News Releases from Johns Hopkins

October 7, 2008. Kenneth D. Karlin, Ira Remsen Professor of Chemistry at The Johns Hopkins University's Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded the American Chemical Society's 2009 F. Albert Cotton Award in Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry and has been chosen by the Sierra Nevada section of the ACS to receive the 2009 Sierra Nevada Distinguished Chemist Award.

October 6, 2008. In October's Great Ideas Podcast, Mary Jo Salter, a poet and a professor in the Writing Seminars, discusses poetry’s past and present, including how the Internet is lending an immediacy to the genre.

October 2, 2008. A team of researchers from the United States and the Netherlands has identified mutations in three genes that are associated with high levels of uric acid in the blood, which is a risk factor for gout.

October 1, 2008. Carol Greider, Ph.D., Daniel Nathans Professor and director of molecular biology and genetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, will share the 100,000 euro 2009 Paul Erlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize with Elizabeth Blackburn, Ph.D., of the University of California, San Francisco for their “discovery of telomeres and telomerase and the elucidation of their significance for cell division and cell aging.”

October 1, 2008. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has awarded nearly $3 million for a contract aimed at reducing central line-associated bloodstream infections in hospital intensive care units (ICUs) to a consortium made up of Johns Hopkins and the Michigan Health & Hospital Association (MHA).

September 30, 2008. A program that helps Johns Hopkins Institutions employees buy homes in select Baltimore City neighborhoods near Hopkins campuses is expanding, making available grants up to nearly seven times larger than before.

September 24, 2008. Baltimore-area undergraduate and graduate students with an interest in solving urban problems have an opportunity to test their ideas, be recognized by city decision makers and win up to $4,000 by entering the 2009 Abell Award in Urban Policy competition.

September 24, 2008. Johns Hopkins scientists who have spent decades researching the effects of caffeine report that a slew of caffeinated energy drinks now on the market should carry prominent labels that note caffeine doses and warn of potential health risks for consumers.

September 23, 2008. Two Johns Hopkins University professors — a physician who champions scientifically rigorous, common-sense approaches to improving patient safety and an astrophysicist who was a leader in the discovery of the universe's "dark energy" — were named today as winners of MacArthur Fellowships, the so-called "genius grants."

September 23, 2008. Acclaimed novelist Chimamanda Adichie, an alumna of The Johns Hopkins University, is one of 25 scholars, scientists and artists this year to win a MacArthur Fellowship, a $500,000 "no strings attached" award given to people who demonstrate exceptional creativity and promise in their chosen field.

September 23, 2008. A heart expert at Johns Hopkins is calling for all women with a waistline measuring more than 35 inches to get an annual check-up and detailed risk assessment for heart problems because excess abdominal fat, even in the mildly obese and overweight, leads more than a third of women to underestimate their lifetime risk of having a heart attack, stroke or chest pain (angina.)

September 22, 2008. Ralph Fessler, the inaugural dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Education and a state and national leader in teacher education, will retire at the end of the 2008-2009 academic year, he announced today.

September 22, 2008. Two Johns Hopkins — researchers a physician whose squirrel hibernation studies may lead to new treatments for muscle-wasting diseases, and an engineer who is building medical tools smaller than a speck of dust — have received prestigious 2008 New Innovator Awards, the National Institutes of Health announced today.

September 22, 2008. A study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health shows the nation’s top newspapers have largely overlooked the food system as one of the more important contributors to global climate change.

September 19, 2008. Johns Hopkins investigators report the discovery of master controllers of a gene critical to human and all mammalian development by trawling, implausibly enough, through anonymous genetic sequences using tiny zebrafish embryos.

September 19, 2008. Weekly bouts of moderate aerobic exercise on a bike or treadmill, or a brisk walk, combined with some weightlifting, may cut down levels of fat in the liver by up to 40 percent in people with type 2 diabetes, a study by physical fitness experts at Johns Hopkins shows.

September 17, 2008. Newborns can be protected from seasonal flu when their mothers are vaccinated during pregnancy, according to a study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

September 16, 2008. Gene activity in prostate cancer is reminiscent of that in the developing fetal prostate, providing further evidence that all cancers are not equal, Johns Hopkins researchers report.

September 16, 2008. Johns Hopkins scientists report success in significantly suppressing levels of the “hunger hormone” ghrelin in pigs using a minimally invasive means of chemically vaporizing the main vessel carrying blood to the top section, or fundus, of the stomach.

September 16, 2008. The New York Times ran a story Sept. 16 featuring Krieger School of Arts and Sciences research that shows a link between "approximate number sense," the ability to quickly and accurately make numerical estimates, and ability in formal mathematics. They also posted an online feature allowing you to try your hand at the same task that was given to the teenagers who participated in the study.

September 15, 2008. The Johns Hopkins University performed $1.55 billion in science, medical and engineering research in fiscal year 2007, making it the leading U.S. academic institution in total research and development spending for the 29th year in a row, according to a new National Science Foundation ranking.

September 12, 2008. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine report in the July issue of Neuron how nerve cells in the brain ensure that Arc, a protein critical for memory formation, is made instantly after nerve stimulation.

September 12, 2008. The Johns Hopkins University is combining two of its strengths — brain research and teacher education — to give educators a better understanding of how young minds work and to offer ways to enhance learning.

September 9, 2008. MSNBC senior campaign correspondent Tucker Carlson will lead off the annual Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 9 at The Johns Hopkins University.

September 7, 2008. Knowing how precisely a high school freshman can estimate the number of objects in a group gives you a good idea how well he has done in math as far back as kindergarten, researchers at The Johns Hopkins University found.

September 4, 2008. The complete genetic blueprint for lethal pancreatic cancer and brain cancer was deciphered by a team at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.

September 2, 2008. Students anywhere in the world can now earn a certificate in geographic information systems by taking courses online from The Johns Hopkins University.

August 28, 2008. A bear market isn't holding back the expansion of Stocks in the Future, an innovative financial literacy program that teaches students about investing while bolstering attendance and class participation.

August 26, 2008. America's nonprofit organizations are focusing on their missions to attract and retain the next generation of employees, according to a new report released today by the Johns Hopkins University Nonprofit Listening Post Project.

August 26, 2008. The National Network of Partnership Schools at The Johns Hopkins University has teamed up with schools across the country to share innovative and effective ways to involve parents in schools, help schools meet the needs of their families and encourage communities to form partnerships with schools and families.

August 25, 2008. The Johns Hopkins University will gear up for its 133rd academic year by welcoming the class of 2012 to the Homewood campus on Friday, Aug. 29, and Saturday, Aug. 30.

August 25, 2008. Award-winning legal affairs analyst Jeffrey Toobin will discuss how the composition of the Supreme Court will change under the next president at The Johns Hopkins University's 2008 Constitutional Forum, a discussion of important legal issues held in conjunction with the annual observance of Constitution Day.

August 18, 2008. Adjusting our behavior to changing circumstances enables us to achieve our goals. But how, exactly, do our brains switch so elegantly and quickly from one well-entrenched plan to a newer one in reaction to a sudden change in circumstances?

August 14, 2008. Aris Melissaratos, senior advisor to the president for enterprise development at The John Hopkins University, has been named 2008 winner of the Baltimore's Extraordinary Technology Advocate Award, the Greater Baltimore Technology Council announced.

August 11, 2008. Researchers at Johns Hopkins are reporting what is believed to be the most conclusive evidence to date that inadequate levels of vitamin D, obtained from milk, fortified cereals and exposure to sunlight, lead to substantially increased risk of death.

August 6, 2008. A Johns Hopkins expert in HIV and how the AIDS virus hides in the body says antiretroviral drugs have stopped HIV from replicating, the first of three key steps needed to rid people of the virus.

August 5, 2008. Johns Hopkins manners maven weighs in on China's Olympic civility effort. Could it work in the U.S.?

July 30, 2008. America's nonprofit organizations are widely involved in efforts to influence the public policies affecting them and those they serve, but are constrained by tight budgets, limited staff time and confusing legal restrictions, according to a new survey by the Johns Hopkins University Nonprofit Listening Post Project.

July 29, 2008. The Johns Hopkins University Engineering Programs for Professionals, EPP, have separated the management of their systems engineering and technical management education programs.

July 28, 2008. Most adults in the U.S. will be overweight or obese by 2030, with related health care spending projected to be as much as $956.9 billion, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

July 28, 2008. Engineering students at Johns Hopkins have invented a tool that would allow utility workers to disconnect power lines from residential transformers at a safe distance, beyond the range of dangerous electrical arcs.

July 28, 2008. The National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) has reappointed two scientists at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine to help lead nationwide research teams focused on the mental and cardiovascular risks associated with long-term spaceflight.

July 23, 2008. Victor Almon McKusick, M.D., University Professor of Medical Genetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, one of the two distinguished Johns Hopkins geneticists for whom the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine was named, and a towering international figure in genetics research, diagnosis and treatment, died Tuesday, July 22 at home.

July 23, 2008. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Microsoft founder Bill Gates announced today that they are pledging a combined $500 million toward global antismoking efforts.

July 23, 2008. Mice with inflamed nasal tissue being tested at a Johns Hopkins laboratory may be unable to tell if something smells bad or good, but their sensory deficit is nothing to turn up a nose at.

July 22, 2008. Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that the Notch protein helps human embryonic stem cells “decide” their own fate, a finding which may eventually be useful in programming cells for the development of stem cell therapies.

July 17, 2008. The name that graces some of the world’s top research, educational and medical institutions has a new place in space.

July 17, 2008. For stories about the 2008 presidential campaign, consider the following sources from The Johns Hopkins University. Listed with each source is a brief description of his or her area of expertise or particular take on the campaign.

July 16, 2008. A federal grant will allow Johns Hopkins researchers to purchase a powerful $2 million computer that will speed up their efforts to find new ways to diagnose and treat brain disease, heart illnesses, cancer and other medical ailments.

July 16, 2008. Mars once hosted vast lakes, flowing rivers and a variety of other wet environments that had the potential to support life, according to two new studies based on data from the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) and other instruments on board NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

July 14, 2008. Which is easier to remember: 4432879960 or 443-297-9960? The latter, of course. Adults seem to know automatically, in fact, that long strings of numbers are more easily recalled when divided into smaller "bite-sized chunks," which is why we break up our telephone and Social Security numbers in this way.

July 11, 2008. The Johns Hopkins Hospital has once again — for the 18th consecutive time — earned the top spot in U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings of American hospitals, placing first in three medical specialties and very high in 12 others.

July 9, 2008. After more than 30 years in space, NASA’s Voyager 2 continues to make new discoveries and is upending our understanding of the processes at work at the very edges of the sun’s influence.

July 7, 2008. Washing hands with soap and water in preparation for delivery significantly reduced the risk of death for infants within the first month of life, according to a study in Nepal conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

July 7, 2008. A single, oral dose of vitamin A, given to infants shortly after birth in the developing world can reduce their risk of death by 15 percent, according to a study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

July 2, 2008. The Johns Hopkins University has established a formal research collaboration with Germany's Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, described as the largest organization for applied research in Europe.

June 30, 2008. Nonprofits in Maryland are growing their workforces nearly three times faster than the state's for-profit sector, according to a recent Johns Hopkins University study.

June 26, 2008. Political scientist Nicole Suveges was civilian Army contractor Nicole Suveges, a Johns Hopkins University graduate student in political science who was working in Iraq while doing research for her dissertation, was among four Americans killed in an explosion Tuesday in the offices of the district council in the critical Sadr City section of Baghdad.

June 23, 2008 Alfred Sommer, dean emeritus of The Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health, has been elected chair of the board of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation,b a philanthropy that supports biomedical research aimed at conquering disease, improving human health and extending life.

June 19, 2008. Follow along online as Johns Hopkins University Egyptologist Betsy Bryan and her team of graduate students, artists, conservators and photographers expand their investigation of Mut Temple this summer, turning their attention to the temple's Sacred Lake.

June 17, 2008. Uncertainties about proper use and possible long-term effects of hydroxyurea in the treatment of sickle cell anemia may be wrongly influencing doctors to avoid prescribing it to those in serious need, according to results of a literature review by specialists at Johns Hopkins.

June 15, 2008. A team of AIDS experts at Johns Hopkins has found a simple mathematical equation that accurately explains how well each of 25 anti-HIV drugs in five commonly used drug groups suppresses the virus and keeps the disease in check.

June 14, 2008. Every year, about 500 million people worldwide are infected with the parasite that causes dysentery, a global medical burden that among infectious diseases is second only to malaria.

June 11, 2008. Johns Hopkins University's resident civility maven P.M. Forni takes the guesswork out of defusing more than a hundred different everyday hackle-raising scenarios in his new book, The Civility Solution: What to Do When People Are Rude (St. Martin's Press, June 10, 2008).

June 10, 2008. A short-term, very-high dose regimen of the immune-suppressing drug cyclophosphamide seems to slow progression of multiple sclerosis (MS) in most of a small group of patients studied and may even restore neurological function lost to the disease, Johns Hopkins researchers report.

June 10, 2008. A new study indicates that African Americans with a family history of colorectal cancer are less likely to be screened than African Americans at average risk for the disease.

June 4, 2008. Johns Hopkins University researchers and colleagues in China have unlocked some of the secrets of newly discovered iron-based high-temperature superconductors, research that could result in the design of better superconductors for use in industry, medicine, transportation and energy generation.

June 4, 2008. Hillary Clinton's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination effectively ended Tuesday night when Barack Obama earned the last handful of delegates necessary for a win. Research by Erika Falk, a communications expert at The Johns Hopkins University, shows that the media treated the two candidates differently from the start.

June 4, 2008. A Johns Hopkins astronomer is a member of a team briefing fellow scientists about plans to use new technology to take advantage of recent, promising ideas on where to search for possible extraterrestrial intelligence in our galaxy.

May 29, 2008. Researchers at Johns Hopkins have established a human cell-based system for studying sickle cell anemia by reprogramming somatic cells to an embryonic stem cell like state.

May 28, 2008. Johns Hopkins undergraduates have designed and built a device to enable critically ill intensive care unit patients to leave their beds and walk while remaining tethered to essential life-support equipment.

May 21, 2008. Christopher Celenza, a professor in the Department of German and Romance Languages and Literatures at The Johns Hopkins University, is among 190 artists, scholars and scientists who have been named 2008 Guggenheim Fellows by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

May 19, 2008. Heart patients often experience lasting problems with memory, language, and other cognitive skills after bypass surgery. However, these problems aren’t caused by the surgery itself or the pump used to replace heart function during surgery, a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests.

May 14, 2008. Thanks in part to a Johns Hopkins University astrophysicist, the final frontier got a bit closer today with the launch of a new application that allows people to easily explore the night sky from their own computers.

May 13, 2008. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have conducted the largest nationwide study on the acute health effects of coarse particle pollution.

May 12, 2008. The Johns Hopkins University and the U.S. Army have agreed to work together to train scientists to develop vaccines and medicines to defend against biological attacks.

May 9, 2008. Paul Smolensky, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Cognitive Science at The Johns Hopkins University, has been appointed to an International Blaise Pascal Research Chair by the École Normale Supérieure, a prestigious French institution of higher education.

May 8, 2008. Hérica Valladares, an assistant professor and director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Classics at The Johns Hopkins University, is one of 30 emerging artists and scholars to win a Rome Prize in the American Academy of Rome's 112th annual competition.

May 7, 2008. Obesity may increase adults’ risk for having dementia, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

May 7, 2008. A complete list of Johns Hopkins University commencement speakers is available online.

May 7, 2008. A recent study by the U.S. Council on Competitiveness concluded that nurturing innovation has become a key strategy for national prosperity. To support that strategy and meet regional workforce needs, the Johns Hopkins Engineering and Applied Science Programs for Professionals (EPP) will offer a new master's level concentration in Technical Innovation Management this fall.

May 6, 2008. Sonia Sarkar, a Johns Hopkins University junior from Austin, Texas, is one of 65 students from 55 U.S. colleges and universities to be named a 2008 Truman Scholar.

May 6, 2008. Kurt Herzer, a Johns Hopkins University junior from Melville, N.Y., is one of 65 students from 55 U.S. colleges and universities to be named a 2008 Truman Scholar.

May 5, 2008. A. James Clark, a leading commercial builder and university trustee emeritus, has committed $10 million to The Johns Hopkins University to endow the deanship of the university's Whiting School of Engineering in honor of his mentor and business colleague, Benjamin T. Rome.

May 1, 2008. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory is sending a spacecraft closer to the sun than any probe has ever gone — and what it finds could revolutionize what we know about our star and the solar wind that influences everything in our solar system.

May 1, 2008. Johns Hopkins University astrophysicist Riccardo Giacconi will receive the National Inventors Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement Award on Saturday, May 3, in Akron, Ohio.