As the semester reaches its halfway mark and midterms ramp up before spring break, take a break to learn about this week’s breaking science news. This week includes (intentional) breaks in tuberculosis RNA, (unintentional) breakdowns on the moon, gene editing and particle masses.
Researchers at Hopkins have made significant progress in unraveling the mystery of flight evolution. The findings, published in The Proceedings of The Royal Society, shed light on the evolutionary adaptations that enabled dinosaurs and birds to take to the skies.
With February rapidly drawing to a close, let’s dive into last week’s science and technology headlines: Microplastics are complicating efforts to define a new epoch in Earth’s history, poor metabolisms may be the cause of intestinal knotting, machines are reading minds to learn more about the mystery of the brain, and astronomers have discovered a billion-year-old black hole eruption that may have led to an unusual formation of stars.
The Department of Computer Science hosted Jessica Sorrell, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, for its seminar series on Feb. 15. In her talk, titled “Replicability in Machine Learning,” Sorrell examined a new approach to formalize a definition of replicability for machine learning algorithms.
As I stood at the top of a ski slope in a terrain park, I looked down upon the 20-foot jump that my friends and I wanted to hit. One critical question arose in my head: How fast should we hit the jump?
Supermassive black holes have long fascinated physicists and astronomers. Almost every large galaxy has a supermassive black hole located at its center, and with solar masses ranging from 100,000 to billions or even hundreds of billions, these structures bind galaxies. As gas falls onto its accretion disks, it heats up and releases powerful waves of electromagnetic energy. How do these cosmic maelstroms emerge? What could enable their formation?
As the midterm season begins to pick up, we recommend taking a breather and reading about this week’s biggest headliners in science and technology: Smoking causes even more harm than previously anticipated, SpaceX is launching a spacecraft to reach the moon, scientists discovered a reason behind long-lasting allergies and newly engineered beef-rice may help address food insecurity.
Matt Mullenweg participated in a discussion discussion led by Professor of Radiology and Radiological Science Elliot Fishman on Tuesday, Feb. 13 as part of the Leading Change: Perspective from Outside of Medicine Conversation series. Mullenweg is the founder of WordPress, and he shared insights from his journey with open-source technology, his leadership style and his vision for a more inclusive and innovative future.
Michael Schatz, a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of the Department of Computer Science, collaborated with the Pennsylvania State University, Rockefeller University and various other institutions to increase the efficiency of whole genome assembly. They developed a pipeline, a software that automates critical processes for genome assembly. It is now publicly available on Galaxy, a hub for publicly storing large datasets and software for data analysis.
From a detailed analysis of how the moon moves relative to the effects of Saturn’s gravitational pull, researchers and astronauts from the Paris Observatory concluded that there must have been a large ocean on Mimas’ surface.
The Johns Hopkins University Press, established in 1878, is the oldest university press in the United States. It publishes academic journals and books, both online and in print, and advocates for the accessible distribution of various mediums of knowledge. The American Journal of Mathematics, the most historical mathematics journal in the Western Hemisphere, was founded and started publishing in the same year as the establishment of the press.
Jean Fan is an assistant professor leading the JEFworks Lab at The Center for Computational Biology (CCB). In a recent interview with The News-Letter, Fan shared her work and the recent progress of her team in the field of spatial transcriptomics.
Recent graduate Seth Berke didn’t expect to leave Hopkins interested in pursuing a research career but, after using cloud computing methods to analyze genomic data, that’s exactly what’s happened. Berke works with biostatistician Ingo Ruczinski where he develops more efficient methods of employing and gaining insight from preexisting data sets.
As the spring semester is kicking into high gear, let’s go over some of the biggest headlines in science news from the past week.
Saikat Dan is a research fellow affiliated with the Computational Mechanics Research Laboratory (CMRL) and is advised by Somnath Ghosh in the Civil Engineering Department. As a PhD student this past fall, he taught a HEART course titled Computer Simulations: How Real are They? in which he gave a high-level overview of the field as well as applications of his research.
A recent paper published by a joint team of researchers from Hopkins and the University of Washington, Seattle used retinal cell organoids to establish that the human red and green cone cell development is regulated by retinoic acid. The paper, titled Retinoic acid signaling regulates spatiotemporal specification of human green and red cones, was published in PLOS Biology on Jan. 11, 2024.
A new semester has begun as we returned to a snowy campus. This week’s science news reveals exciting new insights that can help transition our mindset from vacation to school.
In a giant stride toward restoring mobility to those grappling with lower limb paralysis, Hopkins scientists have unveiled promising research on a novel spinal stimulator that could potentially transform the lives of approximately the lives of 1.5 million Americans affected by paralysis due to spinal cord injuries.
On Friday, Dec. 1, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) hosted a colloquium presentation featuring astronaut Christina Koch. The talk, titled “Human Spaceflight: A Mission to the International Space Station,” discussed Koch’s journey to becoming an astronaut and life in space.
On Wednesday, Nov. 29, the student-led Artificial Intelligence Society at Johns Hopkins (HopAI) invited Daeyeol Lee, a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience and Psychological Brain Sciences, to share his views on biological and artificial intelligence (AI). At the talk, Lee explored how intelligence manifests itself across biological boundaries and how the definition of intelligence can help developers and users gain a deeper understanding of AI.
