'Orgasm Inc' takes on female Viagra

An Emory psychologist offers insights on the mysteries of female sexuality in the provocative new documentary “Orgasm Inc.” Following is an excerpt from a report on the film by Newsweek:

“Orgasm Inc,” which has its New York premiere May 27 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, is a desperately needed antidote to all the hype generated by pharmaceutical companies pursuing their holy grail: a female Viagra. ... Filmmaker Liz Canner hopes the film will help women be more skeptical about drug-company claims. ...

What does make a woman more receptive to sex? That’s still something of a mystery. Emory University psychologist Kim Wallen, who is interviewed in the film, has been studying the interaction of hormones and social influences on sexual behavior for many years. Much of his work consists of observing monkeys at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta. He has what could be the film’s best line. As Wallen and Canner watch monkeys engaged in an elaborate sexual dance, she asks him what he has learned about sex by studying primates. Wallen thinks for a moment and then says, “Pay more attention to females.” That’s better than a pill any day.

Click here to watch the film's trailer, it's hilarious.

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Buffalo wings, beer and brains

Mary Loftus writes in Emory Magazine:

A crowd is packed into the back room of Manuel’s Tavern in Atlanta, an old-school watering hole known for its clientele of politicians and law enforcement. They are sharing pitchers of beer, noshing on nachos and wings, and waiting to see Emory neuroscientist Todd Preuss talk about brains.

Preuss, an associate research professor at Yerkes National Primate Research Center, is momentarily taken aback by how many people have shown up on a Saturday night to watch him give a PowerPoint on the evolutionary connections between human brains and those of other members of our extended primate family. “My mother would never believe it,” he says with a smile.

The Atlanta Science Tavern began in summer 2008. “We gather in a casual environment, like a cafe, restaurant, bar, or home, to share a bite to eat and pint to drink, and to discuss interesting news and views about scientific advancements and discoveries and how they affect our daily lives,” says co-founder Josh Gough, a technology professional in Atlanta. “The idea came from PBS and NOVA’s Science Cafe movement.”

The Science Tavern’s other co-founder, Carol Potter, is a high school biology teacher and an Emory parent to Cindy Potter. Emory scientists are regularly featured at Science Tavern gatherings, talking about topics from inaccurate movie “science” to the clash between dolphin intelligence and human ethics.

Marc Merlin, an Emory alum who works for an Atlanta nonprofit and writes the blog Thoughts Arise, joined the group about a year ago and enjoys discussing issues like climate change, vaccination safety, and the teaching of evolution. “The Science Tavern,” says Merlin, “has reaffirmed for me the existence of a community of people who hold well-reasoned, dispassionate argument in high regard.”

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Inside the chimpanzee brain

Brain expert explores realm of human dawn

The A. Sediba cranium belonged to a juvenile that lived nearly 2 million years ago. Photo by Brett Eloff, courtesy of Wits University.

Emory anthropologist Dietrich Stout has been tapped to help analyze the skull of a newly discovered hominid species, dating back to the pivotal period when the human family emerged.

“This is a remarkably intact skull of a potential human ancestor from right around two million years ago, when we think the origin of our own genus was happening,” Stout says. “It’s exciting to learn that such a thing exists, let alone to be asked to work on it.”

Stout was chosen to join the team of researchers on the project due to his expertise on early brain function, particularly the relationship between the use of stone tools and brain evolution.

"Whatever story this skull has to tell, it will be interesting," Stout says.

The fossilized skull was found last year in the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa. Paleoanthropologist Lee Berger, from the University of the Witwatersrand, and fellow researchers have since recovered skeletal remains of several other individuals belonging to the new species, named Australopithecus sediba.

Scientists estimate that the individuals lived 1.78 to 1.95 million years ago, when early species of the human genus Homo existed along with species from the more ape-like genus Australopithecus.

Attempts to narrow down the emergence of the human line have “always been a bit messy,” Dietrich says, noting that multiple candidate species have been identified – often from incomplete remains and sometimes based on a single individual. The numerous pieces emerging from the A. sediba site, however, already represent at least two individuals and are fitting together like a puzzle, giving researchers a clearer view back in time.

Sediba means “source” in Sotho, and A. sediba shows an interesting mix of characteristics. “They have primitive, ape-like long arms, but much more human-like bi-pedal legs and posture,” Stout says. “The skull looks to have the capacity for the size of brain you’d expect to find in a modern chimpanzee – or perhaps an early human ancestor. It appears to be on the cusp, giving us the potential to tease apart some of the really interesting questions about what got human brain evolution started, such as whether the size or structural changes were first.”

Stout will join other members of the team in Johannesburg and examine the fossils first hand. High-tech scans of the skull fossil are being used to create a virtual, 3-D “cast” of the cranium. “It’s not like working with an actual flesh brain, but it will give us information about the size and volume of what was inside the cranium, and some of the features of the surface morphology,” Stout says.

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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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