Decatur Book Festival adds science track

Meet Bookzilla, below, your host for the AJC Decatur Book Festival Sept. 2-4. The literary sci-fi monster is the perfect mascot for what has grown into the largest independent book festival in the country. This year, the festival aligned with Atlanta Science Tavern to offer its first science track.

AJC Decatur Book Fest graphic
“An enormous number of great science books are coming out,” says Marc Merlin, a lead organizer of Atlanta Science Tavern and an Emory alum who majored in physics. “The book festival was looking for new ways to extend its program and didn’t have a particular expertise in selecting science authors, so this is a wonderful overlapping of interests.”

Emory physicist Sidney Perkowitz kicks off the science track on Saturday, Sept. 3 at 12:30 p.m. He’ll discuss his new book “Slow Light: Invisibility, Teleportation and Other Mysteries of Light.” Perkowitz will be followed by medical historian Holly Tucker from Vanderbilt University, author of “Blood Work: A Tale of Murder and Medicine in the Scientific Revolution.”

The science track continues on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. with a panel discussion “From Page to Pub to Podcast: Science Writers Address New Venues and New Media.” Panelists include Holly Tucker; Emory paleontologist Anthony Martin, whose book “Life Traces of the Georgia Coast” will be published this fall; and Maryn McKenna, author of Superbug and a blogger at Wired.com.

“They’ll share their experiences of being science educators in a world in which public communication about science now routinely takes place in bars and cafes and on Facebook and Twitter,” says Merlin, who will moderate the discussion.

Atlanta Science Tavern is a great example of the "social science" trend. The Meet-Up group, which gathers regularly at Manuel’s Tavern to hear scientists discuss their research, has grown to more than 1,300 members. “A lot of people are interested in finding out more about science, while also meeting like-minded people who share their wonder and excitement about the natural world,” Merlin says.

On Sunday at 5 p.m., Emory neuroscientist Karen Rommelfanger, who has a special interest in bioethics, will introduce the final speaker in the science track, neuroscientist David Eagleman. He’ll be discussing “Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain.” In the book, Eagleman argues that “all brains are not created equal. “ He imagines a future where neuroscience improves the ability to zero in on neural inequality, to the point where criminals could be sentenced based on a spectrum of neural “modifiability.”

Other Decatur Book Festival genres of interest to science lovers:


Nature, including Georgia author Janisse Ray.

Science fiction, including best-selling authors Beth Revis and Lee Gimenez.

Graphic novels, with Kyle Puttkammer, author of Galaxy Man.

Health and wellness, including a talk by Norman Rosenthal on transcendental meditation.

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Rock of ages: Music helps keep brain young

Credit: iStockphoto/LindaYolanda

Senior citizens who took music lessons as children for at least 10 years score higher on tests of memory and decision-making ability than non-musicians. In the video below, NBC Chicago reports on the findings by Emory neuropsychologist Brenda Hanna-Pladdy and the University of Kansas.

“It’s conceivable,” Hanna-Pladdy says, “that music activity creates cognitive reserves that may delay the presentation of dementia symptoms.”

Much research has been done to determine the cognitive benefits of musical activity by children. Hanna-Pladdy’s study, published by Neuropsychology in April, was the first to look at whether those benefits extend across a lifetime.

The earlier children undertake music training, the better, in terms of predicting their cognitive function in advanced age.

Another recent study, at Northwestern, shows that older adult musicians who began lessons as children have better hearing.



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An artistic spin on renewable energy

If you have the energy on Friday evening, gather up your molecules and head to downtown Atlanta to catch an acrobatic display of Emory’s research into sustainable fuel. The free performance begins at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 26 in Atlanta Underground, and will help launch a city of Atlanta urban art event, Elevate: Art Above Underground, that continues through October 30.

Conceptual artists from the Seattle group Lelavision will use music, dance and kinetic sculptures to interpret research of the Emory Bio-inspired Renewable Energy Center (EBREC). Emory scientists will be on hand to answer questions about molecular evolution, and the search for sustainable fuels and the origins of life.

In a previous collaboration with Emory chemist David Lynn, Lelavision interpreted supramolecular assembly. The result, called “Evolution in a Nutshell,” can be seen in the video below.


You can also catch Lelavision in action on Thursday and Friday, Sept. 1 and 2, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The Lelavision art installation for EBREC, including a looping video, will remain on display throughout the Elevate festival.

“I hope that the art intrigues people, so that they want to learn more about the cool science research going on in their community,” says Meisa Salaita, education coordinator for the Center for Chemical Evolution. The center, based at Emory and Georgia Tech, combines high-level research with an educational outreach program.

The Lelavision performance is part of the ongoing convergence of science and art fostered by the center, with the aim of engaging the public in research.

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Mountain gorillas: People in their midst

Fewer than 800 mountain gorillas survive, and about 480 of them are in the Virunga mountains of Central Africa. Photo by Winnie Eckardt.


By Carol Clark

Winnie Eckardt’s work commute begins with a half-hour car ride from town to forest, then continues on foot. It’s often a long trek through the mountainous jungle, and the weather is sometimes rainy and cold. She may have to trudge as long as six hours before she locates one of the groups of mountain gorillas in the Virunga volcanic mountains of Rwanda.

“Usually, I don’t mind walking up and down,” Eckardt says. “On days when the conditions are especially rough, being with the gorillas improves your mood. Spending time with them chills you out.”

Mountain gorillas are known for their tolerance and peaceful demeanor. “You can learn a lot about yourself by watching them,” Eckardt says. “They make you think about how you yourself behave and why. For me, it’s a huge privilege to work with the last remaining mountain gorillas.”

As a post-doctoral fellow in Emory’s department of environmental studies, Eckardt’s job is to observe the behavior of the endangered animals and collect their fecal samples to test for parasites and stress hormones. The first comprehensive mountain gorilla health-monitoring project is a collaboration between Emory, Zoo Atlanta, the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International and the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.
Emory post-doc Winnie Eckardt during a recent visit to campus, to meet with the team in the primate disease ecology lab. Photo by Carol Clark.

“This is the first time all of these organizations are working together for the benefit of the gorillas,” says Emory primate disease ecologist Tom Gillespie. “It’s a natural way to build on efforts that we’ve been working on separately for a long time.”

Fewer than 800 mountain gorillas are estimated to survive in the world. About 480 of them live in the Virunga mountains of Central Africa, where northwest Rwanda joins with southwest Uganda and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Poachers and loss of habitat are among the threats to the mountain gorillas. As humans use more land for farming, the animals are driven to higher altitudes, where the weather is colder and food is scarcer. The gorillas sometimes take food from eucalyptus trees and bamboo patches cultivated outside the park, risking an exchange of pathogens that is dangerous to both humans and the animals.

The national parks where the animals roam strictly limit the number of tourists that are allowed to see the gorillas. The aim is to balance the need for tourism income with protecting the health of the gorillas.

Photo by Innocent Rwego.

“What we know about pathogens in wild primates is still very limited,” says Gillespie. His lab will assess parasite loads from the fecal samples. A lab at the Lincoln Park Zoo will do the stress hormone analyses.

“The aim is to get a broad-brush understanding of whether the overall health of the animals is changing,” Gillespie says.

The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International is headquartered at Zoo Atlanta, and also runs the Karisoke Research Center in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park. The center was started by the late Dian Fossey in 1967, and has built up a 40-year database of gorilla life, behavior and habitat.

The health-monitoring project melds Karisoke’s ongoing behavioral research with biological analysis.

Does exposure to tourists increase the stress levels of mountain gorilla groups? Do the parasitic loads of gorillas change in relation to stress? How do weather changes affect their immune responses?

“We’re trying to identify key stress sources for the gorillas, and the potential impact of these stressors on their health for the long-term,” Gillespie says. “We want to provide useful data to help influence policy.”

Watch the BBC Worldwide video, below, to get an idea of what it's like to hike in search of mountain gorillas:


Eckardt was a natural choice to work on the field component of the project, based at Karisoke. A native of Germany, Eckardt stayed at Karisoke from 2004 to 2008 as a research assistant and dissertation student. Her study focused on the relationship between mountain gorilla mothers and their offspring.

She recalls when a 28-month-old female became separated from her mother and the rest of the group, perhaps because the group was startled by poachers and had to flee.

The young gorilla spent almost three days alone in the forest, in cold temperatures, before she found her way back to the group. “She was traumatized and she couldn’t walk very well,” Eckardt says. The mother refused to respond to the returning infant and the infant died that night.

“The physical challenge is not the hardest part of the job,” Eckardt says, explaining that, as a scientist, she must stay detached as she observes such behavior and let nature take its course.

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The iPhone is his instrument

What do you do with a major in math and computer science and a minor in music? Tim Soo, who graduated from Emory in 2010, used those degrees to create invisible musical instruments. He developed software that allows him to turn an iPhone and Wii remote into phantom orchestras, and play music in radical new ways.

It all started while Soo was at Emory and whipped up an invisible violin, using an I-Cube Touch Glove, a Wii-mote and a Max/MSP patch, because he had forgotten his actual violin and urgently needed to record a piece that he had composed for a music class.

Since then, Soo has advanced and polished the concept. His innovation brought him support from the Awesome Foundation and won him the top prize at this year’s Music Hack Day NYC and the MTV O Music Award.

Soo's web site, Invisible Instruments, invites visitors to tap his software for public and educational use, and to develop their own instruments.

The Invisible Instruments project is mainly a hobby, says Soo, and is currently on the back burner as he pursues a medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania. “My primary interests lie in patient-side medical technologies,” he writes on his blog.

One of his ongoing projects is a heartbeat app. The program ties a person’s heartbeat to the beats of a song to gradually lower the heart rate and reduce stress and mental pain.

A built-in brower searches for the top YouTube hits based on a playlist of songs entered by the user. “Should the heart rate become faster during a song, the subsequent song will have a slower tempo until the heart rate reaches an acceptable range,” Soo explains on his blog. “If the heart rate drops too low, Rick Astley sings ‘Never gonna give you up.’”

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