Focus: Hidden - Maryland

• share
• favorite_border

Johns Hopkins researchers report that the level, or “copy number,” of mitochondrial DNA—genetic information stored not in a cell’s nucleus but in the body’s energy-creating mitochondria—is a novel and distinct biomarker that is able to predict the risk of heart attacks and sudden cardiac deaths a decade or more before they happen. In the future, testing blood for this genetic information could not only help physicians more accurately predict a risk for life-threatening cardiac events, but also inform decisions to begin—or avoid—treatment with statins and other drugs.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study of national survey information gathered on more than 12,000 Hispanic children from immigrant and U.S.-native families found that although they experience more poverty, those from immigrant families reported fewer exposures to such adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) as parental divorce and scenes of violence.

• share
• favorite_border

Faculty members speak at the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS) Meeting in Boston.

• share
• favorite_border

St. Mary’s College of Maryland students led by the Student Government Association collected nearly $14,000 in monetary donations and 9,816 non-perishable items currently being distributed by the Pasadena Independent School District in southeastern Texas.

• share
• favorite_border

Energy from the sun and a block of wood smaller than an adult’s hand are the only components needed to heat water to its steaming point in these purifying devices.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers have developed a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agent with safe-to-use, metal-free compounds. The organic nanoparticles illuminated tumor tissue in mice just as well as metal-based contrast agents

• share
• favorite_border

Surgeons at The Johns Hopkins Hospital have for the first time used a real-time, image-guided robot to insert screws into a patient’s spine. With last week’s surgery, Johns Hopkins joins the growing number of hospitals in the United States that offer robotic-assisted spine surgery.

• share
• favorite_border

Children with attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) are likely to also have trouble with touch (tactile) processing. A new study finds that children with ADHD fare worse on several tests of tactile functioning, including reaction time and detecting a weak stimulus on the skin (detection threshold).

• share
• favorite_border

When frozen under extreme pressures and temperatures, ice takes on a range of complex crystalline structures. Many of the properties and behaviors of these exotic ices remain mysterious, but researchers recently analyzed how water molecules interact with one another in three types of ice and found the interactions depended strongly on the orientation of the molecules and the overall structure of the ice. The team describes their results in The Journal of Chemical Physics.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers have begun to use metamaterials, engineered composites that have unique properties not found in nature, to enhance the absorption rates of plasmonic absorbers, and a team in Japan used a trilayered metamaterial to develop a wavelength-selective plasmonic metamaterial absorber on top of a spintronic device to enhance the generation of spin currents from the heat produced in the mid-infrared regime. The research is reported this week in APL Photonics.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has found that the enactment of state laws mandating coverage of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was followed by sizeable increases in insurer-covered ASD care and associated spending.

• share
• favorite_border

New research from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, to be published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry on Oct. 13, has found that the proteasome, an essential protein complex that breaks down proteins in cells, has another unexpected function: directly regulating the packing of DNA in the nucleus.

• share
• favorite_border

A team of computer scientists has won a $10.7 million grant from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to create an information retrieval and translation system for languages that are not widely used.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory have demonstrated a significant advancement in the preservation of certain kinds of therapeutics in a portable, stable, and heat resistant form that is ideal for applications in remote or challenging areas.

• share
• favorite_border

Internationally revered public health advocate on weight loss surgery and scientific research

• share
• favorite_border

Using fruit flies, Johns Hopkins researchers have figured out why a particular inherited human heart condition that is almost always due to genetic mutations causes the heart to enlarge, thicken and fail. They found that one such mutation interferes with heart muscle’s ability to relax after contracting, and prevents the heart from fully filling with blood and pumping it out.

• share
• favorite_border

The Catalonia region of Spain is considering becoming independent, a declaration it could make as soon as Monday. Johns Hopkins University has experts available for perspective.

• share
• favorite_border

Many asymmetric absorbers are currently based on a single-port system, where sound enters one side and is absorbed before a rigid wall. In this design, however, light and air are unable to pass through the system. But new research shows that asymmetric absorption can be realized within a straight transparent waveguide. The waveguide allows light transmission and air flow through the absorber, and is described this week in Applied Physics Letters.

• share
• favorite_border

Several studies indicate that the prevalence of myopia is increasing in the U.S. and worldwide, and researchers project that the trend will continue in the coming decades. Otherwise known as nearsightedness, myopia occurs when the eye grows too long from front to back. Instead of focusing images on the retina—the light-sensitive tissue in the back of the eye—images are focused at a point in front of the retina. As a result, people with myopia have good near vision but poor distance vision.

• share
• favorite_border

While some studies have supported the idea that the walls of the aorta are piezoelectric or ferroelectric, the most recent research finds no evidence of these properties. Researchers investigated by testing samples of pig aorta using a traditional setup, known as Sawyer-Tower, to detect ferroelectricity. Their experiments suggest the aorta has no special properties, and instead acts as a standard dielectric material that does not conduct current. They report their work in Applied Physics Letters.