The idea of finding ice on Mercury seems about as plausible as finding snow on the ground in July. And yet, results from NASA’s MESSENGER mission, managed and operated by the Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) since 2004, have confirmed the long-held hypothesis that ice can be found on the poles of this scorcher of a planet.
Last year the Hopkins iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) team engineered yeast with the ability to produce beta-carotene. This year, they divided their efforts into two teams and took on two subprojects: one with yeast, and the second with a new cloud-based platform for plasmid design.
In almost every science fiction movie, tractor beams are utilized to repel or attract objects. The seemingly magical force of the tractor beams are no longer works of fiction, according to the researchers at New York University.
“Let’s imagine that tonight there is a pandemic flu, and everyone is affected," Ishan Dasgupta said, beginning the evening at “Who Should Live in a Pandemic Flu? You Decide,” an event hosted by the Hopkins Undergraduate Bioethics Society (HUBS) last Thursday.
The Institute of Medicine reports that about 98,000 people die every year from medical errors. Many would argue that some of those errors are made by doctors whose judgment has been impaired by exhaustion. However, lack of sleep does not always lead to poor patient care, and physicians’ work hours may not be the only problem when it comes to the medical errors.
Most of us have grown up hearing the name Nintendo and associating it with the video game industry. In fact, Nintendo has been around since 1889, back when the entertainment systems it sold were simply packs of cards. Nintendo’s famous creation, Mario, has been around for about three decades now. But even a company that has existed for over a century and is loved by generations of gamers, can still face serious threats from new developments in technology.
Have you ever tried tracing braille with the tip of your fingers? Do you find it hard to distinguish each letter? Even though blind people certainly get a lot of practice, it is still often difficult for them to read quickly with accuracy. However, Second Sight Medical Products, a company that specializes in manufacturing visual prosthetics, introduced a new device called Argus II that allows blind patients to see braille.
Whatever holidays you may be celebrating this season, odds are that there will be some gifts and decorations involved! During this high-consumption time of the year, is it also possible to be eco-conscious and give Mother Nature a little gift of her own? Why don’t you join the Homewood campus, already wired with LED holiday lights, and celebrate sustainably? The News-Letter caught up with Jon Smeton, the Students for Environmental Action Membership Outreach Chair, and Ashley Pennington, the freshmen ECO-Reps advisor and Hopkins Office of Sustainability Outreach Coordinator, via email to ask about their shopping tips and tricks for this holiday season, as well as some goals for the campus.
Imagine growing up without your father. Now imagine that you are a small primate living in the dense jungles of Madagascar. If you were to run into your dad 15 years later, would you be able to pick out his voice from the other sounds in the jungle?
Richard Cone, a Hopkins professor in the Biophysics Department, is a man of many quirks. He would rather roll up his black jeans and risk arriving late to class on a bike than leisurely drive up in a car. Cone prepares for a class by scribbling notes on a sheet resembling an unfolded napkin, and rather than lecturing about the laws of thermodynamics and molecular binding, he explains nearly every biological phenomenon using the laws of diffusion. His white chinstrap beard appears a shadow for the smile that always adorns his face.
As busy college students, most of us are looking for ways to stay alert throughout the day, despite dwindling levels of sleep around final exams period. Some blare music as they prep for the day, others turn to the more conventional cup of coffee every few hours, and many others crack open a can of their favorite energy drink when drowsiness starts to hit during those 9 a.m. classes.
The debate over the U.S. military’s use of drones has been heating up in the media and on campus for some time now. In a recent panel held in Mergenthaler Hall, experts discussed the hot-button topic and specifically Hopkins’ involvement in classified drone research.
For those who love fossils but lack the time or stamina to dig through the dirt, try checking out some medieval library books — and be careful not to breathe in all the dust! A recent study reported that white spots found in some of these old books are actually fossil records of European beetles. Each of them is actually a wormhole, the result of hatching beetles chewing through the woodblocks used to print arts and illustrations between the 1400s and 1800s. And you thought that bookworm infestations were scary!
When a skeletonized body turns up, medical examiners often have difficulty determining the victim’s identity and place of origin. For these challenges, they call on experts like Amanda Ross, a professor of anthropology at North Carolina State University, to help with the clarification.
Materializing weapons from a printer may sound like something from a computer game, but thanks to Defense Distributed’s “Wiki Weapon” project, this fantasy may soon turn into a reality. Defense Distributed aims to create a working gun comprised entirely of parts from a 3D printer.
Proteases, which play an essential role in many of our physiological systems, are enzymes that cleave other proteins. Until recently, it was thought that they recognize certain amino acid sequences to know when to cleave other proteins.
Plants have always been an integral part of human life, both as food sources and as decorations. For that reason, the question of how plants mature has long been plaguing the minds of scientists. Recently, biologists at the University of Leicester found that the plant’s maturing process—the ubiquitin proteasome system, also known as UPS—not only occurs in the center of plant cells, but also in the chloroplasts.
On Nov. 1, the American Mathematical Society (AMS) recognized the achievements of prominent international mathematicians, naming over 1000 Fellows to the inaugural class. The list included nine Krieger School of Arts and Sciences professors from the Department of Mathematics and one professor of the Whiting School of Engineering.
Have you ever wished that you could both filter and share images on Twitter? According to employees, Twitter plans to introduce its own filter technology in the coming months, which will allow users to share altered images without relying on popular photo-sharing sites like Instagram.
Even after stars cease to shine, their light continues to make its way throughout the universe. Astronomers have been able to make the most accurate measurement of extragalactic background light (EBL), the aggregate starlight in the cosmos, to date. They used data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, whose primary mission was to measure the EBL of our universe.
