Synthetic cell: A step closer to 'recipe for life'

The creation of the first self-replicating, synthetic cell by the J. Craig Venter Institute is being hailed as a milestone in the history of biology and biotechnology. In the journal Science, the researchers described the steps to make a bacterial cell controlled by a chemically synthesized genome.

“It’s marvelous what they’ve done,” says Emory chemistry chair David Lynn. “They’ve taken a major step in defining a minimal set of chemical instructions for what we call living. This understanding, and the underlying technology, will certainly be extended and amplified into a synthetic biology. Their accomplishment also moves us that critical step closer to the definition of and a recipe for life. And that is profound.”

Watch the video, above, of Lynn explaining the discovery on CNN.

Lynn, professor of biomolecular chemistry, is working to understand supramolecular self-assembly, and how life may have originated on pre-biotic Earth.

“What Craig Venter and his team have done is taken the genome out of one organism and put it into another,” Lynn says. “Our group is coming at it from the opposite direction, of emergent life forms. Both approaches are trying to define the minimal chemical composition for life.”

Excitement over Venter's discovery should be tempered by caution, says Paul Wolpe, director of the Emory Center for Ethics. "Like any great scientific innovation, this has enormous promise and enormous peril," Wolpe said on ABC World News Tonight. "This may allow us to make more virulent viruses. This could unleash a bacterium on the world that has properties we didn't expect that could cause great disease and ecological damage."

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Prestige affects chimp behavior

When Brad Pitt begins sporting a fedora, chances are that many other young men will start wearing one, too. Anthropologists define this disproportionate influence as prestige, a trait that has been thought of as uniquely human – until now.

Emory researchers have discovered that chimpanzees prefer to follow the example of older, high-status individuals when it comes to solving a problem or adopting a new behavior. In a study recently published by PLoS One, chimpanzees from two separate groups watched two group mates, distinguished by status and experience, solve a foraging task, each using a different technique. When the observing chimpanzees were given the opportunity to solve the task, they overwhelmingly preferred the technique used by older, higher-status individuals with a proven track record of success.

“Because both techniques were equally difficult, shown an equal number of times by both models, and resulted in equal rewards, we concluded the most copied chimpanzee enjoyed more prestige than the other,” said Victoria Horner, from the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory. “If similar biases operate in the wild, the spread of cultural behaviors may be significantly shaped by the characteristics of the original performer.”

The research team also included Darby Proctor and Frans de Waal from Yerkes; Andrew Whiten from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and Kristin Bonnie from Beloit College.

The researchers hope that further studies will shed light on the relative influence of age, dominance rank and experience, all of which may contribute to chimpanzee prestige.

Read more about the Yerkes experiment in Discover magazine.

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Gritty childhood shapes criminologist

Robert Agnew wrote his first sociology paper while still in high school. Photo by Brian Meltz.

By Carol Clark

Emory sociologist Robert Agnew grew up in Atlantic City, New Jersey, during the 1950s and 1960s. It was the pre-casino era, and Atlantic City was a rundown, dying resort. Neither of Agnew’s parents finished high school and the family lived in the poorest section of town, known as the Inlet.

“It was the type of place where it’s easy to get interested in sociology,” Agnew says.

He attended Atlantic City High School, during an era of tense divisions of race and class. “There were regular fights,” Agnew says. He recalls an especially harrowing incident during a study hall, when he was sitting in the lower part of the auditorium. Students in the balcony began unscrewing large floodlights from the ceiling and throwing them down at the students in the lower seats.

"The atmosphere wasn't conducive to learning, but at the same time I was exposed to a lot of things that most people aren't, and I benefited from that," he says. "It became clear to me that social location has a large effect on one's behavior and views."

Agnew went on to develop one of the leading theories on the causes of crime and delinquency: General strain theory (GST).

Classic strain theory had focused on the inability to achieve middle class success. For his 1980 dissertation, Agnew expanded this line of thought into GST, which focuses on a range of additional strains or stressors. Those most strongly related to crime are high in magnitude, perceived as unjust, associated with low social control, and create some pressure or incentive for criminal coping. Examples include parental rejection, bullying, chronic unemployment, discrimination and criminal victimization.

Agnew’s 2007 book on the theory is called “Pressured into Crime.”

Over the years, GST has been further developed and tested, and is regularly cited in criminology textbooks. The entire May 2010 issue of the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice is devoted to the topic.

“It’s gratifying that researchers keep applying general strain theory to new issues,” Agnew says. He served as co-editor of the special issue, along with Paul Mazerolle of Griffith University in Australia. “We solicited a wide range of articles that didn’t simply test the theory, but took it into new directions.”

One of the articles compared the effects of traditional bullying with cyber bullying -- the harassment of a child through a computer or cell phone. "I was surprised that the authors found that cyber bullying has a stronger association to crime than the traditional, face-to-face variety of bullying," Agnew says.

Listen to a podcast on bullying and cyber bullying, moderated by Agnew.

He’s currently working on a chapter for a forthcoming book, “The Origins of American Criminology,” summarizing GST and how it has developed and expanded over time. “I’m sure that additional revisions and extensions of the theory will continue to emerge,” Agnew says. “Crime theories are ongoing creations, reflecting the particular experiences, as well as the strengths and weaknesses, of their creators.”

In the coming year, Agnew plans to focus on climate change – including its potential impacts on crime. “Climate change is probably going to become THE major issue for everyone,” he says. “Very little research has been done on the possible social consequences of climate change, so I’d like to try to make a contribution.”

Faith, fervor and environmentalism

“If you really believe in trees and recycle paper, an economist will tell you that the long-run effect is going to be to reduce the number of trees,” said Emory economist Paul Rubin, during a guest appearance on the Canadian program “The Agenda” with Steve Paikin.

Rubin was part of a panel discussing the parallels between religious belief and devotion to the environment.

“Nuclear power is the cleanest power we know, and yet environmentalists will stand back in horror when they hear nuclear power,” Rubin said. “I think there are irrational aspects to environmentalism.”

Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada, called Rubin’s arguments “nonsense.” What do you think?

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The sociology of 'Sex and the City'

Carrie Bradshaw owes a huge debt to Mary Richards of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” says Emory sociologist Tracy Scott.

“The late ‘60s and early 70s was the time that things really changed for women, both in terms of work roles and images on television,” says Scott, who researches culture, gender and occupations.

While cable opened the door for racy content, Scott contends that the career women in “Sex and the City” are in many ways less cutting edge than the characters in vintage sit-coms like “Mary Tyler Moore” and “That Girl.”

“’Sex and the City’ goes along with feminist notions of career women and being sexually liberated,” Scott says. “But in other ways it’s quite traditional, in its focus on women in romantic relationships.”

That ambiguity may explain why fans wearing flip-flops, sneakers and heels are expected to go see Carrie Bradshaw and her beloved Manolo Blahniks in “Sex and the City 2.”

“’Sex and the City’ is what we call an open cultural product, meaning that many people can look at it and enjoy it for different reasons. And those are usually the cultural products that are most successful,” Scott says.

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