Friday, September 28, 2012

Ig Nobel Prizes give cheeky nod to science


Emory primatologist Frans de Waal can add to his long list of honors the 2012 Ig Nobel Prize for Anatomy, for a study about how chimpanzees can identify other individual chimpanzees simply from looking at photographs of their rear ends. Here's a link to the 2008 study: "Faces and Behinds: Chimpanzee Sex Perception."

The Ig Nobel Prizes are handed out each year at Harvard University to recognize research "that first makes you laugh, then makes you think." The Guardian provides a great summary of this year's winners.

Scientific American's Scicurious Brain blog reports that de Waal was happy to win an Ig Nobel Prize, because scientists tend to take themselves too seriously. Scicurious Brain notes that the chimpanzee study was actually less about their butts and more about "gender constructs" and how chimpanzees recognize one another: "What they found that was chimps could easily match the sample butt to the sample face and showed good sex matching, but ONLY in the case of chimps that they knew personally. When it came to the random Facebook friend request, the chimps couldn’t match butt to face." 

Related:
Monkeys can recognize faces in photos
Finally, 'Noble Prizes' for animals

Image: iStockphoto.com

Monday, September 24, 2012

The drama over water



Water is now known as the new oil. Blue gold. The axis resource on which the development of all others turns. That humble liquid gushing out of your tap is a strategic commodity, the subject of a U.S. intelligence report that warns of a rising risk of political unrest and war over its increasingly scarce supply worldwide.

It’s also a theatrical headliner. A dance-for-camera drama called “Bend” explores our relationship to water, a relationship set to change dramatically in the face of climate change and other pressures. The video, above, shows a preview of the project, created by Lori Teague, choreographer and director of Emory’s Dance Program, and her husband, Mark Teague, videographer and stage manager at the Schwartz Center.

The public is invited to free, special showings of “Bend” on Thursday, September 27, at 7 pm, 8:30 pm and 10 pm in the Dance Studio of the Schwartz Center. Click here for details.

Related:
Behaviors of tiniest water droplets revealed
From Atlanta to Accra: The growing sewage problem
A few things you may not know about water

Friday, September 21, 2012

West Nile virus detected in metro-Atlanta mosquitoes and birds

A total of 3,142 human cases of West Nile virus in the United States, including 134 deaths, have been reported to the CDC so far this year.

Emory students trap mosquitoes for testing.
Cooler weather may reduce the spread of the mosquito-borne virus, but we’re not out of the woods yet. Students from Emory’s Department of Environmental Studies West Nile virus lab are finding a high number of mosquitoes infected with the virus in metro Atlanta parks.

Some birds infected with the virus have also been found in the lab's research sites, including Tanyard Creek Park and Grant Park, says Uriel Kitron, a disease ecologist and chair of the Department of Environmental Studies.

The mosquito that transmits West Nile virus is an evening mosquito, coming out an hour before sunset and staying active through the night, Kitron told Channel 2 Action News. Click here to read more at Channel 2 news web site about the Emory research, and how you can protect yourself from West Nile virus.

Related:
Mosquito hunters invent better disease weapon
Mosquito monitoring saves lives and money

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Measuring the healing power of touch



Many people agree that getting a massage makes them feel good. Researchers at Emory University are now quantifying the biological benefits of frequent massage, with the aim of developing potential therapies.

"We really don't know the precise biology of massage right now, but what I can tell you is this: Even in normal individuals, we're able to decrease the production of stress hormones," says Mark Hyman Rapaport, chair of Emory's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. "What we're able to demonstrate now is that repeated massage has an added effect." Watch the video, above to learn more.

The research is funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health.

"The only way we're going to discern what goes on with complementary or alternative treatments," Rapaport says, "is if an impartial funding agency like the federal government is involved in investigating whether there are true biological, beneficial effects associated with these atypical interventions. There may be many different ways to help individuals."

Related:
Frequent massage boosts biological benefits
Are hugs the new drugs?

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Psychologist takes on ballet's special demons

Nadine Kaslow is the Atlanta Ballet's first resident psychologist. Photo by Ann Borden.

By Sylvia Wrobel, Emory Health

For years, Nadine Kaslow kept her dancing a secret from professors and academic colleagues, fearful they would take her less seriously as a scholar if they knew.

As a fast-track science student at the University of Pennsylvania, she took daily ballet classes and taught in the university’s dance program. During her doctoral studies at the University of Houston, she was invited to join the Houston Ballet. No audition necessary, the director said—he had seen her dance—but she had to lose 15 pounds, a loss that would have left her, at almost 5’ tall, more than 30 pounds lighter than ideal body weight. Later while building her psychology career on the faculty at Yale, she continued ballet classes. And later still as a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory—where she directs the postdoctoral fellowship program in professional psychology and serves as chief psychologist at Grady Hospital—she enrolled in demanding classes at the Atlanta Ballet’s Centre for Dance Education.

"Ballet breeds perfectionism."
There she met Centre Director Sharon Story and Atlanta Ballet Artistic Director John McFall. Soon after, Kaslow was named the Atlanta Ballet’s first resident psychologist. There is no job description. But in consultations and therapy sessions, Kaslow tackles psychological issues faced by the dancers. She also works with parents of younger students and with McFall and Story on employment issues that involve psychological factors. It’s a broad turf that she understands well.

"Dancers are incredible athletes," says Kaslow, "and they face many of the same psychological issues that can interfere with any athlete’s performance—for example, anxiety, injury, or excess competitiveness."

But ballet has its special demons, in part because it is an art in which the dancer’s body is the instrument, finely tuned and incredibly visible.

"Ballet breeds perfectionism," says Kaslow. A little can be good; too much and dancers become so focused on technique, expectations, and mistakes that they can’t enter the flow of the dance itself. Kaslow tries to lead dancers away from a quest for perfectionism toward one for excellence.

For many, perfectionism involves fretting about the body. The classic, streamlined ballet body is long-limbed, flat-chested, and lean. Very lean. The Atlanta Ballet’s nutritionist, Emily Harrison, also a former dancer, helps members of the troupe understand nutrition and deal with their sometimes love/hate relationship with food. For her part, Kaslow helps the dancers deal with guilt associated with food.

Body image issues, prevalent in the larger society, start early in ballet, so Kaslow frequently discusses the subject with parents of pre-professional students. Another issue that begins at an early age: balancing dance with friendships and activities off stage. And a big issue that football players don’t have to face? Many young male dancers have to decide either how to come out to family and friends if they are gay or, even more challenging, how to deal with the constant assumption that they are gay when they aren’t.

The tight-knit ballet company members in Atlanta and elsewhere have their share of romantic entanglements, too, all with the usual potential for psychological fallout but with an extra twist. How do you dance an intimate, highly sexualized pas de deux with a former romantic partner with whom you don’t want to exchange glances, much less publically intertwine?

Professional dancers also have to think about life after ballet—and soon. Most ballet careers end when dancers approach their late 30s. What makes it worse emotionally as well as practically, says Kaslow, is how little most dancers make, how hard even successful dance companies struggle financially.

Today, Kaslow no longer worries how others see her dual life of psychologist and ballerina. She encourages friends and patients alike to find a way to keep their passions alive in their lives.

Related:
Former Miss America discusses anorexia
Colleges still a hot spot for eating disorders

Image of ballet slippers: iStockPhoto.com.