Here's what we found:

• Gender: 53.5% identified as women, 39.5% as men and 7% as nonbinary.

• Race/Ethnicity: 32.6% identified as Asian/Asian American, 23.3% as Hispanic/Latinx, 20.9% as white/Caucasian and 9.3% as Black/African American. Other identities, including Middle Eastern/North African and multiracial, were also represented though in smaller percentages.

• Year: Most readers were juniors (39.5%) and sophomores (30.2%), followed by freshmen (16.3%) and seniors (14%).

• Academic fields: Engineering was the most common area of study (25.6%), followed by natural sciences (20.9%) and business/economics (20.9%). Only two respondents (4.6%) came from the humanities.
• Other factors: 27.9% of readers were international students. Fourteen percent identified as first-generation college students, with a small portion unsure or preferring not to say.

What does this mean?

While this survey reflects a diverse readership, it also highlights areas for improvement. Black student reader representation, for example, remains lower than the proportion of Black students in the broader Hopkins community (7.5%) and considerably lower than the demographics of our surrounding city Baltimore (60%).

Our readership also skews toward juniors and sophomores, who make up nearly 69.7% of our readers. This may be because freshmen are less aware of The News-Letter while seniors are preparing to graduate. Increasing outreach to first-years could help balance this gap.

Academically, our audience comes heavily from STEM-oriented backgrounds, with most respondents coming from engineering, natural sciences or business/economics. Only two students reported humanities majors, a number that, while small, aligns with Hopkins' overall 6% humanities enrollment.

Notably, international students make up 27.9% of our readers - far higher than the 12% reported in Hopkins' official enrollment data. This suggests that international students may be especially engaged with campus publications as a way to stay connected. At the same time, this trend highlights potential under-engagement with domestic students, particularly Black and first-generation/low-income students.

In conclusion, the diversity survey shows that many communities remain underrepresented. With this knowledge, The News-Letter must strive to broaden its readership. At the end of the day, it is our readers who give this platform life.

10: Minnesota Vikings

If a game of football only lasted thirty minutes, then the Minnesota Vikings would be lucky to crack the top 20 of this list- so thank goodness for the fourth quarter! Despite a sluggish start to their season, including a pick-six from (kind-of) rookie J.J. McCarthy, the Vikings stormed back to take down in-divisional rivals, the Chicago Bears.

McCarthy looked much more like his Michigan-self in the second half of the game, especially in the fourth quarter, where he accounted for three touchdowns. His performance secured them a comeback win and earned himself Offensive Player of the Week honors. If he keeps this up, Minnesota could climb higher on this list. The real question: can a second-year quarterback carry a team ready to contend?

9: Los Angeles Rams

Despite concerns about Matthew Stafford's health, the Rams opened strong with a 14-9 win over the Texans that highlighted their defense. Star wideout also Puka Nacua hasn't missed a beat, tallying up 10 catches for 130 yards, while the defense recorded three sacks and picked off C.J. Stroud. The Rams look solid, especially defensively - but does Stafford still have enough left to lead a serious contender?

8: Denver Broncos

The Broncos defense looks even better than last year's league-leading unit. Tennessee Titans rookie Cam Ward, the No. 1 overall pick, was overwhelmed on Sunday, getting sacked six times.

Denver's concern lies on the other side of the ball. Can Bo Nix recapture the form he showed late last year and run a league-average offense? If so, the Broncos should coast into the playoffs - and perhaps much further.

7: Detroit Lions

The Lions didn't look like themselves in Week One against the Packers. The departures of Aaron Glenn and Ben Johnson clearly matter, but it would be a shock to see Detroit slump long term. With one of the most talented rosters in the league, the Lions remain a team to fear until proven otherwise.

6: Los Angeles Chargers

The Chargers shocked the world in Brazil, defeating the reigning AFC champion Chiefs a 27-21. Justin Herbert looked unstoppable, carving up Kansas City's defense, and Quentin Johnston finally seems to have learned how to catch. The Chargers have the talent for a deep playoff run - but as always, their biggest obstacle may be themselves.

5: Kansas City Chiefs

Is Kansas City vulnerable at last? We've asked this question before, and every time Patrick Mahomes proves doubters wrong. This might be the year they slip, but I can't bring myself to count them out. Still, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited by the possibility of the Chiefs' reign ending. Then again, knowing them, they'll probably run the table the rest of the way and lift the Lombardi again in San Francisco.

4: Baltimore Ravens

The city of Baltimore was rocked on Sunday night as they lost the seemingly unlosable. Up by 15 with four minutes left? Surely they can't lose this… and then Josh Allen happened. One has to wonder what prompted John Harbaugh to take the ball out of his MVP quarterback's hands, opting to punt and effectively hand Buffalo the game. Was it bad luck - or a troubling shift in mentality?

3: Green Bay Packers

The Packers have been the most surprising team of this season so far, rocketing to a 2-0 start against two of the best teams in the league. The arrival of Micah Parsons' has transformed the defense into a dominant unit, while Jordan Love is playing the best football of his career. With his supporting cast thriving, the Packers could be well on their way to a fifth Super Bowl.

2: Philadelphia Eagles

Fresh off one of the most dominant Super Bowl wins in history, the Eagles stumbled a bit in their opener. Without a couple of costly CeeDee Lamb drops, they might have fallen to Dallas at home. Still, Philly pulled out the win, and there's no reason to think they can't repeat last year's championship run.

1: Buffalo Bills

The reigning MVP showed why he wears the crown. Josh Allen erased a 15-point deficit against Baltimore, throwing for 251 yards and helping the Bills score 22 points - a superhuman effort. The defense has question marks, but with Allen at the helm, the Bills might finally be unstoppable in their pursuit of a Super Bowl title.

Stephen Fried is an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry at Hopkins who is working on this exact problem. After attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his undergraduate studies, he joined the Steven Boxer lab in the Department of Chemistry at Stanford. In an interview with The News-Letter, Fried emphasized the importance of his PhD training and mentorship in influencing his scientific journey and bringing him to his current post at Hopkins.

"[Boxer] could make anyone in the room passionate about [his work]," he said. "He has that charisma - that way of explaining things that made them sound interesting, even if you had never thought about it two minutes ago."

For his doctoral thesis, Fried worked on a bacterial enzyme known as ketosteroid isomerase (KSI), which intrigued him because it possessed the highest rate constant of any known enzyme at the time. He found that the electrostatic environment in KSI was perfectly tuned to stabilize the charge rearrangement needed to access the rate-limiting step of the reaction.

"A PhD is a really unique time in your life when you can focus on one project and have a lot of agency and control over how that evolves, and be responsible for the creation of new knowledge," Fried said.

As a principal investigator, Fried has continued to study proteins and now specializes in protein folding and misfolding.

"In biophysics, there is a common belief, [known as the Anfinsen dogma,] that all of the information that a protein needs in order to fold into the right 3D shape that we call the native structure is somehow present in the amino acid sequence," Fried said. "One way that you can critically test this theory is you can basically take a protein that came from a cell that has the right string of amino acids attached to each other, and, using a chemical, basically cause the protein to come apart. We call those denaturants."

When Fried's group performed the denaturation experiment with many different proteins, they saw that Anfinsen's dogma held for small, simple proteins. However, as proteins became more complex, they were unable to refold properly. So in order for these complex proteins to fold into their native states, the cell had to contain separate machinery to assist folding.

This observation brought Fried to consider protein misfolding in neurodegenerative disorders.

"It's long been thought that there is a contribution from protein misfolding in neurodegenerative disease. If you look inside the brain tissue of a person who had a very severe case of these diseases, what you find is that there's a lot of degeneration and, where there used to be and where there should have been neurons, instead you see these ugly deposits of misfolded, aggregated proteins," Fried said. "In Alzheimer's disease, we see a lot of a protein called amyloid beta and tau. And in Parkinson's disease, we see alpha synuclein."

Currently, in the field of neurodegenerative disease research, scientists are split over the idea that these aggregates directly cause disease. For example, many therapies have been developed to reduce amyloid beta aggregates in patients, but these clinical trials have had indeterminable effects on cognitive function.

"As we start to look closer at how proteins are looking inside the brain, [...] we are finding that there are a lot of proteins that are not in their native shape," Fried said. "We just haven't known this because it takes more sophisticated methods to detect these more subtly typse of misfolding -they misfold without forming amyloids."

To test the presence of additional misfolded proteins, Fried's group used a technique known as limited proteolysis mass spectrometry. This method involves extracting proteins out of both neurotypical brain tissue and diseased brain tissue, followed by protease digestion - which cuts protein domains that are more flexible or more exposed - and subsequent mass spectrometry. If a protein is properly folded, performing mass spectrometry should result in identical fragments between the neurotypical and diseased brain. However, Fried's group found many mass spectrometry profiles that differed between the two samples in addition to amyloid-forming proteins, meaning that there were more misfolded proteins involved in neurodegenerative diseases than previously believed.

Though Fried has not determined a specific mechanism for protein misfolding in neurodegeneration, he believes that it has to do with the increased stability of improperly folded proteins.

"There are ways that proteins can misfold that [...] impairs their function, [and] also their turnover. So instead of having a lifetime of two weeks, the misfolded protein now has a lifetime of a month," Fried said. "So over time, you're slowly accumulating this misfolded protein, [...] because it's not getting broken down as quickly as it should be."

Fried believes that it will ultimately take much more dedicated study to find the root cause of neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

"When it comes to these diseases, we still have a lot more basic stuff to learn, because we're still arguing about what causes the disease in the first place," he said. "What we're looking at when it comes to neurodegenerative disease is still [murky]."

Nearly ten years ago, NASA's Curiosity rover made global headlines and became a milestone in space exploration after landing on Mars' Gale Crater. Since then, it has made invaluable contributions to science, studying Mars' habitability, its watery past and its organic chemistry. However, rovers such as Curiosity are limited in range and ability. They cannot cover more than a few kilometers over several years and cannot traverse certain types of landscapes. This limitation has proven to be a significant obstacle to our exploration of space.

In order to overcome this limitation, aerial enhancements have been expeditiously developed, setting the stage for Dragonfly, a nuclear-powered rotorcraft designed to hop across Titan's harsh terrain. Dragonfly will not only cope with Titan's environmental constraints but also cover far more ground in a single flight, greatly improving extraterrestrial flight dynamics.

Sutton, who completed her PhD at Hopkins under Professor Noah Cowan in 2017 before joining the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), focused on innovating rotorcrafts to tackle Titan's unique atmospheric conditions. For context, Titan's atmosphere is 1.5 times denser than Earth but only possesses 14% of Earth's gravitational force, which are conditions that exist nowhere else in the solar system.

Her team investigated how these conditions actually make flight easier than on Mars. Though previous missions relied on wheeled vehicles for stability, Sutton demonstrated that Dragonfly's aerial mobility opens up scientific opportunities.

Sutton first addressed the problem by reworking how flight models were adapted. Previously, they were sampled from Mars helicopter designs. Then, she and her team discovered that by identifying space model parameters and reducing the number of parameters to seven major parameters, they would be able to successfully reconceptualize the flight dynamics. In this consideration, the team took atmospheric chemistry effects and methane-based weather patterns into account.

"The models that work perfectly for helicopters on Earth or even Mars simply don't apply when you're dealing with methane rain, hydrocarbon dunes and an atmosphere denser than Earth's," Sutton remarked.

This planetary flight model Sutton is working on cannot fly on Earth, which makes her work all the more fascinating. Sutton's team is one of the teams across the country to employ multiple validation approaches. In addition to using the standard, FlightLab, a high-fidelity aerodynamics simulation that captures rotor-rotor and rotor-fuselage interactions missing from standard models, they conduct wind tunnel tests at NASA Langley using heavy gas to partially simulate Titan's dense atmosphere.

"We can't perfectly replicate Titan conditions on Earth," Sutton noted, "but we can get close enough to validate our modeling approach." The team has developed a half-scale Dragonfly and demonstrated its flight at the APL's test facility. While not an aerodynamic analog to the vehicle that will travel to Titan, this 150-pound drone simulates the control algorithms that will guide Dragonfly across Titan's surface.

Sutton's presentation also revealed how a technique, system identification, which she acquired during her time at Hopkins when studying electric fish behavior, will also help ensure Dragonfly's success. By sending frequency sweeps, or "chirps," through the control system and analyzing the responses, her team identifies discrepancies between its models and reality.

One particularly challenging finding they found involved conditions during descent, where complex wake interactions between Dragonfly's eight rotors create control difficulties not predicted by standard models. Sutton explained that in descent, the wake from the top front rotor completely washes out the rear bottom rotor, forcing the controller to compensate by reducing that rotor's speed, but then case the loss of control authority.

"And then we lose control authority because now we don't have control over that rotor. This was a surprising finding from the flight dynamics study," she remarked. "It's a whole-vehicle problem that [only system identification could reveal]."

These discoveries have led to model updates, including the switch from two-bladed to three-bladed rotors to reduce vibrations, a change that required complete revalidation of their flight dynamics models.

Sutton's work extends far beyond technical achievements. By deploying Dragonfly on Titan, we will be able to explore impact craters where liquid water and organic compounds may be mixed, potentially hinting at life. The rotorcraft's mobility, from being able to navigate methane lakes to dunes, will enable us to search for prebiotic chemistry on another world.

Regarding the mission's timeline, Sutton expressed confidence in the 2028 launch date, with arrival at Titan expected in 2034. Her team continues to refine models through wind tunnel tests scheduled for November.

"NASA in general tends to be pretty risk averse, especially for these missions where there's only one vehicle," Sutton said. "So they only get one shot at it. But that's why these missions push us to think creatively about exploration and our place in the cosmos."

Misuse of antisemitism allegations

The PIIAC implied that the HJC proposal was antisemitic because it referred to Israel as an apartheid state. No evidence wasprovided for this claim except that it was "shared by some members of the committee." This framing disregarded the international consensus: the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and even Israel's own human rights organization, B'Tselem, all confirm that Israeli policies amount to apartheid. Conflating criticism of apartheid with antisemitism ignores the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) definition, which explicitly allows factually based criticism of Israel, and the Anti-Defamation League's own clarification that such criticism is not antisemitic. This mischaracterization enabled the PIIAC to sidestep substantive engagement with the evidence, particularly the allegations of genocide in Gaza that were central to the petitioners' case.

The committee asserted that "to ensure a neutral and dispassionate review process," it "explicitly did not adjudicate the validity of these assertions and is neither expressing an opinion nor endorsing a perspective regarding the conflict in Gaza and the Middle East." However the committee made multiple assertionsendorsing a pro-Israel perspective, contradicting its own process, such as the statement thatdivestment would "single out Israel," even though it notes that the methodology to identify companies for divestment included "measures unrelated to the Israel-Palestine conflict." The committee also invoked hypothetical political comparisons withChina and Saudi Arabia to argue against divestment, notwithstanding that both these states have been under U.S. sanctions for human rights violations.

Free speech is not antisemitism

Conflating antisemitism with criticism of Israel has a chilling effect on free speech and academic freedom. Apart from delegitimizing the Palestinian struggle for human rights and fueling Islamophobia, it also stereotypesJews, silences Jewish dissent, politicizes and dilutes the meaning of antisemitism, and ultimately creates a backlash against Jews. Kenneth Stern, the lead drafter of the IHRA definition of antisemitism concluded that weaponization of antisemitism on college campuses makes Jewish students feel "less safe." Many in the Hopkins community understand these risks and reject this false equivalence. On Aug. 22 more than 100 Jewish faculty and staff released a statement "Not in Our Name," affirming that accusations of antisemitism are too often misused to silence debate, criminalize advocacy for Palestine and erode the space for critical inquiry. The call reflects a growing national movement in which Jewish scholars, alongside diverse allies, reject conflations of political critique with bigotry, insisting instead on intellectual honesty and academic freedom.

Arms industry and the genocide in Gaza

The HJC petition highlighted the nature of Israel's defense sector, which tests weapons on Palestinians under occupation before marketing them abroad as "battle tested." Companies such as Elbit Systems profit by showcasing footage of destruction, sometimes involving children, to attract customers.In addition to the evidence in the proposal, the UN Special Rapporteur published a detailed report titled "From economy of occupation to economy of genocide" documenting direct involvement with genocide and war crimes bydefense-contracting companies Hopkins has investedin, such as Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar and Northrop Grumman.

Double standards in decision-making

In 2017, the PIIAC recommended divestment from fossil fuels on the grounds of moral leadership, social impact and alignment with the University's values. Those same principles were conspicuously absent in 2025. Instead, the PIIAC cited "lack of consensus" on campus and the supposed futility of divestment. Yet the committee admitted to receiving 45 supportive emails and only "several" opposed. The PIIAC admits that its "governing documents do not state the level of consensus required" but arbitrarily decided that the proposal "did not meet the high threshold." As evidence of this claim,the PIIAC quoted a total of four emails almost verbatim from the pro-Israel groups -one of these emails described students as "trespassers and agitators." Supportive voices (including open letters signed by more than 600 Hopkins faculty and graduate students) were dismissed as "using the same language," while opposition was inflated and highlighted in detail. Unlike in 2017, no surveys or forums were held to foster discussion, reflecting institutional avoidance and apathy.

Flawed financial arguments

The PIIAC claimed that the University's indirect holdings amounted to only 0.0012% of the companies' value and that divestment would not alter their practices. This argument ignores how reputational pressure changes corporate behavior. When Facebook revealed Israeli Pegasus spyware abuses in 2024, its parent company NSO Group swiftly restricted its use. Divestment is about signaling moral legitimacy, not overwhelming financial weight.

The committee also dismissed Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) funds as impractical, despite clear evidence they often outperform traditional investments. BlackRock and Vanguard, which manage the University's assets, both offer ESG portfolios with stronger returns than the University's current holdings; for example, 8.22% (iShares MSCI ACWI, the University's existing investment) versus 10.92% (iShares MSCI USA ESG), for a 10-year return.

At the same time, investing in Israeli companies carries rising risks: Moody's downgraded Israel's credit rating to just above junk status, while sanctions by the U.K., EU, and Canada increase instability. Brazil and other countries have postponed major arms contracts with Elbit, and the sector has already lost more than 35% of its contracts in the Global South. Most recently, Turkey has implemented a complete embargo on trade with Israel over the Gaza genocide.

Reputational and moral costs

Beyond finances, the moral stakes are immense. International Association of Genocide Scholars recently issued a resolution determining that the conduct on war in Gaza meets the legal definitionof genocide. A legal analysis by the UN Human Rights Council concluded that "Israeli security forces have committed and are continuing to commit"four out of five acts of genocide as defined in the UN1948 Genocide Convention. It also concluded that "Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, have incited the commission of genocide."

Israeli leaders have openly called for mass starvation, ethnic cleansing, killing of children, "punishment more painful than death" and even wiping out Gaza. Such extremely dehumanizing rhetoric underscores genocidal intent.Prominent Israelis, including opposition leader Yair Golan, warnedthat Israel is " killing children as a hobby" and that it is fast becoming a global pariah. U.S. lawmakers, including Maryland senators Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks,have charged Israel with ethnic cleansing and war crimes and voted for an arms embargo, along with 22 other senators. Major Western countries like Spain and Germany have completely or partially blocked armed sales to Israel because of its genocidal acts.

For Hopkins, complicity risks reputational collapse. Amnesty International has already issued critical reports on U.S. universities' investment practices. Other institutions, including King's College at Cambridge University and Norway's Sovereign Wealth Fund, have divested from Israeli companies. Public opinion is shifting. A Gallup poll in July 2025 found that almost 60% of Americans oppose the genocide in Gaza. The University's refusal to act places it out of step with the global momentum toward accountability.

Conclusion: toward moral leadership

The PIIAC report represents a failure of ethical responsibility and academic integrity. This decision must also be read alongside broader attempts to silence dissent in higher education and universities' attempt to be complicit with the demands of the Trump administration. A federal judge recently ruled these actions unconstitutional, affirming that they violated the First Amendment and the Civil Rights Act.

The University's prior divestments from South Africa in the 1980s, tobacco in the 1990s and thermal coal in the 2010s were not driven by financial incentives nor grounded in overwhelming community consensus, but instead reflected moral, ethical and reputational imperatives. In the South African case, apartheid was denounced as a "social evil" violating human decency; with tobacco, financial ties to companies causing preventable deaths were seen as "undermining [the University's] status as a leader in medicine and public health"; and with coal, the decision emphasized sustainability and institutional responsibility.

Universities are not neutral actors. Their endowments, partnerships and policies embed them within global systems of power, including arms production, surveillance and war. To invest in companies that profit from occupation and genocide is to become complicit in structural violence. Suppressing speech under the guise of avoiding controversy is to erode the very mission of higher education. Hopkins must divest from arms companies to avoid complicity in genocide and to reclaim its credibility as an institution of conscience. Remaining silent and invested in violence is not neutrality, it is complicity.

Mansoor Malik, M.D. is a professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a passionate human rights advocate. His areas of research include burnout, wellbeing and intersection of Antisemitism, Islamophobia and other forms of hate ideologies.

To understand how these cuts affected Hopkins Dining in the 2025-26 academic year, The News-Letter spoke with University administration, three undergraduate students and three Hopkins Dining workers.

Reduced dining hours and options

Since the 2024-25 academic year, Hopkins Dining removed Late Night Dining hours (9 p.m.-12 a.m.) at Hopkins Cafe. Additionally, Charles Street Market no longer includes the vendors "Scoopology" and "The Bun Shop." University administration attributed these changes to low student engagement with the now-removed offerings in an email to The News-Letter.

"Each year we evaluate our operations to ensure our food offerings match up with student demand, and this process often leads to changes with venues and vendors. Specific to late-night dining, over the past several years, we've observed a consistent decline in late-night dining volume at Hopkins Café," a University spokesperson wrote.

However, many students disputed the claim and expressed disappointment with this decision, feeling that these features were well-loved among the student community. In an email to The News-Letter, sophomore Chaitra Moligi reflected on the removal of Scoopology.

"Personally, I frequented Scoopology late at night, specifically for their waffle and ice cream. To me, it was the best way to end a late night of work, so I will definitely miss it," Moligi wrote. "Hopkins dining claims that Scoopology and the Bun Shop shut down due to low activity, but whenever I went to Charles Street Market, I'd have to wait in a line just to get some ice cream. I am extremely saddened by this change."

Sophomore Elaine Flowers shared similar sentiments toward Scoopology in an email to The News-Letter.

"Charles Street Market was the place to go my freshman year. Any late-night cravings, Charles Street Market. Any sweet cravings, Charles Street Market," Flowers wrote. "No matter what time you went, it was packed. Now without Scoopology and the Bun Shop, there's really no need to go anymore. It's like a ghost town in there. [...] It lost its spark."

In terms of late-night dining options, sophomore Lia Carroll highlighted the inconvenience of this change in an email to The News-Letter.

"Late night was the only way to get a well-rounded meal after 10 p.m., which isn't an uncommon time for clubs or PILOT [sessions] to end," Carroll stated.

Moligi corroborated Carroll's sentiment, adding that many Hopkins students attend late-night labs, classes and study sessions, so they need well-rounded food options at all times. Flowers mentioned that late-night options are essential to students, and the change deterred many students from Hopkins Cafe this year.

"I know, for me, I haven't been eating at any of the dining halls, let alone Hopkins Café, for a couple weeks due to the change," Flowers wrote.

Notably, the University has since updated dining hours until 10 p.m. with all fully functioning stations, noting that limited dining stations after 9 p.m. may have discouraged student attendance and engagement.

Strain on staffing and food quality

Hopkins Dining also experienced staffing and food quality changes since the summer budget cuts and its 2022 transition into a self-operating model, after separating from Bon Appétit Managing Company.

Due to the hiring freeze, the University communicated that staffing positions have remained unfilled in an email to The News-Letter.

"Some full-time professional staff positions on the dining management team are currently on hold, as a result of the university's hiring freeze," a spokesperson wrote. "[However,] the team is adequately staffed to meet the demands and needs of our campus community and ensure quality execution for our students' dining experience."

However, three Hopkins dining cooks disagreed, noting that their workload has significantly increased disproportionate to their pay. They attributed this to Hopkins Dining cutting old positions and combining responsibilities. One cook, going by the pseudonym "Rachel," described her experience in an interview with The News-Letter.

"We used to have a whole prep team in each building. Now, if you're a cook, you have to cook and prepare your own food, so you're doing double the work. You might see some stations where one person might be cooking for four stations and three stations," Rachel stated. "Also, they cut schedules, [...] so there is a lot of stuff that needs to be done, but they never created a position for it; instead, they just try to [say] 'oh, well, you can do this. This is part of your job.' But when [...] you picked up your job, you weren't told that that was a part of your job description."

Rachel then mentioned how several workers, her included, have felt pressured to complete more work in the same amount of time.

"I've been in situations where I ended up at a combined station, and I was not able to do the amount of work they wanted me to do and have my food out on time, so I was literally being harassed down my back [...] to the point where HR has to be involved. We've been telling [our managers] that it's too much work for us, and [they're] not trying to help or add a new position," Rachel recalled.

Another cook, going by the pseudonym "Anna," corroborated these concerns in an interview with The News-Letter.

"They're making people do multiple full-time jobs within an eight-hour shift. They refuse, some days, to let us work overtime [because] they want us to congest so much in one eight-hour shift and don't want to hire anyone new," Anna said.

The third cook, going by the pseudonym "Jenna," added that workers were not notified about their new positions, expecting to complete new responsibilities under new job descriptions.

"To cut down on us filing grievances with the union [regarding new obligations], they label everybody the same. It used to say 'prep cook' or 'production cook,' but now everyone is a production cook," Jenna stated.

Jenna added that other roles have been consolidated, such as dishwashers now being responsible for building-wide trash collection, when originally their job description only included washing dishes. This makes it difficult for these workers (and others alike) to keep up with both jobs simultaneously.

All three workers also mentioned how these changes directly resulted from the change in contractors. They reported that, before, Hopkins Dining received fresh produce, but now they only receive frozen or canned food.

"When we worked for outside contractors, everything was fresh. We had a whole preparation team dedicated to cutting and cleaning fresh vegetables and food. Now, everything is out of a can or frozen. [...] I feel like the quality of food is declining, and the quality of the food they bring in has declined," Rachel mentioned.

Students have also noticed the low quality and limitations in food, with Flowers and Moligi stating that quality and, recently, portions have been low since their time at Hopkins.

"I've also realized that the portions at the B.Y.O.B. station in Nolan's have significantly reduced. Today, I received a pasta portion half the size of a small side plate. When I asked the worker for some more pasta, he refused and said that was all I was allowed to get," Moligi stated.

Communication limitations

Hopkins workers also reported feeling like they have limited ways to communicate any grievances or issues. In her interview with The News-Letter, Rachel mentioned how many workers fear losing their jobs over communicating their grievances, since workers often get fired over small things. Moreover, their worker union fails to negotiate against the combining of positions.

Anna added that many cooks have been working at Hopkins Dining for many years, providing them with insight and experience into student preferences. However, workers feel like managers don't properly listen to their input.

"They act like they care about our opinions and suggestions, but it goes through one end and out the other end," Anna said. "Everyone is trying to find different outlets because of how we're being treated at Hopkins right now."

While the University has not confirmed any dining-specific budget cuts, they stated their commitment to providing quality meals and opening new dining operations in the Bloomberg Student Center and Agora Institute.

"We evaluate all operations on an ongoing, annual basis and make changes according to program needs and data from customer participation" a University spokesperson wrote. "As always, our primary focus remains the student dining experience with an emphasis on quality execution and customer service. We remain committed to continuing to provide access to voluntary meal plans; increasing our opportunities to collaborate with students and staff to ensure we are meeting student and university needs; and working towards the successful opening of operations at the Bloomberg Student Center and Agora Institute."

Notably, Hopkins Dining workers reported receiving no notice about any budget cuts, yet they felt that the budget cuts were apparent due to their staffing changes.

"Their actions show the budget change, but I don't recall them mentioning it outside of cutting back on hours, like overtime, and doub[ling] our work, tripl[ing] some people's." Jenna added, "When you talk to other people who work for the University, and you hear about how they have extra paid holidays and time off and initiatives like 'Employee of the Month,' you realize that dining employees get nothing. Even now we haven't gotten a raise."

The UHA is one of the younger clubs at Hopkins, having only been formed in the past half-decade, but it has quickly risen to prominence as the University's student organization for all things historical. While the club is run by students majoring or minoring in History, UHA aims to garner an appreciation of both history and disciplines under the greater humanities umbrella among Hopkins' student body.

In an interview with The News-Letter, UHA President Elyjah Bassford, a senior majoring in history with a minor in German, stated that he hopes that UHA can promote interdisciplinary learning and knowledge for the benefit of all students.

Bassford explained, "When you think of humanities, you tend to think of individual parcels. You do not tend to think of it as a wider thing."

History and the humanities, though, are not the only fields from which the UHA hopes students will take an interest in getting involved. In fact, the organization welcomes all undergraduate students to participate in its myriad events and activities regardless of their connection to Hopkins' History department - or history as a whole. Bassford presented two reasons for this rationale: firstly, welcoming students from across the university's many departments, whether STEM, humanities or arts, allows for greater approachability and openness of thought within the club. Secondly, Bassford believes that history is intertwined with every academic subject.

"You are still looking at the sum total of research work before you in terms of journal articles and others, and even in that capacity, you're still conducting comparison between past and present and how things got to be a certain way, which is the heart of the historical method," Bassford stated. "So, there is still a kinship between history and STEM degrees."

It is through this perspective that Bassford both hopes students of all backgrounds will take part in UHA and trusts that the club can provide a meaningful experience for undergraduates. A key factor in this experience is the variety of events hosted by UHA, such as trivia, and support from faculty members. Vice President of UHA, Piper Lamson shared her thoughts in an email to The News-Letter.

"I think we draw students in by having cool events like our trivia nights and with our connections to faculty," Lamson said. "The faculty in the history department are our biggest supporters and are always looking to help us out or just show up to events."

With the wide range of topics that questions can be drawn from, Bassford and Lamson state that trivia exemplifies how vast the field of history is. Moreover, they believe it is a thrilling way for students, faculty and other organizations to come together to not only test their overall knowledge, but also form connections with one another who may have similar or different interests. UHA Social Media Manager, Frances Leiter, shared her favorite features of trivia events in an email to The News-Letter.

"It is so fun to get together with like-minded people, across classes and areas of study, to compete in a fun environment. It is such a fun way to test your knowledge in a stress-free event! I also appreciate that we've invited other student organizations and clubs on campus, to broaden our connections within the Humanities at Hopkins," Leiter wrote.

Although trivia nights may be a staple event for UHA, Bassford and the UHA board are looking for ways to expand their outreach.

"We are looking into ways to collaborate with other organizations," Bassford said. "For instance, holding joint events potentially with other organizations like writer clubs, or the Ancient Civilizations Club as well. We have had joint events with them in the past or events in which UHA members were involved."

Brassford believes that partnerships between clubs are beneficial to both ends and contribute to the ultimate mission of unifying the humanities as a whole at Hopkins, as described earlier. Aside from such events, Hopkins is known for its research, so the UHA incorporates this Hopkins component with the various conference-style events held throughout the year, allowing students to potentially showcase their personal research.

"Sept. 19 is the Baltimore Historic Unconference, called an unconference because it is a more free form sort of occasion [where] anyone who attends can present work…[whether it is] oral research or projects [they are conducting]," Bassford said.

The Baltimore Historic Unconference is one event UHA partakes in that allows members to integrate themselves into the Baltimore community, since the event is not only comprised of Hopkins students but also other history professionals residing in Baltimore. This is an annual event that takes place in the fall, but Lamson stated that UHA also hosts a seminar series in the spring that allow students to engage in research and share their findings.

"[Our seminar series] had students from the BA/MA program, senior honors thesis, and the sophomore history seminar present their research and receive feedback," Lamson added. "This event was memorable for me because I was writing my sophomore thesis and it was helpful to collect my thoughts through presentation and strengthen my paper through peer feedback."

It is typical for students to get involved in research at some point in time at Hopkins. Bassford highlighted UHA events as a way to promote humanities-centered research and attract other students to explore this realm of research beyond popular STEM options.

"UHA will hold events in the spring that will incorporate and spread awareness of these research projects," Bassford said. "You can actively go to these presentations [where] our student researchers can freely and most exactly show all the good work that they have done over a semester or over the course of a year. So, look out for spring!"

Abigail McKenna: Snipe Hunter by Tyler Childers

Released July 25, Tyler Childers' Snipe Hunter is a wildly unpredictable country album with all the twists and turns of a southern back road. Within the 13 tracks, Childers goes beyond the boundaries of genre, playing with everything from experimental rock to gospel music, all tied together with a distinctly Appalachian style of storytelling and a lot of wry humor. Aptly called a "wanderer's album," Snipe Hunter stands out not only for its eccentric qualities but also for its wide ranged appeal. Every listener is likely to find some of themselves in the album, as long as they're willing to look.

The album opens with "Eatin' Big Time," a refreshingly down-to-earth take on the notorious 'I was like you once, look how I struggled' song. Its lyrics draw from the unique experience of poverty in rural Appalachia. From the wordplay in the title, likely referencing electronic benefit transfers, to the unadulterated rage found in iconic lines like "have you ever got to hold and blow a thousand fucking dollars," it's a profoundly resonant piece that celebrates Childers' well-earned success while recognizing, and relating to, the struggle of working class Americans.

Another standout track, "Nose On The Grindstone," is the long-awaited studio version of an old fan favorite. A heartbreaking reference to Childers' upbringing and personal experience with addiction, this song is especially relevant because of the opioid crisis that still grips rural Appalachian and Southern communities. Childers serves as a voice for the systemically underrepresented and underserved people of Appalachia, and in doing so, becomes a voice for people as a whole.

Simultaneously gritty, romantic and simply fun, there truly is a song for everyone on Snipe Hunter, making it the quintessential "album of the summer."

Max Duncan: Let God Sort Em Out by Clipse

It's the perfect recipe. Brothers Pusha T and Malice of the hip-hop duo Clipse reuniting for their first album in nearly 16 years, Pharrell returning as the executive producer and enough controversy to skyrocket any album to the headlines. So do "yellow diamonds look like pee-pee" or did Clipse lose the plot on their newest album Let God Sort Em Out?

This album has everything the hip-hop scene needs right now: the raw emotionality, the defiance against corporate record labels and King Push's signature unapologetic ruthlessness. The opening track, "The Birds Don't Sing," deals with the emotions the brothers felt during their mother's and father's deaths. It establishes the album's raw, unwavering and nuanced lyricism which sets it apart while simultaneously leaving you tearing up before the infamous "Chains & Whips." Kendrick Lamar's verse on this track caused friction between Clipse and their previous label, Def Jam. This controversy resulted in Clipse leaving Def Jam to join Roc Nation as the artists refused to remove Kendrick's verse on the track as Def Jam and its parent company, Universal Music Group, requested.

This controversy adds an additional layer to the album, marking a classic triumph of creative freedoms and artistic vision over corporate censorship - a victory that seems so few and far between in the era of modern music, especially considering how the Kendrick and Drake beef ended last summer. The repetition of the line "This is culturally inappropriate," throughout the album is especially poignant as Clipse rebels against pop culture and pokes fun at those that clutch their pearls, believing Push is too unhinged for mainstream culture. Yet that is part of what makes this album so entertaining. Clipse refuses to compromise in confronting controversial topics while making listeners question their peers and the state of the music scene.

With Clipse reinventing the plot, there is no other album more deserving of a 10/10 from both yours truly and Anthony Fantano, aka. theneedledrop, than Let God Sort Em Out.

Max Duncan: Vanisher, Horizon Scraper by Quadeca

Vanisher, Horizon Scraper is not your regular summer music bump that you blast in your car with the windows rolled down under a cloudless pastel blue sky. It's a transformative experience. It's the dichotomous slow burn album on the sea. Paired with the album movie, the album grows into something grander than thought to be conceivable. The album is a journey in every sense of the word. It's a literal journey for the album's protagonist, a journey for the listener, and of course a journey for the artist, Quadeca.

This is Quadeca's most vulnerable album as he comes to utilize his melodic singing voice more over his experimental tracks that listeners have come to love in releases such as "Scrapyard" and "I Didn't Mean to Haunt You."

Vanisher, Horizon Scraper, at least in my mind, depicts the journey of a man losing himself in pursuit of a grand dream only to find he has betrayed his friends and is destined to repeat his Sisyphean obsession and eventual downfall for eternity. The repetitive lyrics of "I'll be there when no one is" in the opening track, "No Questions Asked" affirms the protagonist's determination to not lose those close to him again while simultaneously acting as a desire to have someone be there for him and prevent his isolation. The album's story emulates that of Quadeca's own as he obsessively pursues the best discography of the decade.

Yet there are some pitfalls to this album, such as the lyrics being somewhat hazy in pursuit of ambiguity and the mastering being somewhat juvenile. These characteristics both give Vanisher, Horizon Scraper its charm and detract from its potential. Overall, it is not perfect, but it shows a side of Quadeca that once hid behind being a "YouTube rapper" and his experimental tracks. Vanisher, Horizon Scraper shows his constant struggle to improve and innovate, such is the case with the album movie, while finding perfection. This is the type of album that makes all Quadeca fans proud of how far he has come and anxiously anticipate where he will go next.

Aditya Sankar: The Provocateur by ADÉLA

Compared to 2024, the summer of 2025 may have seemed relatively quiet on the musical front, but there's still plenty to appreciate. From Rebecca Black and Oklou to Lady Gaga and FKA Twigs, the pulsating synths of electropop have had quite a good year. Joining their ranks this summer was ADÉLA, with her debut EP The Provocateur. Clocking in at a concise 19 minutes, it wastes no time tackling the dance floor from every angle.

ADÉLA's personal background - mainly her elimination from the reality show "Dream Academy," best known for producing the group KATSEYE - has contributed to the conversation surrounding this record. She alludes to her experiences in the ironically titled and effortlessly catchy electroclash track "FinallyApologising", and critiques star culture with a biting edge in the opening track "Superscar." The album is bold in every sense - viewer discretion is advised for the accompanying visuals.

That said, background knowledge is by no means necessary to enjoy these newly minted club classics. The EP is better appreciated sonically than lyrically (although hearing "dare you to tell me / don't shoot your baby" on "Homewrecked" can be startling the first time around). Whether it's the strangely vulnerable club sounds of "Go" or the pounding industrial-inspired breakdowns of "DeathByDevotion," there's something for everyone's inner raver.

Synchronising unrelenting dance hooks with cleverly layered vocals, this EP is an easy one to love if you're looking for a summertime night-time pop extravaganza.

P.S. Fans of more experimental or psychedelic electronica should also be sure to check out Edits by Chuquimamani-Condori, a compilation of her DJ edits released this summer with an immersive and warmly energetic soundscape best enjoyed with headphones on.

Rebecca Ahn: The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1 by Lord Huron

Lord Huron's fifth album, The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1, carried me through the summer nights when I just wanted to feel like I was sitting in a cabin deep in the woods. I would be drinking in the smell of fire and wood, removed from the past but also deeply entangled in it. Specific? Yes. Did the album somehow also deliver those exact vibes? Also, yes.

A sense of lingering sadness rings through most of the album. The narrator has lost something, someone. In "Looking Back," he sings, "Spent my whole life looking up and wondering who I am / [...] Something tells me you and I will never meet again." On "The Comedian," it's "I wanna see that light in your eyes again," and on the aptly-titled "Digging Up The Past," he's "digging up the past and dreaming of what might have been."

He talks of such loss without much fanfare. He contemplates more than howls. That's the quiet beauty of Cosmic Selector, and that's what makes Lord Huron's songs so distinctive. The simple, repeated melodies in each track set up an atmospheric forest for the soft vocals to make their mark.

Ironically, however, my favorite song is the weirdest one out of the twelve: "Who Laughs Last," featuring Kristen Stewart (yes, the Kristen Stewart). She narrates a story about driving through an alien landscape, followed by the chorus that asks, "If nothing stays forever, who laughs last?" Looking beyond the strangeness of the imagery, the lyrics express the freedom of leaving behind familiarity and embracing the fleetingness of life. I find this track the perfect breath of fresh air between the other musky wood-scented tunes. We all have our ghosts, but we also learn how to set ourselves free.

Cosmic Selector doesn't offer a concrete resolution to the narrator's journey. It leaves us waiting for the next step, whatever form that may take - Vol. 2, a new single, a live performance. We linger. So will I, replaying these songs until I've soaked them up to my heart's content.

The use of generative AI in the writing and production of any academic work is generally prohibited or restricted at the discretion of course instructors. This policy is appropriate to maintain academic integrity and intellectual honesty and should remain in place even as technology advances and intertwines further with day-to-day life. However, artificial intelligence as a supplement to learning, a tool to assist in idea generation, problem-solving and explanation of difficult topics is inevitable yet detrimental to the learning mind.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI - the company behind ChatGPT - described the GPT-5 model, launched in August 2025, as "having a team of Ph.D.-level experts in your pocket." This convenient abundance of knowledge can significantly decrease the intellectual struggle that one may otherwise face. For example, if a student is struggling to understand an answer in a practice problem while studying for a midterm, they can reference ChatGPT, simulating private office hours at their convenience. These applications can expand beyond the classroom. AI can also provide help towards interpersonal issues, such as dealing with a messy roommate by providing psychological insights to help manage the conflict. A Nature Human Behaviour study shows that over time, repeated human-AI interactions lead people to adopt the system's bias, proving that AI is bound to reshape our cognition and learning as students and people.

A reflection on the impact of artificial intelligence posted by the NIH states that while "search engines and platforms like Wikipedia provide users with vast amounts of information... [artificial-intelligence chatbots] are not just repositories of information; they simulate human conversation... [a] dynamic interaction [that] could lead to a different kind of cognitive reliance." Some argue that concerns regarding the rise of artificial intelligence are inherent, just as they were with any previous technology wave. For example, similar concerns regarding cognition came about with the rise of search engines, such as Nicholas Carr's article for The Atlantic titled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" However, no prior wave of technology has posed a threat to human intelligence and usefulness the way AI does: a technology designed to mimic human thought and sentience.

Google, since its popularity in the early 2000s, provided access to pieces of information, but our minds were required to bring those pieces together. With search engines, you were the compiler, and that compiling provided you with the learning pathway; however, artificial intelligence puts you in the passenger's seat, directly giving you the answer. You, the user, are only responsible for evaluating whether its output agrees with your previous breadth of knowledge. And when its knowledge surpasses your own, that's when the overreliance begins: an arbitrary trust that begins to erode our cognition.

In a CNN interview, Dr. Nataliya Kos'myna, a research scientist at MIT, shared findings from a study which showed how relying solely on AI for tasks like writing can reduce brain activity and memory. This research highlights how, as technology advances, if we are not careful in how we use it, we could actively affect how we think. Furthermore, a paper by Professor Michael Gerlich of SBS Swiss Business School highlights how AI allows us to outsource cognitive tasks to external systems, which lets individuals focus on other more complex and creative activities. However, he warns that "the reliance on AI for cognitive offloading has significant implications for cognitive capacity and critical thinking."

The question becomes: How can we leverage AI systems without allowing them to infiltrate the mission of discovery that Hopkins deeply aspires to endow on its students? Classroom guidelines are critical, but they can only govern the learning students do within their coursework. Intellectual learning and growth, especially as a college student, extend beyond the classroom to research opportunities, student organizations and personal learning. Ultimately, our only defense against the overreliance on AI is our own cognizance: to remain present in the act of learning, to remember the reward that follows intellectual struggle. As students and faculty, we must honor the school's mission, using AI for the advancement of knowledge whilst remaining in control of AI during our pursuit of it.

Arman Momeni is a sophomore from Toronto, Canada majoring in Neuroscience.

The first, introduced by Sophomore Senator Kevin Xu, considered funding for an Academic Affairs Committee tabling at SGA's National Pancake Day event. The second, introduced by Programming Chair Tyler Turner, discussed the funding of the National Pancake Day event itself.

Both bills were moved from first reading to second reading by the Senate. Afterward, the bill concerning the Academic Affairs Committee was amended and the National Pancake Day bill passed. After more discussion on the first bill, it also passed. An amendment to the SGA bylaws concerning the organization's Board of Directors, also introduced by Xu, was tabled indefinitely.

Moving into non-legislative affairs, the SGA Civic Engagement Committee, led by Chair Kirsten Amemastro, gave a presentation on some of the committee's potential future initiatives - one of which included reforms to the J-Cash printing system.

The meeting then ended in cohort time, in which members of SGA divided into groups. The members then suggested new initiatives in areas such as dining, housing and academia.

This question, known as the "black box" problem, has left neuroscientists scratching their heads for decades. On Sept. 5, Amanda Ray, a graduate student in the Gordus Lab at Hopkins, presented her dissertation defense, titled "Understanding How Sensory and Motor Information are Processed in a Neuron of Caenorhabditis elegans." Her talk suggested that the answer to this question may not lie in the human brain but instead in a little worm by the name of Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans).

Ray started off the talk by walking the audience through the key set of neurons in any nervous system: sensory neurons (which detect environmental cues), interneurons (which process and relay those signals) and motor neurons (which tell muscles and glands what to do). Our brains contain billions of these neurons, which communicate with each other, allowing for everything from feeling the slightest of touches to high-level computation.

While it would be nice to map all those connections between neurons to create a connectome, it is unfortunately very challenging. Microscale connectomes are 3D plots of neural structure that allow researchers to connect structure to behavior, but they require intensive electron microscopy. Electron microscopy utilizes high-speed focused electron beams to create magnified images of small specimens that otherwise could not be imaged with a light microscope. Considering that imaging one cubic millimeter of the human brain generates about 1.4 petabytes of data through the examination of 57,000 cells and 150 million synapses, developing a connectome for the brain would be incredibly challenging, requiring an alternate solution.

That's why neuroscientists like Ray often start small, looking at animals such as mice and fruit flies for modeling. But what made C. elegans the right choice for her work?

C. elegans has only 302 neurons. It's transparent and self-fertilizes, which makes researchers' lives a lot easier.

"Having genetically identical offspring allows developmental and neuronal wiring to also be identical, which is helpful when trying to map neural pathways and tracking neuronal activity of individuals," Ray said.

And despite its simple neural system, C. elegans performs behaviors such as seeking odors or fleeing from high salt concentrations, proving that these worms possess small but complex displays of sensory-motor decision-making. It should then come as no surprise that scientists have known the entire connectivity of C. elegans since 1986, almost 40 years ago, attesting to the utility of the small yet mighty worm in neuroscience research.

So now that her model organism had been selected, the next step was to find an appropriate neuron to analyze input and output for.

"Modeling helps us fill in the blanks for what goes on in the human brain, illuminating the black box," Ray explained.

Effectively, she needed interneurons whose inputs and outputs could be clearly tracked. In C. elegans, AVA drives backward movement, RIM modulates AVA's activity and AIB sits between sensory inputs and these motor commands. Because their wiring and roles are already mapped, they're ideal for studying how a single neuron integrates sensory and motor signals. Earlier work in the Gordus Lab had shown that motor signals from neurons such as AVA and RIM strongly influence AIB, making AIB a promising neuron for understanding how motor input shapes sensory processing.

Now if neurons were simple calculators, AIB would just sum its inputs and spit out a number that served as an output. Ray wasn't sure if that was the case and posed three defining questions:

1. How does AIB integrate sensorimotor inputs with a small, defined network?
2. How does that integration change when one of the inputs is missing?
3. How is AIB integrating inputs in the context of the whole brain?

Ray found in her research, through calcium imaging and optogenetics (a technology that captures how neurons light up while stimulating them with flashes of light), AIB is not a basic summation machine when it comes to processing motor-sensory signals.

First, modulating motor input shaped how sensory signals were transmitted through the AIB neuron, meaning that sensory signals don't possess a fixed effect. The influence of sensory signals depended on motor signalling. When the motor circuit is in one state, sensory inputs are amplified; in another state, they're muted.

Second, removing motor input changed AIB's responses to incoming sensory stimuli. Sensory input responses would shrink or shift, implying a relation between how motor and sensory inputs are processed by the AIB neuron.

This led Ray to the conclusion that integrating sensory information in the brain is context-dependent. Even a single worm neuron can "think" about what the body is doing or sensing before deciding how much weight to give incoming sensory data. The motor-dependent model effectively outperformed the summation model.

Ray's results fit what other worm interneurons revealed. AVA is an interneuron linked to reversal movements, allowing the worm to reverse direction. Another interneuron, RIM, is more complex. RIM can both trigger reversals via fast electrical synapses to AVA and simultaneously hold those reversals in check through slower chemical signals using glutamate and a chloride channel called AVR-14. When RIM is removed from the neural circuit, AVA neurons fire more often but in smaller bursts, and the worm ends up reversing frequently but weakly.

All of this supported Ray's main finding: sensory input in AIB isn't processed in a vacuum. The neuron "knows" the worm's current motor state and changes how it weights incoming sensory data accordingly. Neurons such as RIM show that a single cell can both promote and suppress the same behavior depending on which pathway it is using. Even with a complete wiring diagram, the computation only becomes clear when you watch neurons in action, not just when you trace their connections.

Because of C. elegans, scientists can now better model and describe real computations, such as context-dependent filtering and signal modulation, inside a fully mapped nervous system. And if a 302-neuron worm does this, imagine what's going on inside our 86-billion-neuron brains.

Preprint of Ray's dissertation can be accessed on the National Library of Medicine (NIH) website.

Football: W (27 - 13)

Coming off of a dominant 42-14 victory over Ithaca last week, the Blue Jays faced the #21/#20 ranked John Carroll Lobos in their home opener at Homewood Field.

The Lobos were the first team to register a score, kicking a field goal on the opening drive of the game; however, this would be the last time they would hold a lead. Hopkins would respond very quickly with a 4 play, 50 yard drive, capped off by a 24 yard pass from returning graduate QB Bay Harvey to Junior wide receiver Robby Enright. This would be the first of three touchdown passes from the quarterback in what was a memorable return to the field after he suffered an injury early last season.

Mid-way through the second quarter Hopkins had stormed to a 21-3 lead, thanks to long touchdowns to wide receiver Cole Crotty and running back Geoff Schroeder. John Carroll would try and respond with a touchdown of their own just before halftime, but lacked any sustained drives in the second half. Hopkins would add on two more field goals in the fourth quarter, as the defense stood stout against their ranked opponents.

On September 20 we will see the Blue Jays take on Susquehana away from home, where they can hopefully get off to a 3-0 start to the year.

Field Hockey: W (3 - 2), W (2 - 1)

After getting off to a rocky 2-1 record to begin the year, the Blue Jays Field Hockey team would head home to take on #2 ranked Salisbury in what shaped up to be a tightly contested match between two of the best teams in the nation. In what was an incredibly close matchup for the entirety of the game, there was barely an inch that separated the two sides. Each team shot the ball twelve times, and both teams had six saves. The separator? A game winning shot from senior Grace Waldeck with 59 seconds left in the match, capping off an enormous 3-2 victory for the program.

Their next game came again #19 ranked TCNJ away from home, and the Jays were able to ride the wave of momentum into a crucial 2-1 victory. Despite going down 1-0 in the second period, Hopkins never relented, firing back a goal four minutes later, and the eventual winner a couple of minutes after that by graduate student Jenna Halpin. A difficult two game stretch for the Blue Jays ended with two enormous victories, and they will look to continue their good form into their match against York this week.

Water Polo: W (23 - 8), W (22 - 13), W (14 - 8), W (30 - 5)

The Men's Water Polo team have begun their season strongly, winning seven out of eight total matchups. This past weekend, they took on four different opponents in Caltech, Ottawa (AZ), UC Merced, and Austin, and emerged victorious from all four matches.

The first two games took place on Saturday and both ended in convincing wins, 23-8 over Caltech, and 22-13 over Ottawa (AZ). Amongst the impressive performances, Mason Hofmann, Alec Baker and Iason Mihalopoulos stood out in their win over Ottawa as they scored seven, six and five points respectively, combining to almost outscore Ottawa themselves.

The final two matchups ended up being almost more lopsided than the first two, with a 14-8 win over UC Merced and a 30-5 win over the #25 Austin College Kangaroos. A truly dominant display over the Kangaroos was highlighted once again by the performances of Hofmann and Mihalopoulos, who scored 10 goals between them, and 14 points overall.

This weekend the team will travel to Rhode Island to play four more matches, before finally returning back home to Baltimore to continue their season.

Volleyball: L (1 - 3), W (3 - 0), L (2 - 3)

The Women's Volleyball team had a slightly disappointing week, only managing one win out of three possible matches at the Carnegie Mellon Quad.

Their first match came against #20 ranked Ithaca in which they suffered their first defeat of the season as they lost three sets to one. The Blue Jays seemed to come out of the gates strongly, winning the first set 25-22, however they would go on to lose the next three sets in agonizingly close fashion.

The second match of the tournament was much more successful, and against a more difficult opponent in #7 ranked MIT. Hopkins never relented or gave MIT an inch of room as they swept them in straight sets, 3-0. An impressive bounce back after their close loss, but unfortunately it wouldn't hold for too long.

Their final outing came against Carnegie Mellon, and despite it being a tense, back-and-forth matchup that went all five sets, the Blue Jays couldn't come out on top, losing the final set 6- 15. Despite this, it represented a commendable effort by the Jays either way as they battled back down from 2 sets to none to force the fifth set, and should give them confidence going into the Wid Guiser Invitational this week!

The News-Letter is aware of the benefits of AI in everyday life. It saves time and energy, and it's an easy way to get feedback and ideas for projects and assignments. It may seem natural to integrate this powerful technology into journalism to streamline writing and editing.

AI is efficient, but journalism, as time-sensitive as it may be, requires more than just efficiency. When tackling sensitive topics, nuanced interviews and care for our subject matter are required to produce a sincere publication. The News-Letter will not sacrifice ethical reporting for efficiency, no matter how alluring the prospect may be. For the following reasons, we will not use generative AI in our writing and editing process.

1. Generative AI cannot take responsibility for its actions.

One of the merits of using AI is its ability to provide extensive detail on a variety of topics. However, it remains possible for AI to make mistakes and produce inaccurate results, a common disclaimer among several engines. When broadcasting sensitive and nuanced information to a public audience, it is important to pay special attention to inaccuracies.

Humans are also bound to make mistakes, but it is not the issue is not inevitability - it is responsibility. No matter how "human" AI may sound, it can neither account for its mistakes the way a human writer can, nor pursue the right answers with journalistic integrity. Especially in an industry where accountability and emotion build a big part of public trust, AI should not take the place of journalists. News concerning our community must be written by reporters who not only produce reliable information, but also address their shortcomings with compassion.

2. Generative AI can infringe on copyrights.

The New York Times is currently in a legal dispute with OpenAI, claiming that the latter had unlawfully infringed upon the Times' copyright by utilizing millions of articles to train LLMs. More recently, Anthropic has agreed to pay a $1.5 billion settlement to a group of authors who claimed that the company accessed their books through pirated websites. AI's tendency to reproduce content without proper credit is highly problematic.

Copyrights are a two-way street. Because generative AI can source its results from original and protected works, in using AI, The News-Letter would be publishing content that is not fully its own. In everything we release, we put special emphasis on respecting our resources' copyright while crediting creators properly. This also allows us to provide content fully brought together by Hopkins students, for the Hopkins community.

3. Generative AI can undermine the critical thinking process, a pillar of journalism.

The act of intentionally writing is inherently tied with the practice of critical thinking as it brings together multiple skills: reading from a collection of sources, recognizing main ideas and conveying ideas cohesively. Each step of the process deepens understanding of the article and the world around us. Even after a piece is published, the writing process continues to promote knowledgeable discussion and meaningful engagement, keeping critical thinking alive.

Collaboration has also been shown to contribute to the development of critical thinking. As we edit all articles submitted to us, we meaningfully engage with our contributors' ideas, evaluate whether their suggestions will be taken into effect and, throughout it all, communicate clearly and effectively.

Ultimately, The News-Letter focuses on the voices in Hopkins and Baltimore. Generative AI's training data is not limited to this specific community, nor does it form a cohesive, singular voice with an intentional directive in mind. Regardless of whether readers are interested in our content being organic, we cannot ensure accuracy when using LLMs.

As AI continues to evolve, the line between human and machine-generated work becomes increasingly blurry. While it has many valuable applications and promises to radically change society, AI incurs too many risks at the moment. Uncertainty surrounds its use and ethics, especially when prioritizing journalistic integrity. The News-Letter will not publish articles written or edited by generative AI.

Hatzell first explained the current methods used to manufacture widely-used chemicals such as ethylene and ammonia. She described these as linear processes that involve a catalysis process and a distillation process, both of which emit carbon dioxide. After the fuel or chemical is used, the remaining carbon dioxide exhaust volatilizes into the atmosphere. Furthermore, if the product is a fertilizer, then the nitrogen exhaust runs off into groundwater. These processes inevitably produce many harmful byproducts, which lead to adverse environmental effects.

"Instead of starting with these fossil fuels for chemical production, we can start to think about capturing and recycling waste carbon and nitrogen streams and using these as chemical feedstock. This can help create atomic circularity." Hatzell said. "1.5 metric tons of carbon is emitted per ton of ethylene, and 1.25 tons of carbon is emitted per ton of ammonia… My lab, the circular electrochemistry lab, looks to examine ways that chemistry that can be performed in a circular way."

Hatzell points out that a challenging aspect of developing RCCC is the dilution of waste streams. If the stream is too dilute, then the desired separation process can't be carried out. For example, nitrate is often found in parts per million in the environment, which could potentially be too dilute for separation. As a result, there would be tremendous amounts of mass transport losses, which result in a loss of money and energy. Another critical consideration comes in what forms of carbon and nitrogen are most valuable to recover and what forms can be valorized and used for later.

Aside from these complications, there also remains the issue of how to utilize the carbon that's been captured. One common suggestion has been to store it underground, but Hatzell refuted the idea, arguing that subterranean carbon would disrupt and add different contaminants into our groundwater.

"There are limited geological reserves for carbon storage, and a lot of the economics suggest capturing and utilizing the carbon dioxide directly may be more economical," she stated. "What my group is really interested in is the indirect use of carbon dioxide, where we chemically alter the carbon dioxide molecule itself in the goal of creating things like synthetic fuels," Hatzell said. An example of this direct use would be to store captured carbon dioxide exhaust and mix it with ammonia to obtain urea, which is used to make fertilizer.

"The big overarching question is: how can electrochemistry aid in valorizing carbon dioxide, carbonate or bicarbonate, and how can it be used to make profitable systems?" Hatzell continued.

Hatzell envisions what a large-scale infrastructure system for RCCC might resemble: one that effectively avoids the pitfalls that come with the linear refinery systems that currently dominate. The necessary components involve air capture units that acquire the carbon dioxide, membrane systems that concentrate it and electrolyzers that convert the carbon dioxide into fuels and chemicals. She emphasizes that the challenge comes from creating components that work together efficiently rather than improving a single step.

"As an engineer, what I'm interested in is making sure that the system works together, and figuring out what problems are the biggest problems to work on," she said. "I have to think about this whole system because if I improve one subsystem by 100% but that subsystem only contributes 1% of the cost, I'm not really moving this technology forward."

A major challenge comes from the efficiency of the electrolyzers. Even after spending significant amounts of energy on obtaining pure carbon dioxide, up to 75% of the product can be lost within the electrochemical cell. At the cathode of the cell, there are a mixture of products, including ethane, carbon monoxide, methane, hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The products at the anode include carbon dioxide and oxygen, which have proven to be difficult to separate.

As a result, Hatzell and her group have taken an interest in bipolar membrane electrolysis, which involves a two-layer membrane composed of an anion exchange layer and a cation exchange layer. When an electric potential is applied across the whole cell, water is dissociated into hydroxide ions and protons. This reaction helps turn carbonate from the air capture system to carbon dioxide, which can then react at the catalyst layer to produce the desired products. This design also keeps the carbonate from migrating over to the anode, effectively eliminating the need to perform a separation process.

"I think the bipolar membranes give us a lot of benefits, both with carbon capture and with ammonia separations," Hatzwell states, sharing her enthusiasm for this design. "It's really important to not spend money on extra chemicals, and so these are very useful reactor architectures for both nitrogen and carbon separation."

Agara Bio, founded in 2018, is a student-run biology club that provides a lab space for students to delve into biology outside of traditional labs. Today, it has grown into a hub for laboratory workshops, independent projects and collaborative events that bring hands-on research opportunities to students across disciplines.

Jason Bae, a junior majoring in Neuroscience, serves as Agara Bio's lab manager. By leading workshops, teaching lab techniques and assisting students with their projects, he is a key figure in the club's current growth and development. For example, Bae led the "Alzheimer's ELISA workshop" on Sept. 10, 2025, teaching students how to perform serial dilutions, pipette solutions containing various compounds (such as the beta-amyloid plaque proteins characteristic of Alzheimer's, antibodies and enzymes) and interpret the results of the ELISA test.

To help students with this workshop, Bae taught the scientific mechanisms behind it.

"The ELISA test that we conducted today works by having two antibodies: a primary and a secondary antibody. The primary antibody would attach to the protein, which were beta plaques, and then the secondary antibody would attach to the primary antibody," Bae stated. "The secondary antibody contains an enzyme that reacts and produces a color change [to blue]. Depending on the intensity of the color, we could determine the concentration of the protein."

Therefore, a higher concentration of the protein resulted in a color change, indicating the presence of Alzheimer's disease. Bae explained that the club chose the ELISA test for the workshop because of the wide applications of the method, so learning how to do this test before diving into benchwork would give students a solid foundation to begin with.

While workshops like the ELISA session provide foundational skills, many students dive deeper through independent projects, gaining hands-on experience and contributing to research initiatives. One such initiative, the Genetic Parts Library project, collaborates with the International Genetically Engineered Machine team to create a library of around 300 types of DNA accessible by students.

"With this project, we're actually trying to use the Opentrons robot, which is an auto-pipetter... For me, what I've done in the past is to tweak the robot so that I know how to code for it and make it pipette accurately," Bae said. "Now, we're trying to do some test runs using some of the genes. If it works, we're going to make it bigger and official among the student members in Agara Bio and then allow them to be part of the project."

Agara Bio also hosts a variety of other events, such as professor talks where a panel of faculty comes to share research and experiences with club members. Additionally, its annual "IdeaTHON" is a single-day biology-focused hackathon where students develop ideas for actionable research projects and present a pitch to Agara Bio. The top projects are directly supported through equipment and funding provided by the club.

Beyond opportunities for strengthening benchwork skills and initiating independent research projects, Agara Bio offers a supportive on-campus community.

"When I was a freshman and joined Agara Bio, it tended to feel like the upperclassmen were more encouraging and more approachable in terms of asking questions compared to a lab led by a PI," Bae stated. "It would be great if your research mentor is very active in teaching you, but there are cases where that's not true. Being part of Agara, I think I'm able to approach people who know about the topic more easily."

The club also offers members the chance to take on leadership roles and experience the reward of guiding others.

"For me, leading a workshop [on gel electrophoresis] for the first time last year, when I became a lab manager, was a significant event," Bae said. "Seeing the students learn one of the most basic lab techniques and run it successfully was pretty rewarding."

Friday

High Zero Festival 2025, 45 W. Preston St., 8:30 p.m.

The High Zero Festival is one of Baltimore's longest-running celebrations of experimental music. Each night features international and local musicians who step on stage without a script, creating new sounds through improvisation. Audiences can expect four group sets and one solo act that highlight the spontaneity and unpredictability of the event. Tickets are $25 per night, with a discounted admission of $15 available at the door for students, seniors and artists. A festival pass for all four nights is $75.

Summer Sounds at the Square, Belvedere Square, 529 E. Belvedere Ave., 6-9 p.m.

Don't miss the last Friday of the Summer Sounds series, where the parking lot is transformed into a lively open-air market. Visitors can enjoy performances by local bands along with food and drinks from neighborhood favorites like Atwater's, Neopol Savory Smokery, Prigel Family Farm and Market Bar. Admission is free, making it an easy option for a relaxed night of music and community.

Saturday

Charm City Live, War Memorial Plaza,12-9 p.m.

Charm City Live takes over War Memorial Plaza with a full day of live performances, local food and art vendors right in the heart of downtown. The lineup features major acts including Vivian Green, Jeffrey Osborne, Lucky Daye and The-Dream, making this free festival one of the city's standout events of the season.

Trifecta Festival, Maryland State Fairgrounds, 2200 York Rd., Lutherville-Timonium, 11 a.m.

Trifecta brings together food, music and local vendors for a one-day festival. More than 35 food trucks will serve everything from seafood and barbecue to vegan dishes and international street food. Over 50 artisan stalls will be open with clothes, jewelry and crafts, and there will be activities like axe throwing and climbing. A lineup of live bands keeps the energy going all day. Tickets are $35.99 or buy 3 tickets and get 1 free.

Sunday

The Way of Nature: Art from Japan, China, and Korea, Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Dr., 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

This exhibition brings together more than 40 works from the BMA's Asian art collection that explore how nature has shaped artistic expression across East Asia. From centuries-old ceramics and carved jade to textiles and contemporary photography, the pieces highlight the enduring connection between human life and the natural world. Admission is free.

Follett partners with more than 1,000 colleges and universities across North America, operating both online and retail campus stores. At Hopkins, it has introduced a model focused more heavily on apparel and school-branded merchandise - a direction that has drawn mixed reactions from students.

Barnes & Noble operated the Hopkins store since 2006. For many students, its presence served as a break from the struggle of academics.

In an email to The News-Letter, sophomore Gaayathri Nadarajah expressed disappointment at the store's new emphasis on merchandise and the disappearance of books.

"I actually found out about the store changes quite abruptly - not until I got back on campus and saw that all of the lovely books had vanished!" she wrote. "Barnes & Noble was such a cute study spot adjacent to campus! Being able to take a break from class and browse amongst the shelves was such a stress reliever, and I'll miss it greatly now that it's gone!"

Nadarajah also voiced concern about how the change reflects the University's relationship to the greater Baltimore community.

"While I understand the logic behind the decision, I'm still devastated that [Hopkins] is continuing to encroach on the surrounding community - literally consuming its neighbors." Nadarajah wrote. "I truly hope this doesn't set precedent for the future."

Post-baccalaureate student Aram del Junco also weighed in on the change in an interview with The News-Letter. He noted his initial optimism with the change.

Del Junco explained that he first believed that Hopkins would be running the store independently, which he thought would allow the University to directly benefit from its profits before learning of their partnership with Follett. While he acknowledged that the arrangement could still offer financial benefits, he admitted uncertainty about the business side of the change.

"Initially, I thought that Hopkins was going to have their own branded store, and they were going to be running it, so they were going to be benefiting from all the profits and not splitting that with anyone [...] and I thought it was going to be a benefit," he said. "Then I quickly found out that it was actually going to be run by another third party - and I'm not exactly sure what the business side of that looks like for Hopkins, but I hope that it's kind of a similar boat where Hopkins will be getting more of the profit shared compared to Barnes & Noble."

Sophomore Reshmita Nayudu emphasized how the change has affected the campus atmosphere.

"I think that Barnes & Noble offered a place for people to sit down, and now people are saying that they can't even find their bookstore - and it kind of ruined the atmosphere, because now it kind of just turned into a merch store," Nayudu said.

Nayudu added that the transition has complicated students' access to course materials. Rather than being able to purchase books and supplies directly from the store, many have had to turn to outside vendors.

"As far as I know, materials for classes [...] [had to be ordered] on Amazon," she said.

This struggle was also reflected in other students' experiences, some of whom have found the transition disruptive to their academic routines. For students in courses that rely heavily on physical texts, the absence of readily available books has added hurdles to the semester's start.

In an email to The News-Letter, sophomore Annie Gooty described the difficulties she has had in obtaining course materials under the new system.

"I need to order 5+ books for my humanities classes and the soonest one is arriving is 2 weeks from now. I've had to go to an outside source because it's not in stock at the bookstore," she wrote. "It's also more expensive than I think it would be if we were just ordering it from the campus bookstore, because of shipping costs."

Faculty members have also felt the impact, particularly those teaching courses that require specialized materials.

Steven Flynn, a professor who teaches the Introduction to Chemistry Laboratory course, explained that delays in obtaining lab notebooks and safety equipment disrupted the early weeks of class in an email to The News-Letter.

"Compared to last year (which was my first year as an instructor at JHU), students have been more delayed in receiving notebooks from the bookstore. A greater number of students have come to the first and second weeks of lab (third week of classes overall), still waiting for their notebooks to be delivered," he wrote. "It is also possible, or even likely, that this is just because the bookstore didn't know what to stock ahead of time, and it won't be a problem in future semesters. They definitely did not have the goggles we needed in stock initially, but they appear to have resolved that fairly quickly (in time for lab to start)."

Flynn then drew attention to the communication gaps between the physical store and faculty, which left some students unable to purchase materials despite listings being available online.

"There was also some sort of communication issue with the physical bookstore. They reached out to me on 8/23 saying that students were looking to buy materials for the course but the bookstore couldn't help them because they didn't have the required course materials adopted yet," Flynn wrote. "This was despite them having been set on the online store for at least a week, which was confirmed by the Follett representative who helped me set it up. I don't know how much of a delay this caused overall. "

Flynn added that navigating the Follett system has been especially difficult for lab courses, which rely on specialized equipment rather than traditional textbooks. He had difficulty making custom/new materials in the system, having to contact a representative for assistance.

Looking ahead, Flynn emphasized that his perspective on the transition remains tentative. While he found the Barnes & Noble system easier to use, he acknowledged that some of the challenges may simply reflect an adjustment period.

"I don't yet have an overall impression of the bookstore changes. I don't know what the driving factors were behind the change, and I only had one year of experience with the Barnes & Noble system. While I found the old system to be much easier for me, I also inherited the course materials list that had been refined by previous instructors," he wrote. "The trouble with this new system might just be a normal adjustment period. Crucially, I don't have any information on whether the new bookstore saves money for students, which I think is very important in determining the overall positive or negative character of the change."