Recent news from The Johns Hopkins University
This section contains regularly updated highlights of the news from around The Johns Hopkins
University. Links to the complete news reports from the nine schools,
the Applied Physics Laboratory and other centers and institutes are to
the left, as are links to help news media contact the Johns Hopkins
communications offices.
Johns Hopkins University researchers discovered precisely how spiders build webs by using night vision and artificial intelligence to track and record every movement of all eight legs as spiders worked in the dark.
Their creation of a web-building playbook or algorithm brings new understanding of how creatures with brains a fraction of the size of a human’s are able to create structures of such elegance, complexity and geometric precision. The findings, now available online, are set to publish in the November issue of Current Biology.
November 1, 2021 Tags: Andrew Gordus, artificial intelligence, Johns Hopkins University, machine vision, spider webs, spiders
| Category: biology, Natural Sciences
Vaping aerosols contain thousands of unknown chemicals and substances not disclosed by manufacturers, including industrial chemicals and caffeine, Johns Hopkins University researchers found.
The study is the first to apply to vaping liquids and aerosols an advanced fingerprinting technique used to identify chemicals in food and wastewater. The results, just published in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology, suggest people who vape are using a product whose risks have yet to be fully determined and could be exposing themselves to chemicals with adverse health effects.
October 6, 2021 Tags: aerosols, Carsten Prasse, e-cigarettes, Johns Hopkins, smoking, vaping
| Category: Engineering, Natural Sciences, Public Health
By offering cells a microscopic “tightrope,” Johns Hopkins University and Virginia Tech scientists have discovered a new and surprising form of cellular movement.
March 22, 2021 Tags: Brian Camley, cell movement, cells, Johns Hopkins University, nanofiber
| Category: biology, Natural Sciences, Physics and Astronomy
They can’t tell fortunes and they’re useless with the stock market but bats are quite skilled at predicting one thing: where to find dinner.
Bats calculate where their prey is headed by building on-the-fly predictive models of target motion from echoes, Johns Hopkins University researchers find. The models are so robust, bats can continue to track prey even when it temporarily vanishes behind echo-blocking obstacles like trees.
November 3, 2020 Tags: bats, Cynthia F. Moss, echolocation, Johns Hopkins, prediction
| Category: biology, Natural Sciences
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have developed a new method for producing atomically-thin semiconducting crystals that could one day enable more powerful and compact electronic devices.
By using specially-treated silicon surfaces to tailor the crystals’ size and shape, the researchers have found a potentially faster and less expensive way to produce next-generation semiconductor crystals for microchips. The crystalline materials produced this way could in turn enable new scientific discoveries and accelerate technological developments in quantum computing, consumer electronics, and higher efficiency solar cells and batteries.
November 18, 2019 Tags: Johns Hopkins University, microchips, nanomaterials, quantum computing, semiconductor crystals, Thomas J. Kempa
| Category: Chemistry, Computer Science, Natural Sciences, Technology
Mosquitoes flap their wings not just to stay aloft but for two other critical purposes: to generate sound and to point that buzz in the direction of a potential mate, researchers at Johns Hopkins University have discovered. Their findings about the aerodynamics of mosquito wings could have implications for building quieter drones and for devising nontoxic methods to trap and exterminate the pests.
November 7, 2019 Tags: drones, Johns Hopkins University, Mosquitos, Rajat Mittal
| Category: biology, Computer Science, Engineering, Natural Sciences, Technology
Biologists at Johns Hopkins University have uncovered an important clue in the longtime mystery of how long strands of DNA fold up to squeeze into microscopic cells, with each pair of chromosomes aligned to ensure perfect development.
October 10, 2019 Tags: biology, chromosomes, developmental biology, DNA, genes, Johns Hopkins University, Robert Johnston
| Category: biology, Natural Sciences
The Johns Hopkins University has been awarded more than $600,000 to offer summer research experiences for undergraduates from backgrounds underrepresented in science and whose own colleges and universities offer limited chances to work on original research.
January 7, 2019 Tags: Amgen Foundation, Joel Schildbach, STEM, underrepresented minorities
| Category: Academic Disciplines, Fundraising, Institutional News, Medicine and Nursing, Natural Sciences, University-Related
The constant movement of fish that seems random is actually precisely deployed to provide them at any moment with the best sensory feedback they need any to navigate the world, Johns Hopkins University researchers found.
November 29, 2018 Tags: active sensing, electric fish, Johns Hopkins University, Noah Cowan
| Category: biology, Engineering, Natural Sciences, Technology
With $2.46 million in support from the National Institutes of Health, the Johns Hopkins University is teaming up with two historically black Baltimore institutions, Morgan State and Coppin State universities, to cultivate a diverse group of highly trained biomedical researchers.
November 12, 2018 Tags: biomedical engineering, Coppin State University, diversity, Morgan State University, post-doctoral fellows, School of Medicine, STEM, Whiting School of Engineering
| Category: Engineering, Medicine and Nursing, Natural Sciences
By studying barn owls, scientists at Johns Hopkins University believe they’ve taken an important step toward solving the longstanding mystery of how the brain chooses what most deserves attention.
October 30, 2018 Tags: ADHD, attention, Johns Hopkins University, owls, Shreesh Mysore
| Category: Natural Sciences, Psychology
At holiday buffets and potlucks people make quick calculations about which dishes to try and how much to take of each. Johns Hopkins University neuroscientists have found a brain region that appears to be strongly connected to these food preference decisions.
October 19, 2018 Tags: brain, David Ottenheimer, food preference, Johns Hopkins University, neuroscience, Patricia H. Janak
| Category: Natural Sciences, Psychology
Biologists at Johns Hopkins University grew human retinas from scratch to determine how cells that allow people to see in color are made.
October 11, 2018 Tags: color vision, developmental biology, Johns Hopkins University, Kiara Eldred, photoreceptors, retinas, Robert Johnston
| Category: Natural Sciences
Monkeys who learned how to gamble have helped researchers pinpoint an area of the brain key to one’s willingness to make risky decisions.
September 20, 2018 Tags: brain, gambling, Johns Hopkins University, Monkeys, risky behavior, Veit Stuphorn, Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute
| Category: biology, Natural Sciences, Psychology
Johns Hopkins Hurricane Experts Available.
September 11, 2018 Tags: catastrophic flooding, climate change, first responders, Hurricane experts, Johns Hopkins University, Preparedness, response
| Category: Business and Economics, Earth Science, Engineering, Environment, Government and Politics, International Affairs, Medicine and Nursing, Natural Sciences, Psychology, Public Health, Social Sciences, Technology
Although the popularity of solar energy has surged, the unpredictability of a weather-dependent technology has kept even more people from embracing it. A new Johns Hopkins University-led project hopes to change that by improving our ability to forecast sunshine and backup power needs.
July 23, 2018 Tags: Benjamin F. Hobbs, forecast, Johns Hopkins University, solar energy, weather
| Category: Business and Economics, Computer Science, Earth Science, Engineering, Environment, Natural Sciences, Technology
The Johns Hopkins University, Lockheed Martin and Barclay Elementary/Middle School will come together for an evening designed to showcase the science and engineering projects that students have been working on in the classroom all year.
April 17, 2018 Tags: Baltimore City Public Schools, science and technology education, STEM programs, STEN
| Category: Education/K-12, Engineering, Homewood Campus News, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, Student-Related News, Technology
Johns Hopkins University researchers have developed a way to study the brain of a bat as it flies, recording for the first time what happens as an animal focuses its attention.
April 10, 2018 Tags: bats, brain research, Cynthia F. Moss, Johns Hopkins University, Melville Wohlgemuth, wirelessly record brain activity
| Category: Engineering, Natural Sciences, Psychology, Technology, Uncategorized
Thousands of molecules of ribonucleic acid make salt-loving microbes known as “extremophiles” highly resistant to the phenomenon oxidative stress – the uncontrollable production of unstable forms of oxygen called “free radicals,” which can negatively affect DNA, proteins, and lipids in cells.
March 2, 2018 Tags: Department of Biology, Diego Rivera Gelsinger, extremophiles, Jocelyne DiRuggiero, Johns Hopkins University, oxidative stress, RNA
| Category: Natural Sciences, Uncategorized
Johns Hopkins University neuroscientists have found how the brain can detect an object’s value almost as soon as we see it.
February 8, 2018 Tags: brain, Ed Connor, Johns Hopkins University, value, Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute
| Category: Medicine and Nursing, Natural Sciences, Psychology
Nine U.S. research universities, incliuding Johns Hopkins, and a major cancer institute announced plans to give would-be life scientists clear, standardized data on graduate school admissions, education and training opportunities, and career prospects.
December 14, 2017 Tags: Coalition for Next Generation Life Science, graduate students, life sciences, postdocs, postdoctoral fellows
| Category: Institutional News, Medicine and Nursing, Natural Sciences, Public Health, University Administration, University-Related
When we try to stop a body movement at the last second, perhaps to keep ourselves from stepping on what we just realized was ice, we can’t always do it — and Johns Hopkins University neuroscientists have figured out why.
December 7, 2017 Tags: brain, brain science, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, inhibit movement, Johns Hopkins University, movement, neuroscience, stop, Susan M. Courtney
| Category: Natural Sciences, Psychology
One of the two brain-training methods most scientists use in research is significantly better in improving memory and attention, Johns Hopkins University researchers found. It also results in more significant changes in brain activity.
October 17, 2017 Tags: attention, brain, Brain training, cognition, Johns Hopkins University, Kara Blacker, Krieger School of Art and Sciences, memory, neuroscience, Susan Courtney, working memory
| Category: biology, Natural Sciences, Psychology
Johns Hopkins University scientists are part of a research team assessing how a person’s genetic profile affects his body. The results could help show how individual genetic differences contribute to disease and guide treatments for heritable disorders such as Alzheimer’s, high cholesterol or Type I diabetes.
October 11, 2017 Tags: Alzheimer's, gene expression, genome, personal genomics
| Category: biology, Computer Science, Medicine and Nursing, Natural Sciences, Uncategorized
Johns Hopkins University experts are part of an international team of scientists that has taken another step toward mapping how brains work.
August 10, 2017 Tags: applied mathematics, BRAIN Initiative, brain mapping, cerebral cortex, fruit fly larva, learning and memory, Neuron, statistical analysis
| Category: biology, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, Uncategorized
