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.
A type of retina cell plays a more critical role in vision than previously known, a team led by Johns Hopkins University researchers has discovered.
May 21, 2014 Tags: intrinsically photosensitive Retinal Ganglion Cells, ipRGCs, light-sensing, melanopsin, photoreceptors, retina, vision
| Category: Natural Sciences, Uncategorized
For most of history, humans rose with the sun and slept when it set. Enter Thomas Edison, and with a flick of a switch, night became day, enabling us to work, play and post cat and kid photos on Facebook into the wee hours. However, according to a new study led by Johns Hopkins biologist Samer Hattar, this typical 21st- century scenario comes at a serious cost: When people routinely burn the midnight oil, they risk suffering depression and learning issues, and not only because of lack of sleep. The culprit could also be exposure to bright light at night from lamps, computers and even iPads.
November 14, 2012 Tags: Advance Online Publication, AOP, cortisol, depression, exposure to light at night, ipRGCs, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, limbic system, Nature, Prozac, Samer Hattar, Seasonal Affective Disorder, The Johns Hopkins University
| Category: Academic Disciplines, Homewood Campus News, Psychology, Public Health, University-Related
It would make the perfect question for the popular television show “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader:” What parts of the eye allow us to see? The conventional wisdom: rods and cones. The human retina contains about 120 million rods, which detect light and darkness, shape and movement, and about 7 million cones, which in addition detect color. Without them, or so we are taught, our eyesight simply would not exist. But that might not be true, according to a study — published July 15 in the journal Neuron and led by Johns Hopkins biologist Samer Hattar — that provides new hope to people who have severe vision impairments or who are blind.
July 14, 2010 Tags: 20/20 vision, circadian rhythms, cones, Department of Biology, human eye, intrinsically photosensitive Retinal Ganglion Cells, ipRGCs, Johns Hopkins University, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, legally blind, low visual acuity, Neuron, rods, rods and cones, Samer Hattar, sleep wake cycles
| Category: Academic Disciplines, Natural Sciences
