Professor uses Tetris to study human vision

There is an old saying in Korea: If your body is worth a thousand, your eyes are worth nine hundred.  As this phrase implies, visual perception is a very important part of our daily lives, even more than we may know. Vision dominates how we perceive the world, taking up more parts of our brain than any other human function. Chaz Firestone, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Hopkins, studies vision in the Perception and Mind Lab.

Orca whales may hunt the same way mosasaurs did

Until Jurassic World brought the mosasaur back to life on the big screen, the gigantic sea predator had been extinct for 65 million years, since the Cretaceous period. Mosasaurs were once the apex predators of the sea, and a recent study shows they may have hunted like the modern-day apex predator, the orca whale.

Wrap up: the latest in technology...

Google Maps supports real-time route sharing  The top app for navigation on the App Store, Google Maps recently added live location sharing support for iOS. You can now use your iPhone to reveal live location, estimated time of arrival and route with select contacts. These new functions are also available in third-party apps such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Apple’s native Messages, among others.

Medical schools adopt new program to combat ageism

While medical school is undoubtedly a place for hard work and studying, many medical schools are beginning to shift their curriculum to include the more personable and empathetic parts of being a doctor. 

Ultra-stripped stars lead to binary neutron stars

Over the past few decades, there has been an explosion of interest in what lies beyond our planet, our solar system and even our galaxy. What we know is that there is a plethora of phenomena that occur outside our limits of exploration for which we have no explanations.

HPV vaccine is approved for a greater age range

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the prevalence of genital HPV for adults aged 18-59 is 45.2 percent, making it the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. Certain high-risk strains of these viruses are responsible for almost all cases of cervical cancer and 95 percent of anal cancers. 

Combination therapy treats latent HIV reservoirs

Medical researchers have determined a strategy that treats the latent reservoir in cells infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), potentially dismantling one of the barriers to finding a cure for the virus. 

Scientists develop new immunotherapy

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to James P. Allison from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Tasuku Honjo from Kyoto University for their discovery of the inhibition of negative immune regulation to aid in cancer therapy. 

The experimentation of growing plants on Mars

It feels like this horse has long since been beaten to death — when are we going to finally land humans on Mars? It’s been a lifetime since the idea was first entertained, but so far the closest we’ve gotten is Matt Damon celebrating potatoes in The Martian. 

Three women who battled environmental issues

Throughout history, women have played a critical role in confronting environmental crises. Many had to fight tirelessly to highlight the environmental problems they studied, often enduring gender-based critiques of both their personal and professional lives.

Evolutionary chemists win Nobel Prize

Darwin’s theory of evolution has been around for nearly 200 years, but its influence does not appear to subside with time. Not only is the topic of evolution a required biology curriculum in schools across the world, but it has also been cited in numerous research studies and papers. Today, it is still driving the forefront of molecular research. In fact, research conducted on the basis of Darwin’s theory of natural selection has recently led scientists to claim the 2018 Nobel Chemistry Prize.

Students present projects at Research Symposium

The annual Undergraduate Research Symposium (URS), sponsored by both the Hopkins Undergraduate Society for Neuroscience (Nu Rho Psi) and the Hopkins Office for Undergraduate Research (HOUR), took place last week on Oct. 8. 

How the germ theory of disease developed

In the 19th century, polished white rice was increasingly sought after in Japan. Advances in technology allowed grains to be mechanically milled rather than processed by hand, with the outer and inner husks removed and the remainder polished to a glossy white. This rice was easy to store, lasted longer than its predecessors and, to some, probably tasted better. 

Antibody therapy can suppress HIV infections

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus capable of infecting vital organs and CD4 cells, a type of lymphocyte, that comprise the human immune system. Once transmitted, the virus grows and progresses in the absence of antiretroviral therapy (ART), which is a drug therapy that either prevents HIV infection or slows down the spread of the virus. These antiretrovirals include several types of inhibitors. 

An ancient virus infection linked with addiction

Many regions in the human genome are composed of “junk DNA” that do not code for proteins in the cell.  While these DNA codes are generally viewed as redundant and seemingly serve no particular function in the human body, some codes could be evidence of evolutionary scars left behind from ancient viral infections from the time of our primate ancestors.

HOUR hosts third Student Seminar Series

The Hopkins Office for Undergraduate Research (HOUR) hosted the third lecture in the Student Seminar Series on Oct. 1.  The series provides a venue for undergraduates to present their research.

Two women awarded Nobel Prizes in scientific fields

This year, two women won Nobel Prizes in scientific disciplines. Donna Strickland, an optical physicist, invented chirped pulse amplification with her co-awardee Gérard Mourou. Strickland is only the third female physicist to receive the award and the first in 55 years.

Court rescues last abortion clinic in Kentucky

The last abortion clinic in Kentucky can stay open after a federal judge ruled that a state law on licensing agreements was unconstitutional.

Hopkins team develops a fast STD diagnostic tool