Biology major Alexandra Kamins, Emory's second Gates scholar, plans to study the transmission of disease between humans and animals.

“The odds are that the next pandemic will be one of these diseases, and I want to do my part to stop it,” says Kamins.

Read more in Emory Magazine.

In a recent opinion piece for "Religion Dispatches," biology's Arri Eisen writes about the confusion over cloning:

Most Americans are against human cloning and most are against the use of steroids in sports. But I think this is because neither these people, nor anyone else for that matter, yet understands what the results and implications of these phenomena entail; as these become clearer, things will change, and I bet that the number of folks against these practices will decrease and over time may well even become a minority.

Continue reading.

Chemical & Engineering News visits South Africa, to learn about the emerging biotech industry in the country. The trip included a visit to iThemba Pharmaceuticals, started by Emory chemist Dennis Liotta and other researchers.

View photo essay by Susan Smith, "Invisible Ranks."


From exploring the pain of dementia, to parent-child bonds formed through reading, the new online Journal of Family Life continues the path-breaking work of the Emory Center on Myth and Ritual in American Life (MARIAL).

The journal is currently accepting submissions on how families are adjusting to the recession. "We are interested in stories, rather than statistics, about family budgets, unemployment, searching for work, and paying bills and the mortgage," says Journal editor Marshall Duke, a child psychologist. "We want the Journal of Family Life to be a forum for how family life has changed because of the economy."

"The jaguar is a very powerful animal, with a mystique," said John Polisar, a jaguar expert from the Wildlife Conservation Society, in a recent talk on science and art at the Carlos Museum. Although revered by ancient cultures in the Americas, the jaguar today is highly vulnerable to humans, and its habitat has contracted by 50 percent.

"Jaguars were an intermediary between humans and nature," said Rebecca Stone, curator of art of the ancient Americas at the Carlos. She showed ancient pottery that portrayed a shaman transforming into a jaguar, "to get the wisdom and power of the animal, to bring it back to heal people," she said.

For more on how science, nature, spiritualism and art blended in the ancient Americas, listen to this Carlos Museum podcast on shamanism.