First blush: When babies get embarrassed

Put on some music and invite a rambunctious 2-year-old to dance, and you'll likely get an unabashed show. But an intriguing transition occurs between the ages of 2 and 3, says Philippe Rochat, professor of psychology. Three-year-olds are more likely to hesitate before moving to the music. They may refuse and seek refuge in the bosom of their mothers. Those who dance may blush – especially if someone laughs at the performance.

"The fear of social rejection is the mother of all fears," Rochat says. "It's a very powerful phenomenon – I think it's probably even stronger than the drive for sex. It helps define us as a species, and it cuts across all cultures."

Rochat's latest book is called "Others in Mind: The Origins of Self-Consciousness."

Related:
What is your baby thinking?

Can science keep the faith?

Arri Eisen, director of the Science & Society program, co-authored a commentary in the current issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education called, "Teaching Science, With Faith in Mind."

An excerpt:

Courts and classrooms have served as the arenas for the battle between evolution and creationism since the Scopes trial, in 1925. But why has the same match been fought, over and over, for the past 84 years? Why haven't we moved beyond such counterproductive contentiousness?

Science scholars and teachers have reacted to the various verdicts over the years by cheering or bemoaning them. It's time to stop simply reacting and really rethink the way we teach and communicate science to students and the public.

Continue reading.

From deadly flu to dengue fever: Rising risks

Uriel Kitron was in Australia last week, assisting health authorities in an outbreak of dengue fever in the state of Queensland, when news broke about the swine flu epidemic in Mexico.

Global travel and human alterations to the environment, such as rapid urbanization, are helping to fuel infectious diseases outbreaks, says Kitron, chair and professor of environmental studies. Kitron's research focuses on vector-borne diseases carried by insects and ticks and the zoonoses – diseases shared by humans and animals.

"In many developing countries, people are moving from rural areas to mega-cities, where they continue to practice subsistence agriculture," Kitron says. "Whenever you have large concentrations of people, domestic animals and poor sanitation and water supply, you have many opportunities for disease transmission."

Deforestation and other human changes to the landscape are other drivers of emerging infectious diseases, he added. "For example, when you bring agriculture into formerly forested areas, you change the migration patterns of animals and expose people and their livestock to more contact with wildlife," he explains.

Unusually hot, wet weather, a rapidly developing strain of the dengue virus, and a human traveler created "a perfect storm" for dengue fever in Queensland, Australia – which is experiencing its worst outbreak in two decades. About 1,000 people have become ill with the mosquito-borne illness. Dengue fever causes severe headaches and joint pain, and exposure to a second strain can result in hemorrhagic fever and death.

Kitron joined other experts in assisting Queensland health authorities. Kitron specializes in spatial epidemiology – using geographic information systems (GIS) and other methods to gather environmental data and create maps to pinpoint disease agents and their vectors in time and space.

The outbreak was traced to a patient who had recently traveled to Papua, New Guinea. "Although quite sick, he didn't go to a doctor for several weeks," Kitron says. "Whenever you have a lag time in diagnosis like that, you miss opportunities to prevent the spread of an outbreak."

Queensland's public health efforts – combined with cooler, drier weather – appeared to have stemmed the dengue fever outbreak for now. However, Kitron says the virus may be re-introduced, or could over-winter and re-emerge in the next hot season.

Drawing on Darwin

Click here to watch Ray Troll's Evolvo-Vision

Natural history artist Ray Troll recently visited Emory, to give his perspective on light, and on life. "Art relaxes me, and it's fun," said Julie Chang, a freshman biology major, during one of Troll's workshops. “I want to be a surgeon. I’m sure creativity will come into play because not all surgeries are the same, and not all bodies are the same.”

Evolutionary eating

Two million years ago, our hominid ancestors experienced a decrease in the length of the large intestine, and an increase in the length of the small intestine, which forced the early hominids to rely on high-density foods, according to George Armelagos, chair of anthropology.

Armelagos' expertise was cited in a recent article, "Evolutionary Eating," in the journal Today's Dietitian.

"There's no problem during the Paleolithic period, and probably not even in the Neolithic period," Armelagos says in the article, because there was never an abundance of high-density foods available. But with the industrialization of the food system, which happened only a few 100 years ago, "came the abundance of high-density foods, which can create problems for humans in terms of consumption," he notes.