By Susan Milius
Jenny Tung, 36
Genetics and evolutionary anthropology
Duke University
Jenny Tung is skeptical when she hears that her older sister, Wenny, compares Jenny’s science to their father’s golf.
He played so much because he found it “a big, fat, hairy challenge,” Wenny said, proposing that Jenny, too, is drawn to challenges by their difficulty.
Jenny Tung protests. Yet she doesn’t deny that her research tackles a big, hairy question: Why does a tough social life go along with worsening health, even a greater risk of death?