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(05/03/12 6:26pm)
Is the use of drones in warfare ethical, and should the Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (APL) be involved in such kinds of weapons research? These and other questions were the focus of a panel presentation and discussion held last Friday in Mergenthaler Hall by the Hopkins Human Rights Working Group and the Graduate Student Organization.
(04/19/12 9:02pm)
In trying to improve treatment options, developers of cancer therapies encounter hurdles such as making drugs highly specific and also delivering them to cancer cells. A new delivery method of a highly specific anti-cancer drug appears to have overcome some of these challenges in new work on cancer cell lines.
(04/19/12 8:23pm)
With games and food reminiscent of a Taiwanese night market, the Taiwanese American Student Association (TASA) held its annual Night Market on Saturday, Apr. 14 in the Glass Pavilion. According to TASA co-presidents Richard Hong and Eric Yau, the goal of their event Saturday evening was to raise awareness of Taiwanese culture and highlight the group’s presence on campus.
(03/28/12 5:00am)
"No Bubble" is a new student initiative that encourages student exploration of different Baltimore neighborhoods, challenging students to break out of their bubble of Charles Village and the Inner Harbor. It is currently seeking submissions by Hopkins students to share their adventures and spark interest among other students.
(03/15/12 5:00am)
Baltimore's night sky makes it quite challenging to see the stars at night. Many more would light up the night sky were it not for the light pollution of the cityscape. However, stargazers in the Hopkins and Baltimore community do have a very convenient option to see the stars and the planets in greater detail, as the Morris W. Offit Telescope sits atop the roof of Bloomberg Hall in the Maryland Space Grant Observatory. On Friday nights, visitors to the observatory have a chance to see through the instrument of professional astronomers, gazing into a night sky enhanced by the telescope's 20-inch parabolic mirror. Chris Martin, a physics graduate student, curates the night sky for curious stargazers, Hopkins students, staff and the general public. When asked by the visitor about the cost of the telescope, Martin explained that he hasn't been told a specific figure beyond it being an astronomically expensive piece of equipment. "They just tell me not to break it," he said. Martin's tour last weekend featured planets that were up in the night sky, including Venus, Mars and Jupiter, as well as a detailed look at the surface of the moon. The telescope's power was able to bring some of the faintest stars in the night sky into view, and separate a binary star system into two visible stars from the single dot we see with our naked eye. Part of Martin's show included two star clusters that were surrounded by blue cosmic dust which was helping to reflect some of the light. Ordinarily, this dust is not visible with our own eyes, but aided with the power of the observatory's telescope, one can make out these clouds of cosmic dust. "In astronomy, that's how you measure how powerful your telescope is, how dim an object you can see," Martin said. Other stars included in his tour of the winter constellations were the red giant Betelgeuse, the bright star Rigel in the constellation Orion, as well as several clusters and groups of stars such as the beehive cluster. While most of these clusters are too faint for the naked eye to see in the night sky, the Offit Telescope can separate these point sources of light, revealing the many stars that form each cluster, even with the limitations presented by urban light pollution. "It does a very good job compared to the naked eye, and it does a good job compared to other telescopes in the city," Martin said. While the full potential of the telescope is still hindered by the lights emanating from the city, Martin explained that there's still a stronger element of convenience in reaching the general public. "It's convenient in terms of people getting here, but it's not very convenient in terms of the actual observing." From 8:30pm to midnight, Martin is usually in the observatory as visitors come and go throughout the night, weather permitting. If it's a clear night out, be sure to check out the observatory for a wonderful time among the stars.
(03/14/12 5:00am)
(DMC) hosted artists David Reville and Lexie Mountiain in their Artist Talk event cosponsored by the High Zero foundation. The two spoke in the Mattin Center's SDS Room last Sunday about their use of technology in the arts. "Where does the future come from?" Reville said. "It comes from everywhere."Reville, who works as a composer and musicologist, also teaches music technology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.Reville focused his talk on how the arts have tried to divine the future of technology through mediums, such as film and fashion, to varying levels of inaccuracy. Playing behind Reville during his talk were a collection of clips from various science-fiction films through the decades, including scenes from Minority Report. In many of these scene, Reville finds that the technology portrayed is not actually of the future, but may be a reflection of ourselves. "Sometimes, what we see depicted is not so much a guess about the future as it a mirror image of ourselves." One technology theme that Reville alluded to with respect to speculations on future technologies was an element of fear in the outlook individuals may have. "If we're afraid of the future because of the speed of technological change - I mean as a culture - that of course can result in a view that is apocalyptic," he said. Reville also shared his views on what has hindered technological advances, namely the trouble that people can have in embracing something new - they couldn't see the use of a new device. "When the telephone was first introduced, people didn't see the point," he said. "People would ask the question, 'Well why the heck would I want to speak to someone who isn't here.' As Reville told The News-Letter, his focus on the role of technology in the arts was recent within the past three or four years, but he has maintained a much longer-term interest in the subject. "It made me reflect on how those things fit together and how it's going to relate to the bigger things, the bigger questions in life in a way." While his teaching at UMBC focuses more on training students to utilize editing programs, occasionally he discusses some of the larger questions of the arts and technology with his students. "It's just something that is evident in the way we talk about things, maybe more than sitting a class down trying to have a philosophical discussion," Reville said. "Things come up naturally to the students. . .It's a bit of an osmosis approach to theorizing rather than something that's going to be build into a class." Alexandra Macchi, who goes by her stage name of Lexie Mountain, highlighted segments of her expansive portfolio of artwork in various mediums. In her musical work, Mountain has her own solo projects but highlighted a collaborative project with several other women entitled the Lexie Mountain Boys. The group utilized various vocalizations without any form of instrumental accompaniment or commonplace musical structure. "This is how we are reacting to each other; this is how we are reacting to the world and this is how we are navigating the social environment by turning it into these songs. We felt really strongly about bringing it into the world in a way that is semi-confrontational." Macchi also felt that the group confronted the usual conformations of music and the gender identities that society had usually ascribed to women. However, the challenge for her was to convey it through humor in a way that people would be able to understand it and appreciate it. "We, in a sense, wanted to intrude on people's space and at the same time let them be in on the joke, that these roles are put upon people and we have a choice," she said. "The way you transmit humor is really tangled and you can't always say 'guys this is the joke' because some will want to figure it out for themselves." The project had garnered significant reaction online, which excited Macchi regardless of what she would read from them. "One thing about Mountain Boys is that it always draws a reaction out of people, which is interesting to me because a purely sort of innocuous band or an innocuous painting is not enough to really enrage people," she said. "Mountain Boys really drew out some spectacular reactions from people and it was often people who could not stand what we were trying to do. We didn't have instruments or anything. . .so we would make up things on the fly." "People either really liked it or they really hated it, and my goodness they really hated it." Macchi has also worked on a number of installation projects, including a display at Baltimore's Transmodern festival. "I basically transformed this space into a rear projection-type cinema, and each night there were different featured performers." Recently, Macchi has been working on projects in the UMBC imaging and digital art graduate program, which include taking image stills from highly compressed files used in HD camcorders. "When you look at it in this open-source video program, it creates patterns and things that weren't there," she explained. "To my mind these are unique footprints, unique artifacts... This is a sort of an accidental discovery, but I have been making these. I would say that these are a sort of a new uniform that we have in art." According to Rose Burt, an audio specialist at the DMC, Artist Talk is not a formal series, but there is an overarching theme. "We're interested in technology and the arts, so a lot of these speakers tend to be artists who are using technology," Burt said.
(03/07/12 5:00am)
Winter is coming - or is it? On one hand it has been quite pleasant not to walk in between classes, to the supermarket or to anywhere around Baltimore when it's actually freezing.
(03/07/12 5:00am)
If all goes well, a car-sized probe weighing in at a little over 1300 pounds is set to make an intimate exploration of the Sun's outer atmosphere by 2018. Scientists at the Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) have gotten the green light from NASA to move onto the next phase in designing the Solar Probe Plus.
(02/29/12 5:00am)
Hopkins fraternities of the Inter-Fraternity Council have completed their recruitment for the spring semester.
(02/23/12 5:00am)
It seems as though every weekend is a struggle between my desire to make plans - even if it is just to get food at some establishment I happen to be craving - and homework.
(02/22/12 5:00am)
Growing up, you may have been told to hear people out when they express an opinion, if for no other reason than to show respect. There is, however, a much more significant reason to hear people out, and I believe it is crucial to overcoming a misinformation gap that is plaguing the American public. Bad arguments only stick when you and I fail to take them in, analyze and challenge them on the battlefield of words. Of course, it is hard to endure the incendiary rhetoric that often form the opening lines of a confrontation. You would probably be loath to sit through a conversation replete with such assertions as "abortion is murder," "global warming is bogus," "evolution is a myth," and "the gays are going to hell." However difficult, though, it is crucial to have the patience to hear out their "reasons" and "evidence" to prevent them from winning arguments on baseless accusations. Regardless of what your personal opinions are on most of the aforementioned issues, you probably accept the validity of evolutionary theory and are most likely astounded by the utter failure of America to properly grasp it. A 2010 Gallup poll found that only 40 percent of Americans support evolution, while a 2011 Fox News poll showed that 40 percent support strict creationism over evolution or theist-driven evolution. We can blame the failure of teachers to grasp evolution themselves or stand up to the pressures of misinformed parents who support religion in the science classroom. We can blame the politicians who have cast baseless claims against evolution, especially those vying for the coveted Republican nomination in the presidential election - catering to an increasingly misguided voter base concerning scientific issues. Ultimately, the blame can come down to us as well, in our failure to get our hands dirty and our personas insulted. Scientists can only write so many op-ed pieces or give so many interviews to influence the public discourse. Politicians who support evolution can only devote so much of their time and efforts before they risk charges of politicizing science. To combat the misinformation in the American body politic, it is necessary that we students engage directly in the national discussion. Sure, it is difficult for any one student to greatly influence the vast arena of discussion in America. Sure, the news media and established public officials hold more sway over the discourse. But from each one of our actions, we can form powerful and cogent arguments to sway the national debate. Armed with proper knowledge, we can instill in others an understanding of the truth, while at the same time defeating misinformation. To succeed in this process, though, we must hone our knowledge, properly informing ourselves and learning what others will say. I can think of no better example in which knowledge can defeat falsity than that of Ray Comfort, an evangelical who has tirelessly campaigned against evolution. Two years ago, his edited version of Darwin's On the Origin of Species featured a lengthy forward that was distributed here at Hopkins and at other universities which attacks evolution through a variety of arguments. These arguments, however, are mixed in with his attempt to spin natural selection as an evil idea that the Nazis used to justify the Holocaust. Setting aside such mudslinging, Comfort's forward presents a number of false points that a deeper study of evolution can easily disprove. In one section, he tries to spin vestigial organs as evidence against evolution. His point falls short, however, in the assumption that natural selection leads only to the development of organs and appendages and not to their destruction. In reality, natural selection can actively hinder the growth - over many generations - of organs and appendages when they are no longer needed, saving the organism the energetic costs of forming those structures. Should you ever come across a denier of evolution, don't shy away from a confrontation. Engage him, find out what he uses to argue his point, then develop your own arguments to counter his. Only when we strengthen our own understanding can we be better prepared to fight America's ignorance and expose the public to the truth.
(02/22/12 5:00am)
Hopkins hosted its annual Commemoration Day yesterday in honor of the 136th anniversary of Daniel Colt Gilman's inauguration as the University's first president. According to Susan Boswell, Dean of Student Life, this relatively new tradition was created as a way to recognize the founding of the university.
(02/16/12 5:00am)
Raise your hand if you agree with this statement: Pluto is a planet.
(02/15/12 5:00am)
Rarely have I ever encountered someone in real life who genuinely has an issue supporting evolution as an explanation for how and all other life on our planet arrived in the present day. As the Internet has reminded me, there are people who cannot properly understand and appretiate evolution.
(02/15/12 5:00am)
Depicting the interactions of the greater cosmic world, a computer-generated illustration by a Hopkins researcher has won the National Science Foundation's 2011 Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge in the "Informational Posters and Graphics" category. Miguel Angel Aragon, an associate research scientist at the Hopkins Department of Physics and Astronomy, based the poster on different views of the structure and dynamics of the Universe. "Dark matter drives the development of structure in the universe," Aragon said, explaining how the dynamics of the Universe driven by gravity are dominated by dark matter. From top to bottom, the poster spans 240 million light years, with actual images of galaxies used in the far right frame. According to Aragon, dark matter simulations were the basis for the placement of the galaxies in his image. While not actually visible or physically detectable, dark matter is the most abundant matter in the universe. In creating the poster, titled "The Cosmic Web," Aragon portrayed the way the universe is organized due to dark matter's influence. "The poster shows the structures in the universe, the dynamic structure of the universe and the galaxies, how everything is connected and how everything is related to each other," he said. Aragon's poster, which he developed in collaboration with colleagues Julieta Aguilera, graphic and interaction designer, and Mark Subbarao, director of visualization of Chicago's Adler Planetarium, was featured on the front cover of the Feb. 3rd edition of the journal Science. Aragon's research, supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, involves mapping out the universe and improving our understanding of interactions between galaxies. "We are basically doing a Google Maps of the universe, where you have roads that are like filaments that are connected to clusters, which would be like cities," he said. "We have algorithms that make a network of structures, and then we are using these structures to understand the relation between the cosmic world on very large scales and the galaxies that are inside them." The images Aragon used for his poster come from material he had prepared for a paper, which he anticipates to submit this week. Supplying the images and the theory behind what he wanted to portray, Aragon relied on Aguilera and Subbarao to bring it altogether in a unifying way for his poster. The National Science Foundation and Science created the Visualization Challenge nine years ago in an effort to get scientists to better communicate their work to the general public through visuals. Other categories in the Visualization Challenge include videos, interactive games, photography and illustrations. Honorable mention in the Informational Posters and Graphics category includes a detailed depiction of the Ebola virus and its molecular components, put together by a team of Russian scientists. The People's Choice, new to the competition this year in allowing the public to weigh in on the entries, went to a group from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease who explained the parts, structure and function of a Transmission Electron Microscope.
(02/08/12 5:00am)
In an effort to bring together researchers across the university's numerous divisions, Hopkins will begin construction of a new research building, Malone Hall, later this year. The building will adjoin Mason Hall and Hackerman Hall at the southeast corner of Decker Quadrangle.
(02/08/12 5:00am)
Most of the battery-powered electronics you use, as well as battery packs in electric-powered and hybrid vehicles, rely on lithium-ion batteries. They are popular for their high energy density, resulting in growing interest from other industries. However, cases of battery fires have been responsible for recalls of many devices in recent years, raising safety concerns among consumers and manufacturers.
(02/08/12 5:00am)
Photosynthesis incorporated into solar energy system
(02/05/12 5:00am)
I will admit that at times, quite often really, I feel too lazy to make a trip anywhere outside of Charles Village on a given weekend, whether it's because of the weather or just a lack of motivation to go anywhere. Often, some of my friends share this laziness, generally we're too big of a group for us to play video games.
(02/01/12 5:00am)
While it will be some time before tablets in general play a larger role in Hopkins students' lives, I have noticed an increasing use of iPads in class or when other students are sitting or milling about elsewhere. Some seem to find them just as effective as laptops when typing down notes, especially with new accessories and portable keyboards.