Farming ants reveal evolution secrets

“Ants have been growing fungus for 50 million years,” says biologist Nicole Gerardo. “That provides a lot of time for many adaptations to arise, and for the ants’ agricultural practices to become more advanced.”

For example, bacteria on the body of some ants inhibits a killer of the ants’ fungus crop. “Humans go and buy an insecticide for a particular pest in their gardens, but these ants have the pesticide right on their bodies,” Gerardo says.

The Gerardo lab studies the environmental, chemical and molecular processes that occur between bacteria, the ants and the fungi. This complex symbiosis could provide clues to improving agriculture methods and fighting human diseases.

Take a video tour of the world of these fascinating gardening ants, including micro footage by biology research specialist Nancy Lowe.

Related:
Working through the bugs of evolution

Using computers to explore the brain

Purkinje cells are among the most complex neurons in the brain. They can fire enormously fast, generating 100 spikes in activity every second. Hundreds of thousands of Purkinje cells are located in the cerebellar cortex, and each of these cells receives inputs from up to 200,000 other neurons.

"That just tells you how densely wired the brain is – it's a complex grid of connections," says biologist Dieter Jaeger. His lab is working at the forefront of computational neuroscience. He uses software to make 3D models of neurons from rat brains, and then applies differential equations to these models to simulate neural processes via the Emory High Performance Compute Cluster.

"We're trying to figure out the essence of information processing in the brain, and find clues to help cure diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's," says Jaeger. He compares the work of mapping the brain's processes to that of the early explorers of the Earth: "We're still finding new continents as we go."

Jaeger is one of the featured speakers in this week's workshop on Computational Modeling of Complex Human Systems. You can meet him and Emory scientists from a range of disciplines involved in computational modeling at a reception this afternoon, from 4 to 6 pm., in Cox Ballroom.

Erosion threatens barrier islands

Jeckyll Island, off the coast of southern Georgia, is shrinking. Environmental studies' Tony Martin helps explain why, in this report by ABC's "Good Morning America."

Beryllium dimer: Caught in the act of bonding

From Science News:

Beryllium is one of those self-loathing elements. Like helium or neon, an atom of beryllium should not partner with another, chemical theory says. But new research, published online May 21 in Science, definitively reports the nature of the beryllium-beryllium bond.

“It is a very peculiar molecule,” says Emory physical chemist Michael Heaven, who led the new work. The Be atom is small, and the calculations that describe its electronic and molecular properties “seem like something you can do with a paper and pencil,” he says. “But it turns out to be something where you need a supercomputer.”

Heaven's work was also featured in Nature.

Related:
Study discovers atoms can bond

University drug development enters new era

As a co-inventor of drugs taken by more than 94 percent of patients in the U.S. with HIV/AIDS and by thousands around the globe, chemistry's Dennis Liotta is a recognized leader and educator in university drug discovery. He also is a successful entrepreneur who has developed several biotechnology companies.

As director of the new Emory Institute for Drug Development, Liotta plans to keep building on Emory's focus on commercially neglected diseases, global health partnerships, mentored research, and multidisciplinary interactions, both within and outside the University.

Read more.

Why climate change lingers on back burner

Psychology's Drew Westen writes in the Huffington Post:

The best scientific evidence suggests that the best way to win public support for comprehensive energy and climate reform is not by presenting the public with the best scientific evidence. It is to talk with Americans in plain, emotionally compelling language that speaks to their values and concerns. ... One striking fact that gets people to sit up and take notice -- for example, that the 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 1990 -- is worth a thousand policy descriptions.

Geeks invade Hollywood

Following the publication of his book "Hollywood Science: Movies, Science and the End of the World," physics professor Sidney Perkowitz has now come up with a peer-reviewed list of good and bad science fiction movies. Read what the London Times has to say about it.

Neuroscience for animal lovers

Dolphin expert and neuroscientist Lori Marino offers up creative new ways for approaching and teaching science in the May issue of the Academic Exchange. An excerpt:

"One day, unexpectedly, I saw a video that changed the direction of my work forever. It was a video of the annual dolphin drive hunts that take place in Taiji, Japan. In these hunts, over several months, thousands of bottlenose dolphins and other small cetaceans are driven into a cove and hacked to death, their meat sold as a delicacy throughout Asia. The water runs red with their blood amidst the screams of juvenile dolphins who watch their mothers being brutally slaughtered.

"In the three minutes that I watched this video, my perspective shifted."

Read more.

'Mind of a scientist, heart of an activist'

Biology major Alexandra Kamins, Emory's second Gates scholar, plans to study the transmission of disease between humans and animals.

“The odds are that the next pandemic will be one of these diseases, and I want to do my part to stop it,” says Kamins.

Read more in Emory Magazine.

Would Manny Ramirez's Clone Use Steroids?

In a recent opinion piece for "Religion Dispatches," biology's Arri Eisen writes about the confusion over cloning:

Most Americans are against human cloning and most are against the use of steroids in sports. But I think this is because neither these people, nor anyone else for that matter, yet understands what the results and implications of these phenomena entail; as these become clearer, things will change, and I bet that the number of folks against these practices will decrease and over time may well even become a minority.

Continue reading.

Helping South Africa build a biotech industry

Chemical & Engineering News visits South Africa, to learn about the emerging biotech industry in the country. The trip included a visit to iThemba Pharmaceuticals, started by Emory chemist Dennis Liotta and other researchers.

What's your family's story?

View photo essay by Susan Smith, "Invisible Ranks."


From exploring the pain of dementia, to parent-child bonds formed through reading, the new online Journal of Family Life continues the path-breaking work of the Emory Center on Myth and Ritual in American Life (MARIAL).

The journal is currently accepting submissions on how families are adjusting to the recession. "We are interested in stories, rather than statistics, about family budgets, unemployment, searching for work, and paying bills and the mortgage," says Journal editor Marshall Duke, a child psychologist. "We want the Journal of Family Life to be a forum for how family life has changed because of the economy."

Spotting jaguars, in nature and art

"The jaguar is a very powerful animal, with a mystique," said John Polisar, a jaguar expert from the Wildlife Conservation Society, in a recent talk on science and art at the Carlos Museum. Although revered by ancient cultures in the Americas, the jaguar today is highly vulnerable to humans, and its habitat has contracted by 50 percent.

"Jaguars were an intermediary between humans and nature," said Rebecca Stone, curator of art of the ancient Americas at the Carlos. She showed ancient pottery that portrayed a shaman transforming into a jaguar, "to get the wisdom and power of the animal, to bring it back to heal people," she said.

For more on how science, nature, spiritualism and art blended in the ancient Americas, listen to this Carlos Museum podcast on shamanism.