Thursday, May 28, 2009

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

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

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.

Friday, May 22, 2009

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