An inside look at outrage

What makes a suicide bomber tick?

“Outrage is a distinct emotional state, but almost nothing is known about its physiological effect on functional systems of the brain,” says neuroeconomist Gregory Berns, director of the Emory Center for Neuropolicy.

Berns is leading a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study of the brain when sacred values are perceived as being attacked or diminished. The U.S. Air Force and Navy are funding the study, focused on beliefs about religion, government policy, and other values that evoke strong feelings.

“Given the importance of sacred values and the potential for triggering violent conflict, it is important to understand how sacred values become intertwined in decision making,” Berns says. He believes that knowledge of how the brain reacts to irreverence of closely held beliefs could help lead to peaceful solutions during conflict negotiations.

“The Department of Defense is aware that it does no good to bomb a building if it creates more terrorists,” Berns says, “so it is keenly interested in understanding what drives an emotional reaction that is so strong that it has the potential to obliterate rational thinking. The outcome of this study could be a fist step in bringing people together who have opposing value systems.”

Related stories:
"Decisions, Decisions: The biology behind the sometimes irrational, often emotional, choices we make"

Star-crossed queen gets twinkle in her eye

Cassiopeia, a vain queen in Greek mythology, bragged that she and her daughter Andromeda were so beautiful that they put the sea nymphs to shame. Naturally, this boast angered Poseidon, who sent a sea monster to destroy her realm. The queen’s disgrace is also evident in her constellation. She sits in a chair that rotates around the North Star, putting her in an undignified upside-down position half the time.

At least she has something interesting to look at – within her gaze lies a Delta Scuti variable star. Emory astronomer Horace Dale identified the star’s classification last week, during an exercise of the advanced astronomy lab he teaches, and it was officially entered into the Variable Star Index on Oct. 22.

A variable star is one that changes its luminosity over short periods of time. In layman’s terms: It twinkles. And we’re talking a true twinkle, as opposed to the false twinkle-effect that the Earth’s atmosphere gives stars. When the first variable star was identified in 1638, it disproved theories by Aristotle and others that the stars were eternally the same and fueled the astronomical revolution sparked by Galileo’s telescope in 1609.

A Delta Scuti pulsating variable is an older star with gases that are rapidly expanding and contracting in both spherical and oblong shapes. Out of the 200 billion stars in our galaxy, only about 400 are known Delta Scuti. Dale is credited with identifying two of them, including another one in the Cassiopeia constellation that entered the index in 2007.

“Not many people are looking for them,” Dale says, explaining that it's painstaking work to identify one. Changes in luminosity must be measured over time to produce a light curve, such as the graph, above, from Dale’s most recent find.

Dale is on a mission to identify more. “I think it’s very important,” he says. “If you want to find out who we are, you have to look at the stars first, because that’s where we came from. Where do you think you got all the carbon in your body? It’s a product of the nuclear fusion process of stars. Carl Sagan said it best: We are made of star stuff.”

No bones about it: A great place to work

The Scientist magazine's readers ranked Emory as the 5th Best Place to Work in Academia in the United States. The ranking was based on a survey of more than 2,350 life scientists with a permanent position in an academic, hospital, government or research organization. The scientists represented 94 US institutions and 25 institutions from the rest of the world.

Emory ranked especially high in the categories of "peers" and "job satisfaction." The top four institutions were Princeton University, University of California-San Francisco, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. The top international institution was the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics.

Read the full survey results.

A new twist on an ancient story

“Evolution is a theory that we have more experimental evidence for than any other theory, and yet 50 percent of the population of the United States doesn’t accept it,” said David Lynn, professor of chemistry and biology, during a recent Creativity Conversation with choreographer David Neumann. “Maybe we’ve taken the wrong path in talking about evolution. In science we do a good job of conveying facts, but not a good job of telling the stories – what makes it human.”

Lynn’s research focuses on the origins of life. His desire to find new ways to explain science to the public inspired him to collaborate with Neumann, and the Seattle troupe Lelavision, as they developed dance performances. Their works, including Lelavision's "Warm Pond" (see photo), recently premiered in Atlanta.

“I was deeply influenced by the manner in which evolution operates and using those structures – contingencies and chance operations – in the structure of the dance,” Neumann said. “Sometimes when you utilize chance there’s a fantastic discovery.”

Watch a video of the conversation between Lynn and Neumann:


Related story:
Dancing with the scientists

The Cascade Range: Chemistry to climbing

Can you combine a high-powered career in chemical cascade research with a mountaineering hobby and still have time to form human bonds? Sure, if you rope colleagues into both adventures.

Emory’s Albert Padwa (above at Mount Rainer in 1984) gives a perspective of his 48-year career in a recent issue of the Journal of Organic Chemistry. The cover (see below) was designed by Emory chemist Stefan Lutz and features Annapurna, Nepal, the site of Padwa's latest climb.

What makes for excellence in science? “To me, it’s pushing out into completely new territory,” Padwa says.
Here’s an excerpt from the JOC article:

“I associate the top of mountains with success, achievement and freedom. In contrast, the lower part of the mountain possesses many obstacles and challenges which need to be overcome. This is really not so different from bringing a chemical project to fruition and getting it published…

“Because of the rate at which they increase molecular intricacy, cascade reactions have received considerable attention from my research team over the past 25 years. The development of sequences that combine transformations of differing fundamental mechanisms broadens the scope of such procedures in synthetic chemistry and provides me with continuing challenges for reaching an ‘ideal summit.’”