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.
Scientists from Johns Hopkins University and Medicine have developed a possible new antibiotic for a pathogen that is notoriously resistant to medications and frequently lethal for people with cystic fibrosis and other lung ailments.
December 8, 2020 Tags: antibiotic resistance, antibiotic-resistant infections, Antibiotics, Communications Biology, Craig Townsend, cystic fibrosis, Eric L. Nuermberger, Gyanu Lamichhane
| Category: Academic Disciplines, biology, Chemistry, Medicine and Nursing, Public Health
A Johns Hopkins University team of 24 undergraduate students that’s come up with a clear, adaptable face mask is among five finalists in a global challenge to design a better mask.
December 3, 2020 Tags: biomedical engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Mask Challenge, XPRIZE
| Category: Engineering, Homewood Campus News, Student-Related News, University-Related
A team of Johns Hopkins University researchers has developed a new software that could revolutionize how DNA is sequenced, making it far faster and less expensive to map anything from yeast genomes to cancer genes.
December 3, 2020 Tags: biomedical engineering, computational biology, Department of Computer Science, genetics, Michael Schatz
| Category: biology, Computer Science, Engineering, Technology
Vijayasundaram Ramasamy, a public health studies major who graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 2018 and led the team drafting the state of Kansas’ COVID-19 reopening plan, has been named a Rhodes Scholar, one of the top awards available to American college students.
November 22, 2020 Tags: COVID-19, Johns Hopkins University, Public Health, Rhodes Scholar, Vijayasundaram Ramasamy
| Category: Homewood Campus News, Public Health, Student-Related News, University-Related
TIME named the Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center, a website that has helped the world better understand and track the COVID-19 pandemic, to its list of 2020 Best Inventions, calling it “2020’s Go-To Data Source.”
November 19, 2020 Tags: 2020 Best Inventions, Coronavirus Resource Center, COVID-19, Johns Hopkins University, TIME
| Category: Institutional News, Public Health, University-Related
With the pandemic surging to record levels in the United States, Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center will launch bi-weekly webcast briefings featuring updates and insights from the university’s top COVID-19 experts beginning this Friday, November 20.
November 18, 2020 Tags: Coronavirus Resource Center, COVID-19, experts, Johns Hopkins 30-Minute COVID-19 Briefing, Johns Hopkins University
| Category: Institutional News, Public Health, Public policy, University-Related
The Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center has launched a new tool on its U.S. state tracking pages that provides county-level insight into the effects of COVID-19 through case and testing data measured against key demographic information, including race and poverty level. The Coronavirus Resource Center is the first to publish such a compilation of at the county level.
November 16, 2020 Tags: cases, Coronavirus Resource Center, COVID-19, data, Johns Hopkins University, testing, tool
| Category: Institutional News, Public Health, University-Related
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and other institutions have found that, on average, the temperature of galaxy clusters today is 4 million degrees Fahrenheit. That is 10 times hotter than 10 billion years ago, and four times hotter than the Sun’s outermost atmosphere called the corona. The findings are published in the Astrophysical Journal.
November 10, 2020 Tags: astronomy, astrophysics, Brice Ménard, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Planck satellite, Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the universe, universe expansion
| Category: Physics and Astronomy
Researchers discovered that a specific brain region monitors food preferences as they change across thirsty and quenched states. By targeting neurons in that part of the brain, they were able to shift food choice preferences from a more desired reward (think: chocolate cake) to a less tasty one (think: stale bread).
November 4, 2020 Tags: Bloomberg Distinguished Professors, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, food, food preference, neurons, Patricia H. Janak
| Category: biology, Psychology
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
A team of Johns Hopkins University graduate students that invented a sensor that ignores background noise and could improve everything from telemedicine to Zoom calls has won the Runner-Up Award in the Collegiate Inventors Competition.
October 29, 2020 Tags: Collegiate Inventors Competition, graduate students, Hearo, Johns Hopkins
| Category: Computer Science, Environment, Medicine and Nursing, Student-Related News, Technology
With a training technique commonly used to teach dogs to sit and stay, Johns Hopkins University computer scientists showed a robot how to teach itself several new tricks, including stacking blocks. With the method, the robot, named Spot, was able to learn in days what typically takes a month.
October 26, 2020 Tags: computer science, Dogs, Johns Hopkins University, positive reinforcement, Robotics, robots
| Category: Engineering, Technology
The brain detects 3D shape fragments (bumps, hollows, shafts, spheres) in the beginning stages of object vision – a newly discovered strategy of natural intelligence that Johns Hopkins University researchers also found in artificial intelligence networks trained to recognize visual objects.
October 22, 2020 Tags: AI, artificial intelligence, machine learning, Mind/Brain Institute, Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute
| Category: biology, Medicine and Nursing
A laboratory test developed by a research team led by Johns Hopkins University bioengineers can accurately pinpoint, capture and analyze the deadliest cells in the most common and aggressive brain cancer in adults.
October 15, 2020 Tags: biomedical engineering, biomolecular, biomolecular engineering, chemical engineering, Konstantinos Konstantopoulos, Nature Biomedical Engineering, oncology
| Category: biology, Engineering, Medicine and Nursing
The Cyber Attack Predictive Index (CAPI) provides a predictive analysis of nations most likely to engage in the surreptitious strategy waged with keyboards, code and destructive malware rather than soldiers, tanks and airplanes.
October 14, 2020 Tags: Anton Dahbura, cyber attacks, cyber security, cybersecurity, Department of Computer Science, Stuxnet, U.S. Cyber Command
| Category: Computer Science, Government and Politics, International Affairs
A virtual fireside chat with Anthony Fauci will launch the Johns Hopkins University’s Health Policy Forum, a new quarterly series of discussions providing a platform for JHU students, faculty, staff, and alumni to engage in dialogues with Washington leaders around interdisciplinary health policy issues.
October 12, 2020 Tags: Anthony Fauci, COVID-19, Ellen MacKenzie, Fauci, Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins University’s Health Policy Forum, President Ronald J. Daniels
| Category: Institutional News, Public Health, Public policy, Uncategorized, University Administration, University-Related
When metallic components in airplanes, bridges and other structures crack, the results are often catastrophic. But Johns Hopkins University researchers have found a way to reliably predict the vulnerabilities earlier than current tests. In a paper published today in Science, Johns Hopkins University researchers detail a new method for testing metals at a microscopic scale that allows them to rapidly inflict repetitive loads on materials while recording how ensuing damage evolves into cracks.
October 8, 2020 Tags: aerospace engineering, Air Force, Jaafar El-Awady, Science Magazine, U.S. Air Force, Whiting School of Engineering
| Category: Engineering
Unforeseen circumstances force low-income families to quickly move from one home to the next, a process that helps to perpetuate racial and economic segregation in the United States, research shows.
October 8, 2020 Tags: affordable housing, Department of Sociology, housing, poverty, public housing, sociology
| Category: Government and Politics, Social Sciences
Anti-vaccination discourse on Facebook increased in volume over the last decade, with opposition to vaccines coalescing around the argument that refusing to vaccinate is a civil right, according to a new study published today in the American Journal of Public Health.
October 1, 2020 Tags: Anti-Vaxxers, COVID-19, Department of Computer Science, Facebook, Mark Dredze, vaccination, vaccines
| Category: Computer Science, Government and Politics, Public Health
One team has invented a tool that could shave hours from a rhinoplasty. Another has created a sensor that ignores background noise – a device that could improve everything from telemedicine to Zoom calls.
These two Johns Hopkins University teams, a group of undergraduates and a group of graduates, are among the finalists announced today by the Collegiate Inventors Competition, an annual contest founded by the National Inventors Hall of Fame to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship at the collegiate level.
September 29, 2020 Tags: biomedical engineering, Collegiate Inventors Competition, James West, Johns Hopkins University, rhinoplasty
| Category: Engineering, Homewood Campus News, Medicine and Nursing, Student-Related News, Technology, University-Related
Benjamin Hobbs, a Johns Hopkins University professor of environmental health and engineering, is available to speak to the media about issues related to the California energy grid and a new effort to build more renewable energy into power markets over the next decade.
September 25, 2020 Tags: climate change, electric utilities, green energy, power grid, renewable power, Whiting School of Engineering
| Category: Engineering, Environment
Baltimore’s hospitals and the city health department are working together over the next two weeks to ask city residents to detail their most urgent health needs through an online survey, including how they have fared during the COVID-19 pandemic.
September 25, 2020 Tags: Affordable Care Act, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Obamacare
| Category: Events Open to the Public, JHU Community Connections, Public Health, University-Related
TIME named a Johns Hopkins University professor to its 2020 list of the 100 most influential people in the world for developing a free and open website that empowers the international community to track the COVID-19 pandemic in near-real time with reliable, independent data.
September 22, 2020 Tags: Coronavirus Resource Center, COVID-19, CSSE, Lauren Gardner, The Whiting School of Engineering, TIME 100
| Category: Engineering, Public Health, Technology
Johns Hopkins researchers have shown that hospitals can more accurately classify sepsis patients into four distinct categories that would help staff better prioritize early interventions for those at the risk of dying from one of the deadliest, most costly medical conditions in the United States.
September 22, 2020 Tags: biomedical engineering, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Institute of Computational Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, sepsis, septic shock
| Category: Computer Science, Medicine and Nursing
Ben Zaitchik, a professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Johns Hopkins University, is available to speak with the media about the vigorous research still needed to definitively determine if and how climate, environmental and meteorological elements influence the spread of COVID-19.
September 15, 2020 Tags: climate change, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, global climate change, NASA, World Meteorological Organization
| Category: Academic Disciplines, Earth Science, Environment, Public Health
