Thursday, January 6, 2011
CDC turns into movie set for 'Contagion'
What's going on at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention? Traffic backed up around Emory today as news cameras, soldiers and police swarmed around the CDC entrance.
A major pandemic? No, just a movie about one.
Filming for the Warner Brothers production "Contagion" will continue in the CDC/Emory area and other parts of metro Atlanta during the next few days. So you weren't hallucinating if you saw Laurence Fishburne strolling on Clifton Road. Other stars in the production include Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law and Kate Winslet.
Steven Soderbergh is directing the thriller about the unraveling of society in the face of a deadly pandemic. The SARS outbreak of 2003 and the H1N1 pandemic of 2009 make "Contagion" a timely topic. It will be interesting to see how Hollywood portrays scientists racing to find a cure for an airborne virus that kills within days as panic spreads globally, amid ordinary people and world leaders.
An early draft of the script by Scott Burns, who also wrote "The Bourne Ultimatum," gets a thumbs up from a reviewer at "The Playlist," who writes that the plot is as much about how news spreads virally in the Internet age as it is about a spreading virus. Jude Law plays a crazed blogger.
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Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Mathematician eyes odds of Mega Millions
The bigger the jackpot, the longer the lines to buy lottery tickets. And when the jackpot gets really huge, people are more likely to splurge on 100 tickets. In this Fox Atlanta news video, Emory mathematician Skip Garibaldi gives his two cents on the odds of winning the $355 million Mega Millions jackpot, the second biggest in the lottery's history.
(You may have to hit "refresh" to get the video to appear. It's acting finicky.)
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Lottery study zeros in on risk
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Friday, December 17, 2010
Beer, bugs and brains: Hot topics in 2010
It’s been a stellar year for the natural and social sciences at Emory. Beer, bugs, brains and rock climbing were popular themes, but advances in the quest for solar fuels and our understanding of the origins of life also ranked high. Here’s a roundup of the hottest topics on eScienceCommons during 2010.
Ancient brew masters tapped drug secrets: It appears that the art of making antibiotics, which officially dates to the discovery of penicillin in 1928, was common practice nearly 2,000 years ago. The drugs were in the beer. The story made news around the world, and will be the subject of an upcoming Discovery Channel documentary.
Another discovery that took the modern pharmaceutical industry down a
notch: Monarch butterflies use drugs. Experiments show the insects can identify medicinal plants to cure themselves and their offspring of disease. The findings are the best evidence to date that animals self-medicate.
Brain trumps hand in Stone Age tool study: How did prehistoric toolmakers make the leap from simple flakes of rock to a sophisticated Acheulean hand axe? An area of the brain associated with language appears to be the key.
Physics theory wipes out: The “exceptionally simple theory of everything” proposed by a surfing physicist does not hold water, according to a rock climber who did the math. This complex story about a mysterious structure known as E8 caught the imagination of the social media world. Rock climbing may have been only incidental to the E8 story, but it is truly the sport of nerds. Check out this video explaining what it’s like to fall 40 feet down a sheer cliff face.
Tiny aphids hold big surprises: Pea aphids, expert survivors of the insect world, appear to lack major biological defenses, according to the first genetic analysis of their immune system. Aphids have evolved complex relationships with beneficial bacteria, and it’s possible that the weak immune response developed as a way to keep from killing off these microbes. Why should we care? Growing evidence shows that our hyper-clean society may be eliminating bacteria that the human immune system needs to fend off disease, from depression to cancer.
Midlife suicide rate rising: Baby boomers are driving a dramatic rise in suicides among middle-aged people. The reasons behind the disturbing findings are unclear, but statistics indicate that the upward pattern in midlife suicide is continuing. The research is cited in this New York Times article, "Boomers hit new self-absorption milestone: Age 65."
Babies do math: Even before they learn to speak, babies are organizing information about
numbers, space and time in more complex ways than previously realized, a study finds. It’s almost like we’re born with a ruler in our heads.
Biology may not be so complex: A biophysicist identified parameters for several biochemical networks that distill the entire behavior of these systems into simple equivalent dynamics. The discovery may hold the potential to streamline the development of drugs and diagnostic tools.
The missing link to life? Chemists discovered that simple peptides can organize into bi-layer membranes. The finding suggests a “missing link” between the pre-biotic Earth’s chemical inventory and the organizational scaffolding essential to life. Technology is rapidly driving the search for the origins of life, including spectral surveys of small organic molecules in the “cool universe” of deep space.
The drive for solar fuel: Chemists developed the most potent homogeneous catalyst known for water oxidation, a crucial component for generating clean hydrogen fuel using only water and sunlight. The goal is to imitate Mother Nature and create a water oxidation
catalyst that will cheaply and efficiently perform artificial photosynthesis.
And, finally, we get back to bugs with the news that wasps nested with dinosaurs 75 million years ago. Wired Science named the discovery one of "The Year’s Best Fossil Finds.” An Emory discovery about a fish trace fossil was also featured in a New York Times article, "A bottom feeder leaves traces below."
Looking forward to bringing you lots more big stories in 2011, including a major announcement for math in January. Watch this space!
Related:
2010: A Science Odyssey
Ancient brew masters tapped drug secrets: It appears that the art of making antibiotics, which officially dates to the discovery of penicillin in 1928, was common practice nearly 2,000 years ago. The drugs were in the beer. The story made news around the world, and will be the subject of an upcoming Discovery Channel documentary.Another discovery that took the modern pharmaceutical industry down a
notch: Monarch butterflies use drugs. Experiments show the insects can identify medicinal plants to cure themselves and their offspring of disease. The findings are the best evidence to date that animals self-medicate.Brain trumps hand in Stone Age tool study: How did prehistoric toolmakers make the leap from simple flakes of rock to a sophisticated Acheulean hand axe? An area of the brain associated with language appears to be the key.
Physics theory wipes out: The “exceptionally simple theory of everything” proposed by a surfing physicist does not hold water, according to a rock climber who did the math. This complex story about a mysterious structure known as E8 caught the imagination of the social media world. Rock climbing may have been only incidental to the E8 story, but it is truly the sport of nerds. Check out this video explaining what it’s like to fall 40 feet down a sheer cliff face.
Tiny aphids hold big surprises: Pea aphids, expert survivors of the insect world, appear to lack major biological defenses, according to the first genetic analysis of their immune system. Aphids have evolved complex relationships with beneficial bacteria, and it’s possible that the weak immune response developed as a way to keep from killing off these microbes. Why should we care? Growing evidence shows that our hyper-clean society may be eliminating bacteria that the human immune system needs to fend off disease, from depression to cancer.Midlife suicide rate rising: Baby boomers are driving a dramatic rise in suicides among middle-aged people. The reasons behind the disturbing findings are unclear, but statistics indicate that the upward pattern in midlife suicide is continuing. The research is cited in this New York Times article, "Boomers hit new self-absorption milestone: Age 65."
Babies do math: Even before they learn to speak, babies are organizing information about
numbers, space and time in more complex ways than previously realized, a study finds. It’s almost like we’re born with a ruler in our heads.Biology may not be so complex: A biophysicist identified parameters for several biochemical networks that distill the entire behavior of these systems into simple equivalent dynamics. The discovery may hold the potential to streamline the development of drugs and diagnostic tools.
The missing link to life? Chemists discovered that simple peptides can organize into bi-layer membranes. The finding suggests a “missing link” between the pre-biotic Earth’s chemical inventory and the organizational scaffolding essential to life. Technology is rapidly driving the search for the origins of life, including spectral surveys of small organic molecules in the “cool universe” of deep space.The drive for solar fuel: Chemists developed the most potent homogeneous catalyst known for water oxidation, a crucial component for generating clean hydrogen fuel using only water and sunlight. The goal is to imitate Mother Nature and create a water oxidation
catalyst that will cheaply and efficiently perform artificial photosynthesis.And, finally, we get back to bugs with the news that wasps nested with dinosaurs 75 million years ago. Wired Science named the discovery one of "The Year’s Best Fossil Finds.” An Emory discovery about a fish trace fossil was also featured in a New York Times article, "A bottom feeder leaves traces below."
Looking forward to bringing you lots more big stories in 2011, including a major announcement for math in January. Watch this space!
Related:
2010: A Science Odyssey
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Obama receives syn-bio ethics report
The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues today released its "Report on the Ethics of Synthetic Biology and Emerging Technologies." The report, available at www.bioethics.gov, includes 18 recommendations for negotiating the risks and benefits of the emerging field of synthetic biology.
Here's a good summary of the panel's recommendation's on Andrew Revkin's Dot Earth.
Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania, chairs the commission and James Wagner, president of Emory University, serves as vice chair. They were among a panel of 13 scientists, ethicists and public policy experts who studied the implications of synthetic biology, following the May 20 announcement by the J. Craig Venter Institute that it had inserted a laboratory-made genome into a bacterial cell, creating an organism not found in nature.
The panel held three public hearings during the past five months in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Atlanta. The commission heard from a range of experts and the lay public, as they considered possible actions government could take to prevent potential problems as synthetic biology continues to develop.
Related:
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Fiction, facts and values of synthetic biology
Here's a good summary of the panel's recommendation's on Andrew Revkin's Dot Earth.
Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania, chairs the commission and James Wagner, president of Emory University, serves as vice chair. They were among a panel of 13 scientists, ethicists and public policy experts who studied the implications of synthetic biology, following the May 20 announcement by the J. Craig Venter Institute that it had inserted a laboratory-made genome into a bacterial cell, creating an organism not found in nature.The panel held three public hearings during the past five months in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Atlanta. The commission heard from a range of experts and the lay public, as they considered possible actions government could take to prevent potential problems as synthetic biology continues to develop.
Related:
Synthetic cell: A step closer to 'recipe for life'
Entering the era of living machines
Fiction, facts and values of synthetic biology
Climate change, from the hooves up
Cattle call on climate change: East Africa faces a stark reality of higher temperatures and decreasing rainfall. Photo by Dana Hoag.In East Africa, pundits aren’t debating whether climate change is real. Temperature has already increased and precipitation has decreased in some parts of the region, where many people depend heavily on rain-fed agriculture for survival. Even slight variability in climate affects rural livelihoods in dry areas of Ethiopia and Kenya, in densely populated communities already faced with widespread poverty and limited supplies of food, water and livestock forage.
A new project is looking at the issue of climate change in East Africa from the hooves up. Known as CHAINS, the project is focused on how climate variability, animal diseases, natural resource management and land use are influencing livestock commodity chains in semi-arid and arid regions of Ethiopia and Kenya.
While previous research has focused on brokers, traders and export firms that are higher up in the economic chain, the new project is looking at the pastoralists who are actually producing the livestock that support these systems, says Emory anthropologist Peter Little.
Maasai people in Kenya rely heavily on cattle for their livelihoods. Photo by Dana Hoag.“It seems likely that uncertainty over extreme climatic events, especially their frequency and intensity, and their effects on human and animal welfare, markets, animal disease and conflict will continue in the region and even worsen during the next decade and beyond,” Little says.
Emory researchers will work with scientists from Pwani University College in Kenya, Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia and the International Livestock Research Institute. They will interview pastoralists and others involved in the livestock chain, from production to final sale. The aim is to collect information to help communities manage risks and improve their livelihoods amid the forces of climate change.
The first CHAINS site centers on northeastern Kenya, where disease and drought are exacerbating land-use conflicts and disrupting cattle movements and trade. The second site is located in the Boran plateau of southern Ethiopia, where it is unclear if small-scale producers of goats, cattle and camels are benefiting from a growing export trade. In addition, large-scale commercial farming operations, drought and disputes over territorial boundaries and wells are undermining indigenous pastoral systems.
CHAINS builds on previous work that Little and his collaborators have done in East Africa on livestock markets and climate change adaptation. Other researchers in the project include Steve Stahl from the International Livestock Research Institute; Workneh Negatu from Addis Ababa Univeristy; Hussein Mahmoud from Pwani University College; Andy Catley from Tufts University; Polly Ericksen from the Livestock Research Institute; and Uriel Kitron and Carla Roncoli, both with Emory.
CHAINS is funded through the Livestock-Climate Change Collaborative Research Program, established through a U.S. AID grant to Colorado State University’s Animal Population Health Institute and the university’s Institute for Livestock and the Environment.
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