts of evil, the class studies incidents of genocide, terrorism and torture. At the end of each session, to balance the heavy topic, students share “antidotes to evil,” including uplifting stories and videos, and offer ways individuals can combat evil.

“I was on the receiving end of an evil act. The person who committed it had no concern for my feelings,” says Patricia Brennan, the professor of psychology who teaches the course. “This was not something I had experienced before, and it made me want to do research to get to the root of evil behavior. That was my inspiration for this course.”

On the first day of the class last Maymester, students developed their own group definition for the topic: “Evil is defined as 
a selfish human act that defies situational expectations, is intended to harm, and is accompanied by a lack of remorse for actions.”

The class “is very relevant because there is evil all around us, whether we choose to observe it or not,” says Amrita Chatterjee, a senior majoring in business. “How we defined evil, and how we can prevent it, molded my perception of evil and how we can take it on as a societal issue.”

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Apes vs. humans: Finding common ground

Is war ever truly inevitable?

That question is central to “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” opening this weekend. The movie is the latest in the “Apes” drama series featuring a character named Caesar, an ape raised by humans who leads a simian rebellion against the human race.

Fear and misunderstanding can easily lead to violence, says Emory political scientist Shawn Ramirez, an expert on conflict resolution. In this video, Ramirez considers the plot to “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” as a mirror to real-life situations.

“I think it’s really hard when one side sees the other as a lesser – a lesser species or a lesser race or a lesser ethnicity or religion,” Ramirez says. “It’s very hard to overcome that.”

What can one side do when they face that issue?

“I think Hollywood captures this, actually,” Ramirez says, “because usually it’s some central characters that move over to the other side and they start communicating to the other side and realize that there is something more valuable there.”

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A wild view of "Planet of the Apes"

The psychology of screams

By Carol Clark

Pay no mind to those bone-chilling sounds of terror and anguish coming from the lab of Emory psychologist Harold Gouzoules. He’s harvesting screams.

He gets the sounds from Hollywood movies, TV shows and YouTube videos. His collection includes classic performances by “scream queens” like Jaime Lee Curtis and Fay Wray, along with the screams of non-actors reacting to actual events. “It seems everything these days is recorded and shared,” Gouzoules says.

As one of the few scientists researching human screams, he’s amassed an impressive library of high-intensity, visceral sounds. In one of his clips, a woman shrieks in fear as aftershocks from the meteor that exploded over Russia shake a building. Another of his YouTube finds is a little girl’s prolonged, ear-splitting squeal of delight as she opens a Christmas present.

“The ability to belt out a scream is deeply rooted in our evolutionary history, and is no doubt critical to our survival,” he says.

Actress Drew Barrymore in Wes Craven's original "Scream."

Gouzoules first began researching monkey screams, decades ago. He learned that, during fights, rhesus monkeys make particular screams depending on the situation. The different screams communicate to the screamer’s nearby relatives and allies whether it’s a serious fight, requiring their assistance, or just a minor squabble.

More recently, Gouzoules began studying human screams. Study participants come to his “scream lab” and listen to various audio files on a computer, without any visual cues for context. The preliminary results show that participants tend to agree on what sounds should be classified as a scream, as opposed to a moan or a yell. In addition, most participants tend to be good at telling whether different screams come from the same person.

“We’ve also found that people can distinguish different types of screams: A happy scream, a frightened scream, a scream given in pain,” Gouzoules says. “Some people are better at this than others. What we found is that these differences correlate with measures of empathy.”

Gouzoules has no trouble recruiting study participants. “People find screams inherently interesting,” he says. “Most of us live fairly ordinary lives and screaming is not that common. I don’t think that was true evolutionarily – there were lots of things that prompted us to scream.”

Despite our fascination with screams, science knows relatively little about them. Gouzoules is honing in on tone, pitch and frequency to try and uncover the hidden patterns and complexities carried in the most intense sounds of human terror, joy and pain.

Putting people into the climate change picture

A farmer examines a field baked dry by drought.

Forget the image of a polar bear stranded on a shrinking ice floe. “Climate change is not just about polar bears. It’s a societal issue,” said George Luber, associate director for climate change at the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health.

Luber recently kicked off a fall lecture series on climate change put together by Emory’s Department of Environmental Studies. Luber is a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report.

“If you’re a people person, you ought to care about climate change,” he said.

Rising sea levels and more extreme weather events like floods, droughts, wildfires, major storms and heat waves are some of the better-known examples of how humans will be affected, he said.

What’s harder to grasp is how a warmer planet can cause catastrophic snowfall. Diminished ice coverage in the Great Lakes, Luber explained, makes more water available for evaporation, which can translate to heavier snowfall in the winter.

“Cities and climates are co-evolving in a manner that will place more populations at risk,” he said. He noted that, in 2008, the proportion of people living in cities reached 50 percent for the first time.

One confusing aspect of climate change is variation in the trend of warmer weather. Here's a great animation explaining the difference between trend and variation:


Heat waves are generally alleviated by cooler evenings, enabling people to better withstand the shock of extreme daytime temperatures. That’s changing, however, as urban heat island effects are allowing almost no cooling at night, Luber said. He cited a recent record high for a night-time temperature in Phoenix of 99 degrees.

A few other health impacts Luber noted:

Higher urban temperatures cause an increase in harmful ozone concentrations.

Wind-carried dust, including such dramatic displays as haboobs, help disperse fungal infections like Valley Fever.

Harmful algae blooms and their associated toxins could be spurred by warmer than usual water temperatures and other factors related to climate change.

Higher temperatures, drought and torrential rainfall stress plants and degrade agricultural cops. Elevated carbon dioxide levels also lower the protein concentrations in grains that feed the world.

Lyme disease, spread by ticks, and other vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, dengue fever and West Nile virus, are expected to expand their prevalence and range.

A dust storm closes in on homes in Phoenix.

Mental health is another concern, as people deal with everything from the trauma of extreme weather events to the day-to-day stress of a booming population in a warming world. “Much like a previous generation feared nuclear annihilation, climate change weighs on kids today,” Luber said. “Paralysis is an easy consequence of all this fear.”

Uriel Kitron, chair of environmental studies, put together the lecture series for students in his Seminar on Environmental Studies. Others are welcomed to attend the talks, but be forewarned: It’s standing room only.

“The goal is to give a better understanding of the human impact on the environment and the acuteness of the problem of a changing climate,” Kitron says. “We can’t just sit back and watch.”

Five more talks are planned for the series, which continues through December 2. Upcoming speakers include Eri Saikawa, from Emory’s Department of Environmental Studies, Karen Levy, of Rollins School of Public Health, and Daniel Rochberg, an Emory graduate who is now with the U.S. State Department. Click for the full schedule: Talks begin at 4 pm in the Math and Science Center, room N306.

Related:
Crime may rise along with Earth's temperatures
Why the future of fuel lies in artificial photosynthesis

Photo credits: Top, istockphoto.com; bottom, Wikipedia Commons.

Helping everyone see the light of evolution

"If we don’t help everyone understand what constitutes science and what constitutes faith, we’re bound to run into more problems," says evolutionary biologist Jaap de Roode.

By Carol Clark

Jaap de Roode likes to tell his Evolutionary Biology students: “I don’t believe in evolution.”

It gets their attention. Then he explains: “Evolution isn’t a belief, it’s a theory. You may believe in God and have faith in a religion, but when it comes to science, you look at the evidence for a theory and then decide whether to accept it.”

Any perceived conflict between science and religious beliefs often comes down to semantics, says de Roode, assistant professor of biology at Emory. “I want all of my students to understand the meaning of ‘scientific theory’ and why science is different from faith, but doesn’t have to be in conflict with it,” he says.

Adding to the confusion is the popular use of the word “theory” to describe a hunch or a guess. In science, a hypothesis is more akin to a hunch or a guess, while a theory refers to a body of knowledge supported by considerable evidence, such as gravitational theory or cell theory.

Despite his efforts, at the end of 16 weeks of teaching evolution theory, de Roode sometimes has one or two students complain on their class evaluation forms that he should include opposing views.

“It’s shocking to me that even some seniors, after taking many science courses, still don’t understand that scientifically, there is no alternative to evolution theory,” de Roode says. “They don’t want to fail the class, so they give me the answers they know that I want to see, but they remain skeptical. That bugs me as a scientist, and as a teacher.”

Forty-six percent of Americans responding to a Gallup poll in 2012 said that they believe God created humans in their present form within the past 10,000 years or so, a belief sometimes referred to as “creationism.”

While only a tiny fraction of Emory students report feeling that way to de Roode, even one is too many for him.

“Part of the reason that some of these students don’t want to accept evolution is fear,” he says. “They see and understand the evidence, but they are afraid that it means they will have to give up their faith. I feel strongly that it is my role to help students resolve this conflict.”

The issue came to a head last year, when Emory tapped Ben Carson for its 2012 commencement speaker. In addition to being a renowned neurosurgeon, Carson is a 7th Day Adventist and an advocate of creationism.

A student in de Roode’s class brought Carson’s views on evolution to his attention. De Roode joined with several other faculty to write a letter, published by the Emory Wheel, aimed not at disinviting Carson, but to call attention to Carson’s denial of evolution, and a statement he made implying that accepting evolution was akin to dismissing ethics.

The Emory faculty countered that evolution and the scientific method are not at odds with being moral or religious. “Dr. Carson insists on not seeing a difference between science, which is predictable and falsifiable, and religious belief systems, which by their very nature cannot be falsified,” they wrote. “This is especially troubling since his great achievements in medicine allow him to be viewed as someone who ‘understands science.’”

"Science doesn't invent nature. Science reveals nature," says Joel Martin, author of "The Prism and the Rainbow: A Christian Explains Why Evolution is Not a Threat."

Four hundred others from across the Emory community signed in support of the letter. De Roode points out that he is a great admirer of Carson as a physician. “But it’s important to pay attention to this issue of anti-scientific views,” de Roode says, “because it is standing in the way of scientific progress and the future of this nation. As a university, we are training the country’s future leaders.”

De Roode and other Emory faculty, including biologist Arri Eisen, biophysicist Ilya Nemenman and chemist David Lynn got together with Emory President James Wagner to discuss how to help students struggling to resolve any perceived conflict between scientific evidence and their religious beliefs. They launched a series of small, informal dinners and speaker seminars called “The Nature of Knowledge.”

Five students turned up to discuss evolution and faith at the first dinner, hosted by de Roode and Lynn, and including representatives from Campus Life and the Dean of the Chapel and Religious Life.

“I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family,” said a freshman majoring in neuroscience and behavioral biology, explaining why he attended the dinner. “I asked my youth counselor in church about the science of evolution that I was learning in high school and he just said, ‘Don’t pay any attention to that.’ But as you grow older, you have to make your own decisions.”

The student added that he has long been a fan of Bill Nye “the science guy,” and a recent video by Nye called “Creationism is Not Appropriate for Children,” prompted him to think more deeply about the topic.

While he accepts evolutionary theory, he finds it odd that, “when high school teachers talk about it, they feel like they have to say, ‘I don’t want to offend anyone’s religious beliefs.’”


In the above video, Bill Nye "the science guy" gives his views on teaching evolution.

The first “Nature of Knowledge” seminar speaker, Joel Martin, drew a standing-room-only audience to Emory’s Harland Cinema last fall. Martin is both an evolutionary biologist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church USA, where he works with high school youth ministry. He published a book in 2010 called “The Prism and the Rainbow: A Christian Explains Why Evolution is Not a Threat.”

“When light hits a drop of water, it refracts. It’s a stunning natural spectacle,” Martin told the Emory audience, adding that knowing how a rainbow works does not have to remove God from the picture. “Science does not invent nature. Science reveals nature,” he said. “If this is God’s world, science can only reveal God’s world.”

Martin described a growing disconnect between youth, science and faith. He noted that most major Christian denominations in the United States officially accept the science of evolution, even though some of the members may not.

“The most respected theologians that we have need to come forward and be much more vocal on this issue,” Martin said.

Kyle Niezgoda, a junior majoring in environmental studies, found Martin’s talk beneficial, although he has never doubted evolution.

“I think it’s important to understand how others think and feel, so you can work towards a common goal instead of just arguing,” said Niezgoda, who plans to go to graduate school to study atmospheric science. “The more I get involved in science, the more I realize the importance of being able to translate what I learn to the public, especially when it comes to things like climate change.”

In the spring, a second “Nature of Knowledge” seminar featured Emory primatologist Frans de Waal, who talked about his new book, “The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates.” He described the growing scientific evidence that morality predates religion.

“The Nature of Knowledge” program will continue the series in the fall, with plans to expand some of its events to involve resident life in the dorms.

“We don’t want to stage useless debates between evolution proponents and opponents,” de Roode said. “We’re trying to educate students about the wonderful world around us, rather than have fireworks. If we don’t help everyone understand what constitutes science and what constitutes faith, we’re bound to run into more problems and our children will suffer for it.”

Photos by iStockphoto.com

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Brain trumps hand in Stone Age tool study
A brainy time traveler

Psychopathic boldness tied to U.S. presidential success

After a gunman shot him in the chest in 1912, Theodore Roosevelt went ahead and delivered a scheduled speech, blood leaking onto his shirt. "Friends," he began, "I don't know whether you fully understand that I've just been shot. But it takes more than that to bring down a Bull Moose." Click on the medical X-ray, above, for a better view of the bullet (lower left).

By Carol Clark

The fearless dominance associated with psychopathy may be an important predictor of U.S. presidential performance, suggests an analysis published this week in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

“Certain psychopathic traits may be like a double-edged sword,” says lead author Scott Lilienfeld, a psychologist at Emory University. “Fearless dominance, for example, may contribute to reckless criminality and violence, or to skillful leadership in the face of a crisis.”

In fact, fearless dominance, linked to low social and physical apprehensiveness, appears to correlate with better-rated presidential performance for leadership, persuasiveness, crisis management and Congressional relations, the analysis showed.

Theodore Roosevelt ranked highest in fearless dominance, followed by John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Rutherford Hayes, Zachary Taylor, Bill Clinton, Martin Van Buren, Andrew Jackson and George W. Bush.

John F. Kennedy in PT-109 during his Navy years.

The analysis drew upon personality assessments of 42 presidents, up to George W. Bush, compiled by Steven Rubenzer and Thomas Faschingbauer for their book “Personality, Character and Leadership in the White House.” More than 100 experts, including biographers, journalists and scholars who are established authorities on one or more U.S. presidents, evaluated their target presidents using standardized psychological measures of personality, intelligence and behavior.

For rankings on various aspects of job performance, the analysis relied primarily on data from two large surveys of presidential historians: One conducted by C-SPAN in 2009 and a second conducted by Siena College in 2010.

The rich historical data on presidents, combined with detailed expert rankings, provided a window into an emerging theory that some aspects of psychopathy may actually be positive adaptations in certain social situations.

“The way many people think about mental illness is too cut-and-dried,” Lilienfeld says. “Certainly, full-blown psychopathy is maladaptive and undesirable. But what makes the psychopathic personality so interesting is that it’s not defined by a single trait, but a constellation of traits.”

A clinical psychopath encompasses myriad characteristics, such as fearless social dominance, self-centered impulsivity, superficial charm, guiltlessness, callousness, dishonesty and immunity to anxiety. Each of these traits lies along a continuum, and all individuals may exhibit one of more of these traits to some degree.

“You can think of it like height and weight,” Lilienfeld explains. “Everyone has some degree of both, and they’re continuously distributed in the population.”

Andrew Jackson, shown standing on a parapet during the Battle of New Orleans, earned the nickname "Old Hickory," due to his toughness and aggressive personality.

The results of the analysis raise the possibility that the boldness often associated with psychopathy may confer advantages over a variety of occupations involving power and prestige, from politics to business, law, athletics and the military.

The findings also add to the debate over the idea of the so-called “successful psychopath,” an individual with psychopathic traits who rises to a position of power in the workplace.

“We believe more research is needed into the implications of boldness for leadership in general,” Lilienfeld says.

The analysis found that the link between fearless dominance and political performance was linear, Lilienfeld notes, but he added that at the extremes, boldness might veer into a form of recklessness that would be detrimental.

Lyndon B. Johnson giving "the treatment" to Georgia Senator Richard Russell. Johnson would dominate an encounter by standing inches away from a visitor's face, bombarding his guest with an intense monologue.

The researchers also looked at presidential scores for self-centered impulsivity, which in contrast to boldness, was linked to some negative job performance indicators, including Congressional impeachment resolutions, tolerating unethical behavior in subordinates and negative character. 

Theodore Roosevelt, for instance, ranked the highest for fearless dominance, but lower than average for self-centered impulsivity, suggesting that he was far from being psychopathic.

Lyndon Johnson, however, ranked relatively high for fearless dominance (15th) and was among the top-five scorers for self-centered impulsivity. “That’s consistent with what we know about Johnson,” Lilienfeld says. “He was a very dominant, socially bold person, at times even ruthless about getting his way. In some sense, these traits may have made him an effective leader, able to push through civil rights legislation, but they may not have been so positive in terms of personal relationships.” 

Other co-authors of the analysis include Emory psychologist Irwin Waldman, former graduate student Kristin Landfield, and Ashley Watts, now a first-year graduate student in Emory’s clinical psychology program.

Related:
Does lack of fear drive psychopaths?

Credits: All images via Wikipedia Commons.

Batman and the psychology of trauma

Some people cope with trauma and devastating loss by becoming a stronger person, working through their pain and using their experiences to help society. But some people who endure severe trauma turn inward, crumple into depression or, even worse, go on to inflict pain onto others.

What is it about the human psyche that sets individuals down such different paths? That question drives everything from modern-day neuroscience to the plots of great literature and comic book super heroes.

In “The Dark Knight Rises,” the third and final installment in a Batman film triology, Bruce Wayne finally confronts the pain of loss that he has kept masked by fighting criminals.

In the above video, taped before the tragic real-life shooting at the film’s opening in Aurora, Colorado, Emory psychologist Jared DeFife discusses the dark themes of pain, anger and fear that shaped the character of Bruce Wayne.

“You can’t really understand Bruce Wayne without understanding the childhood trauma of seeing his parents murdered in front of him,” DeFife says.

On the one hand, Wayne turned his pain into a force for good, by battling for justice for others, Defife says. But in order to fight crime, Bruce Wayne created the alter ego of Batman.

“A split-off identity comes at great cost,” DeFife says, noting that it also happens sometimes in real life. “After a traumatic experience, whether it be combat trauma, motor vehicle accidents or crimes that occur, people can begin to split off aspects of themselves even more so than other people. Because dealing with those events, trying to make sense of those events, can lead people to disassociate. They sort of withdraw from the stimuli going on in the world.”

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CDC disease detectives to chat live online

Epidemics have been with us since people began living in cities. “An almost inevitable accompaniment to the fevers, and the coughs and other symptoms of these epidemics has been fear,” says Jeffrey Koplan, director of the Emory Global Health Institute and a former director of the CDC.

The hit movie “Contagion” begs the question, how will the CDC control the next outbreak and the public panic? You can ask CDC experts, including members of the elite Epidemic Intelligence Service, during two live Twitter chats, on Friday, Sept. 16 and Monday, Sept. 19 from 2 to 3 p.m.

You can follow #CDCcontagion live on Twitter, and you can also submit questions in advance to @CDCgov.

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Filmmaker turns back the clock in 'Tick Tock'

Steve Jobs once said, “Almost everything, all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure, these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. “

That quote, and the terror of a lab safety violation, lead to some serious, last-minute soul searching in “Tick Tock,” winner of both Best Picture and Best Director at the 2011 International Campus Moviefest, recently announced in Hollywood.

Emory junior Ien Chi wrote, directed and edited the short film. The psychological drama was shot in one take on Emory’s Oxford Campus. Shown in reverse, the movie ends, or should we say begins, with a twist. It has already become a YouTube hit with nearly 1 million views.

Chi describes his heroes as Steve Jobs, Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci. It will be interesting to see where this eclectic mix of science, technology and art leads him next.

Misreading faces tied to child social anxiety

"If you misread facial expressions, you're in social trouble, no matter what other social skills you have," says Emory psychologist Steve Nowicki. 

By Carol Clark

Children suffering from extreme social anxiety are trapped in a nightmare of misinterpreted facial expressions: They confuse angry faces with sad ones, a new study shows.

“If you misread facial expressions, you’re in social trouble, no matter what other social skills you have,” says Emory psychologist Steve Nowicki, a clinical researcher who developed the tests used in the study. “It can make life very difficult, because other people’s faces are like a prism through which we look at the world.”

It’s easy to assume that a socially anxious child would be especially sensitive to anger. “It turns out that they never learn to pick up on anger and often make the error of seeing it as sadness,” Nowicki says. “It sets up a very problematic interaction.”

Some socially anxious children long to interact with others, he says, and may try to comfort someone they think is sad, but who is actually angry. “They want to help, because they’re good kids,” Nowicki says. “I’ve seen these kids trying to make a friend, and keep trying, but they keep getting rebuffed and are never aware of the reason why.”

The study was co-authored by Amy Walker, a former undergraduate student at Emory, now at Yeshiva University, and will be published in the Journal of Genetic Psychology.

It is unclear whether misreading the facial expression is linked to the cause of the anxiety, or merely contributing to it.

By identifying the patterns of errors in nonverbal communication, Nowicki hopes to create better diagnostic tools and interventions for children with behavioral disorders.

For more than two decades, in association with Emory psychologist Marshall Duke, Nowicki has produced a groundbreaking body of work on how non-verbal communication impacts a child’s development. They have found that in a range of children with behavioral disorders, including high-functioning autism, direct teaching can improve their non-verbal communication.

“When I first started this work, people asked me, why are you doing this? Everybody can recognize emotions in faces,” Nowicki recalls. Nonverbal communication was not taken that seriously, and relegated to popular magazine articles like, “Seven ways to improve your body language.”

In his clinical practice, however, Nowicki noticed that some children who had trouble socializing appeared to misinterpret nonverbal clues. He sought ways to measure the deficits and remediate them.

“My heart went out to these kids,” he says. “I had the idea that nonverbal communication could be taught. It’s a skill, not something mysterious.”

Nowicki and Duke termed the coin “dyssemia,” meaning the inability to process signs. They also developed the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy (DANVA) to assess subtle cues to emotional expressions, including visual signals and tone and cadence of voice. DANVA is now widely used by researchers in studies of everything from emotionally disturbed children to the relationships between doctors and their patients.

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Top 10 facts about non-verbal communication

Non-verbal communication has a huge impact on a child's social well-being, yet development of this skill is often overlooked, says Emory psychologist Steve Nowicki. 

By Carol Clark

What you don’t say during a face-to-face encounter can deliver a stronger message than words.

“Non-verbal communication is at least as important, if not more important, than the verbal part of relationships,” says Emory psychologist Steve Nowicki, a leading expert in the nuances of body language. “When you break a non-verbal rule of language, it almost always has a negative emotional impact.”

And yet, the elaborate codes of facial expressions, postures and gestures that form the basis of non-verbal communication are learned informally and indirectly, primarily from our parents, he says.

He cites his own experience of having a reserved, Polish father and a boisterous Italian mother. “At times, the only sign that my father was upset was the way he would raise one eyebrow by a certain degree,” Nowicki recalls. “My mother, on the other hand, never met an emotion that she didn’t express immediately and vividly.”

Between the pair of them, Nowicki learned to interpret and use the gamut of non-verbal signals. “But imagine what a boy who was raised by two parents like my mother would be like when he got to school,” Nowicki says. If a teacher delivered a command in a soft, even tone characteristic of preschool instructors, the child would be likely to miss the teacher’s message entirely and perhaps get labeled as “oppositional.”

For more than two decades, in association with Emory psychologist Marshall Duke, Nowicki has produced a groundbreaking body of work in how non-verbal communication impacts a child’s development. They developed the Diagnostic Analysis of Non-verbal Accuracy (DANVA) a set of tests to access subtle cues to emotional expressions, including visual signals and tone and cadence of voice. The test is in use by researchers around the world.

“Research has shown that most people overestimate their non-verbal communication skills,” Nowicki says.

In the following Q&A, he answers 10 questions based on research by himself and others.

Is non-verbal communication skill associated with personal and social adjustment?

Yes, DANVA errors in children can help predict future personal and social difficulties, including anxiety, ADHD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, lower self-esteem and being the victim of bullies.

Can the ability to read non-verbal emotions be improved?

Yes, direct teaching of children, including those with high-functioning autism, can lead to significant improvement in their DANVA scores.

Are there any drawbacks to being extremely good at reading others?

Yes. You have to be careful if you are especially adept at sensing the non-verbal signals of others, because you may pick up emotional signals that they are unaware of sending and would rather hide. For instance, when you tell someone that they look a little tired and sad, they might take offense, even if it’s true.

Is non-verbal communication skill tied to cognitive ability?

No, except when the IQ is below 70. For those with average IQs and above, there does not appear to be a correlation between non-verbal communication skills and intelligence.

Is the ability to interpret non-verbal cues correlated to the ability to express them?

No, not much. Even if you’re good at reading people’s non-verbal cues, it doesn’t mean that you’re not sending out faulty messages yourself. They appear to be two different skills.

Is non-verbal communication interpreted the same way across cultures?

No, culture has a significant impact. Studies have shown, for instance, that African-Americans can read white faces as well as they can read African-American faces. White people, however, do not read African-American faces as well, and when they misinterpret their facial expressions, they tend to read them as angry. You can imagine the potential kinds of problems this might cause.

Do children acquire the ability to read the emotions of facial expressions in a particular order?

Yes, studies show that children tend to learn to read a happy expression first, followed by sad, angry and then fearful expressions.

Does older age affect non-verbal communication skill?

Yes. As we become elderly, our ability to read emotions can erode, and it seems we lose skill in emotions in the opposite order that we acquired them as children. Happy is the last one to go.

Between the ages of 45 and 55, we begin to lose the ability to pick up emotions in voices, and by ages 55 to 65 loss in the ability to read faces follows. However, what remains the same at any age is that better skill compared to peers is correlated with better personal and social adjustment.

What is the effect of a neutral expression?

There is no such thing as a neutral face, because a neutral face is usually interpreted negatively.

About one-third of people have an off-putting “resting face” and they don’t realize it. Their faces, when they are thinking about nothing in particular and feeling no emotion, are actually communicating something negative. As we age, this tendency grows. It is estimated that more than half of people above the age of 65 have a negative resting face.

Do nonverbal communication skills correlate to attitudes toward robots?

Yes. Believe it or not, a study showed that people who are not good at reading the emotional cues in human body postures tend to dislike robots.

Related:
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Does lack of fear drive psychopaths?
How we learn language
Gestures may point to speech origins

Dalai Lama: Make inner peace, not war

“It seems clear that it’s important to synthesize ideas” and move towards an integrated understanding of the world, and of our selves, His Holiness the Dalai Lama said during his recent visit to Emory.

His visit began with an update on the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative (ETSI). The initiative aims to combine insights from centuries of Tibetan-Buddhist compassion meditation with the knowledge of modern science.

During the past 100 years, science and technology have advanced tremendously, “but at the same time, the 20th century was a century of bloodshed. More than 200 million people were killed through violence,” he said.

“Nuclear physics was one of the great achievements for science, but that great achievement brought fear and destruction,” the Dalai Lama said, referring to the use of nuclear weapons by the United States during World War II.

“Scientific achievement, in order to be constructive, to bring more happiness, more peace and a healthier world, ultimately depends on our minds and our emotions,” he said, adding that special efforts are needed to try to cultivate inner peace. “What’s important is the sense of well-being for others, in other words a compassionate attitude.”

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Your money and the herd mentality

Fear operates all the time in the financial markets, Gregory Berns, director of the Emory Center for Neuropolicy, told PBS Nightly Business Report. The herd mentality, or the idea that other people know more than you do, is “extremely potent, extremely hard to resist,” he says.

Berns’ neuroeconomics research includes brain-imaging studies of how other people’s opinions shape an individual’s perception.

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Galileo's view of the sky

NASA photo of Halley Comet from 1986.

Emory celebrated Galileo’s birthday Feb. 15 with a talk by Vatican astronomer Brother Guy Consolmagno.

“Because of light pollution, I suspect many of the undergraduates in this room have never seen the Milky Way, which is a real tragedy,” he said.

Consolmagno told of his own “soul-shaking experience” of seeing his first comet. He described the 1618 comet controversy, when Galileo asserted that comets were an optical illusion, and how he ridiculed a more accurate theory by Jesuit mathematician Orazio Grassi. The controversy was among the circumstances contributing to Galileo being put on trial by the Catholic Church, for championing the idea of a sun-centered solar system. He ended his life under house arrest.

“Both Galileo and Grassi reacted with deep passion to this comet, and both were guilty of seeing more of what they wanted to see than what was actually there,” Consolmagno said.

“Galileo was brilliant. He got so many things right that the things he got wrong stick out like sore thumbs,” he added. “Scientific truth is at best always incomplete. No one who wants to study comets today bothers to read Grassi or Galileo, because our understanding has come so much further. And a textbook on comets in 2410 will make our work today look pretty obsolete. At least, I hope so.”

Check out this hilarious video of Consolmagno's appearance on "The Colbert Report."

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Gold, Frankincense and Mars - Guy Consolmagno
www.colbertnation.com
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