Four Hopkins students are taking major strides in the crusade to cure cancer. Each of the four students was awarded $5,000 and spent eight weeks this summer working on various research projects in the field of pediatric oncology.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture have recently been investigating forms of food packaging other than traditional plastic wrap. One alternative they have taken particular interest in is edible, biodegradable packaging made out of casein, a milk protein. Not only is this material insensitive to light, it is up to 500 times better than plastic at keeping oxygen out of the product, according to the American Chemical Society (ACS).
Although the first case of Zika was recorded in 1947, the virus only developed public and scientific interest many years later in 2015 when a pandemic outbreak began in South America. The outbreak spread to multiple regions worldwide. The disease is primarily spread through travelers who have been bitten by mosquitoes contamined by the virus and sexual contact between infected and uninfected people.
While it is a commonly known fact that maintaining a diet rich in vegetables is in our best interest, what is less well known are the energy and environmental costs of growing and transporting vegetables from the farm to our local supermarkets.
It has recently been found that lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) can have an influence on the brain’s connectivity between regions. LSD is a banned psychedelic drug that is derived from a poisonous ergot fungus. The drug can cause severe mood changes and altered states of awareness.
In the past 20 years the list of known mouse lemur species has grown from a measly two recognized species to 24. In fact, in the past year, three species were added to the list.
Recently a team of researchers from Binghamton University have discovered that humans have unique “brainprints,” which can be measured by using an electroencephalogram (EEG) to visualize the unique brain activity that occurs when different individuals are exposed to the same images. The researchers believe that their discovery could replace current security and identification methods such as fingerprint identification, retinal scans and DNA fingerprinting.
Researchers at the Institute of Cancer Research, London and the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute of the University of Manchester recently published a paper in Cell. It implicated one of the most common mutated genes across all cancers, KRAS, in the acceleration of tumor growth. KRAS shows up in more than 90 percent of pancreatic cancers.
A 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Japan’s Kyushu region on April 16. There have been a total of 32 reported deaths, according to Kumamoto Prefecture’s disaster management office. Following the earthquake, heavy rains struck the region, making the search for the remaining survivors even more difficult. The quake struck near the city of Kumamoto and turned landmarks into piles of debris, taking down buildings and other structures.
Food as Medicine is a student group at Hopkins focused on improving the health of children attending Baltimore City public schools. According to Maryland’s Department of Education, 87.71 percent of Baltimore City public school students qualified for free or reduced meals for the 2015-2016 school year.
Often regarded as being in the realm of science fiction, due to recent advances in textile fabrication wearable electronics are no longer a distant possibility.
Electrical neurostimulation of parts of the brain can alter the way we process language, thereby allowing for enhanced comprehension of simple, two-word phrases.
Over the past few months, Apple has found itself in a flurry of legal bouts with the U.S. government regarding data access and privacy of Apple users’ devices. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has asked Apple for assistance in accessing information from particular devices, such as the iPhone of the San Bernardino killer Syed Farook, since the FBI hoped that GPS data from Farook’s phone will provide them with information regarding who Farook contacted after the shooting and where he traveled immediately after the shooting.
Deaths resulting from drug overdose have escalated by 137 percent from 2000 to 2014 in the United States, according to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The number of drug-related deaths in 2014 was greater than any reported in past years, with more than three out of five drug overdose mortalities involving the use of opioids such as prescription opioids and heroin.
While few people claim that fresh fruit and vegetables are unhealthy, a recent study shows that fresh produce might carry long-term health benefits in addition to its short-term nutritional value.
A recent study done by University of Wisconsin researchers suggests that our curiosity can lead us toward painful or unpleasant situations.
Each year, patients around the world have to wait for tissue and organ donors, creating a bottleneck in the health care system. Increasingly, scientists have looked for artificial organs or regeneration techniques to alleviate this problem.
All too often, brilliant research ideas and applications are left in lab due to impediments such as the high cost of the reagents, low turnaround times, the requirement of sophisticated technical skills, the need for a controlled environment and the difficulty of obtaining FDA approval for public use of the product.
