For over 15 years, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) has developed technologies to assist in the study of public health in order to detect and prevent the spread of disease. These technologies are designed to be easily distributable and open source, meaning that anyone can look at their design.
Contrary to what many Hopkins students seem to believe, a good night’s sleep is essential for optimal physical, mental and emotional functioning. Despite the recognized importance of sleep, the brain structures responsible for sleep regulation are still relatively unfamiliar territory. However, several research pioneers have started blazing the trail into the wilderness of the neuroscience of sleep.
Today it seems that nearly every industry has a product claiming to combat aging: supplements, skin creams, workouts, foods, juice, yoga and even pillowcases (which claim to prevent the skin from losing moisture). But many of these inventions leave much to be desired once their claims are evaluated in an unbiased way, and they produce results that are often far from optimal.
From the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa to the race to find a catch-all cure to cancer to the eminent flu season at Hopkins, public health issues are consistently at the forefront of the national dialogue.
For years, it has been known that diabetics are at a higher risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and heart attacks. In August of this year, though, the Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH) released news of groundbreaking research that sheds light on the link between diabetes and CVD. The risk of heart attacks in diabetics and pre-diabetics can be detected and monitored using an improved test designed to measure evidence of chronic heart muscle damage in diabetics and pre-diabetics.
The Ebola epidemic has been acknowledged as a serious international threat, but the efficacy of measures required to contain the outbreak remains debatable. This is due to the lack of resources in the most affected West African countries: Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.
Perhaps the most interesting conundrum of neuroscience is the nature of human consciousness. How does the three-pound mass of spongy brain tissue composed of approximately 100 billion neurons drive all aspects of the conscious mind, from emotions to creativity?
People take their own lives at a rate of nearly one million deaths a year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). There are innumerable causes to this issue, varying from isolation, loss and abuse to even sunshine, as a research group at the Medizinische Universitat Wein, the Medical University of Vienna, has recently found.
Sure, the new iPhone 6 is equipped with a new retina HD display, A8 chip for greater power and a better battery for more juice — all tucked into a thinner container. However, these are not new buzzwords that we are just hearing today. A prettier display, faster processor, and longer battery life has been a constantly renewed promise by manufacturers since the advent of cell phones. The iterative improvements in the resolution and chips have become a tad mundane for the itching consumer anticipating the unpredictable. Where has the novelty of touch screens and double-digit megapixel cameras gone?
It’s now the age of the smartphone, and no one lets you forget it — not even the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met). Ranked one of the top 3 museums in the U.S. according to the 2014 TripAdvisor Traveler’s Choice Awards, the Met has just increased their popularity even further by releasing a new app for visitors.
This past August, tinted window films were applied to the glass of the Ralph S. O’Connor Recreation Center and the Glass Pavilion. Similar films were applied to the Bloomberg School of Public Health (BSPH) Wolfe Street Building in 2013. These films selectively filter the sun’s light, allowing visible light to pass unimpeded into the space, while reflecting and absorbing infrared light which would heat the interior of the buildings.
At the time of its release, iOS 7 was the first post-Steve Jobs product to come out of Apple headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. To many, it signaled the start of CEO Tim Cook’s personal influence over the company and its products. Fast-forward one year later, and iOS 8, released Sept. 17, completes what iOS 7 began. Whereas the first update was mostly cosmetic and changed the look and feel of iPhones and iPads, iOS 8 brings with it a larger number of changes under the hood. This latest update is part two of Cook’s push, which began with iOS 7, for a simpler and more streamlined mobile operating experience.
Rob Phillips, professor of biophysics and biology at the California Institute of Technology, came to Hopkins last Thursday to give the third Robert Resnick lecture on his groundbreaking work in physical biology.
Imagine you’re sitting at Starbucks, absorbed in a textbook, studying for exams. The faint blip of a barista dropping an empty cup may not draw your attention, but the crash of a mug on the floor probably will. Researchers, led by Hopkins neuroscience and Psychological and Brain Sciences assistant professor Shreesh Mysore, discovered some clues as to how the brain decides where to direct attention. The group says their findings could help people with attention deficit disorder, autism and schizophrenia.
Though fewer children are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) today than in the past — one in 68 births, up from one in 150 births 10 years ago, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — many aspects of the disorder are still a mystery. Researchers at Caltech have been studying this mystery and have found neurons that appear to control social behavior in mice. If similar neurons exist in humans, then they may have found the part of the brain that controls autism, leading to more treatment options.
Vague, indeterminate and ubiquitous, the “Drink Responsibly” message featured in alcohol advertisements fails to explicate the details of safe drinking, instead promoting consumer loyalty to brands associated with such slogans.
Somewhere around 2.4 to 2.8 billion years ago life on earth began to produce oxygen, thus giving many aerobic organisms the ability to live on earth ... or did it? While many of the details remain the same, recent research has shown that life first gave rise to oxygen not between two and three billion years ago, but approximately 3.02 billion years ago, disrupting a theory that was long taken for granted. This research was performed by scientists at Trinity College Dublin and Presidency University in Kolkata, India and was published in the most esteemed geology journal, Geology. The researchers discovered that oxygen arose an astounding 60 million years earlier than previously thought, which is quite a significant amount of time given that humans have only existed for 200,000 years.
With the sudden popularity of the ice bucket challenge this past summer, many people were introduced to the neurodegenerative disease known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The goal of the challenge was to help fund research to find a cure for ALS, which is newly diagnosed at least 6,000 times per year and for which there currently exists no effective treatment.
Scientists around the world continue to be concerned about the amount of pollution created by modern industrialization. With emerging nations such as China and India, more people have access to luxuries like cars that produce waste and contribute to climate change. All these factors influence the environment and the affect the animals of the planet. In particular, blue whales are among some of the hardest-hit species at the turn of the century.
As the world struggles to fight the incurable diseases that burden the human population, a silent epidemic infiltrates nations. Obesity rates worldwide has nearly doubled since 1980, affecting both children and adults in increasing numbers.
