Month: February 2017

Listen to Dr. Jenny Chio’s recent lecture on ethnographic portraiture and filmmaking online

Listen to Dr. Jenny Chio’s recent lecture on ethnographic portraiture and filmmaking online.

As a Morphomata Fellow at the University of Cologne, Germany, Dr. Chio gave a public lecture on one of her current ethnographic film and research projects. The talk was titled “These Days, These Homes: An Ethnographic Portrait Film in Progress.” Dr. Chio addressed the question: What are the possibilities of portraiture in filmmaking, and how can biographical and ethnographic approaches be integrated in film practice and humanistic cultural research? Her talk discussed possibilities in the ethnographic and biographical representation of life experiences by rethinking the methods and theories of documentary film-making, biography, life history, and ethnography.

Dr. James Rilling: correlation between paternal nurturing and oxytocin

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Emory’s eScience Commons reported on Dr. James Rilling’s research at the Laboratory for Darwinian Neuroscience. In order to study the neurological reasons for differing care-giving behaviors, Dr. Rilling administered either oxytocin or a placebo to fathers of toddlers. When shown photos of their child, those fathers who had received the oxytocin showed increased neural activity in areas of the brain that are associated with reward and empathy.

Emory researchers make breakthrough discovery in fighting antibiotic-resistant bacteria

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Ethnobotanist Cassandra Quave (BS, Emory Anthropology) and her team identified a refined extract of the Brazilian Peppertree berry that inhibits Quorum sensing in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). In effect, this extract blocks the ability of MSRA to communicate thus preventing the production of toxins. The extract does not kill MRSA, rather it disarms the infection providing more time for other treatments and the immune system to fight off an infection. This discovery could lead to sweeping consequences for the treatment of so-called super bugs.

Read more about the research at Emory News, Nature, the Washington Post, and NBC News.