In 2016, many U.S. diplomats at the U.S. embassy in Havana fell ill with mysterious symptoms. They reported feeling hearing loud noises or experiencing intense headaches. The illness was dubbed Havana syndrome, though it is sometimes referred to as anomalous health incidents (AHIs).
On Thursday, March 7, the Virginia Fox Stern Center for the Study of the Book in the Renaissance, situated at Hopkins Sheridan Libraries, hosted Olivia Weisser, professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston and a historian of medicine. Weisser’s research focuses on health in 16th- to 18th-century Britain, and her lecture titled “Shopping for Pox Cures in Early Modern London” analyzed the process of purchasing treatments for venereal disease, a term that encompasses what are today known as sexually transmitted diseases.
In a recent study, a team of Hopkins researchers analyzed contaminants found in kale grown on Baltimore farms. The findings, published in Environmental Sciences & Technology, are a reassurance that local-grown kale is safe to eat, and the innovative approach used is paving the way for future research in environmental science.
A recent paper published by a team of Hopkins physicists and astronomers has permanently changed the landscape of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) — in this case, literally. The paper, published in The Astrophysical Journal on Monday, March 4, includes the most detailed observations of the CMB taken from Earth.
When I was younger, I had always imagined a research lab as the kind of fancy modern room that we see in sci-fi movies — full of scientists in pristine white coats operating sleek machines and furiously pipetting into empty beakers (without any aseptic technique). Thus, my perception of a research lab was completely renewed when, as a freshman last winter, I joined Dr. Peter Searson’s lab at the Institute for NanoBioTechnology.
As we approach the final stretch before spring break, let’s look beyond our class content and appreciate how scientists around the world have applied textbook knowledge to generate meaningful research findings. This week’s science news focuses on fascinating biodiversity in nature, humans’ impact on the environment and the potential to restore past lives on Earth.
On Thursday, Feb. 29, The Johns Hopkins Department of Mechanical Engineering hosted Michael Goldfarb, the H. Fort Flowers Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director at the Center for Intelligent Mechatronics at Vanderbilt University. The talk shed light on novel perspectives regarding powered lower limb prostheses.
The new Center for Global Women’s Health and Gender Equity (GWHGE) — directed by Dr. Michele Decker, ScD, MPH at the School of Public Health’s Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health — aims to mitigate existing gender inequities.
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.
