"What are we aiming at?" he asked. "The
encouragement of research ...and the advancement of
individual scholars, who by their excellence will advance
the sciences they pursue, and the society where they
dwell."
Today, his philosophy is widely accepted, but Gilman in his
day was a pioneer in suggesting that research and teaching
should occur in the same institution, and that each would
strengthen the other. "The best teachers are
usually those who are free, competent and willing to make
original researches in the library and the
laboratory," Gilman said. "The best investigators
are usually those who have also the responsibilities of
instruction, gaining thus the incitement of colleagues, the
encouragement of pupils, the observation of the
public."
The realization of Gilman's philosophy at Hopkins, and at
other institutions that later attracted Hopkins-trained
scholars, revolutionized higher education in America,
leading to the research university system as it exists
today.
The nation's first research university,
The Johns Hopkins
University opened in Baltimore in 1876. Founding
president Daniel Coit Gilman laid out his vision for this
new type of institution in his inaugural address.
Today,
Hopkins remains a
leader, in both teaching and research. The School of
Medicine is one of the best anywhere, and the School of
Public Health is renowned for contributions to health and
preventive medicine worldwide. The other divisions, though
smaller -- by design -- than similar schools in other
institutions, include eminent scholars and many highly
ranked departments.
From the introduction of surgical gloves to the
identification of the genetic basis of cancers, from laying
the groundwork for the science of spectroscopy to the
invention of the all-plastic battery, Johns Hopkins
research has contributed to the betterment of the human
condition for nearly a century and a quarter.
Here is a sampling of recent
discoveries at Johns Hopkins:
Hearts Really Can "Break," At Least
Temporarily, Study Finds
Extreme stress — such as that resulting from the
death of a loved one or the rupture of a romance —
can trigger what seems to be a heart attack, but is
actually
"broken heart syndrome,"
according to a recent study by Johns Hopkins researchers.
Called "stress cardiomyopathy," this condition is caused
not by blocked arteries, but rather by a days-long surge of
adrenaline and other stress hormones that temporarily stun
the heart, producing symptoms similar to those of a classic
heart attack: chest pain, shortness of breath, heart
failure and fluid in the lungs. But that is where the
similarities end, according to cardiologist and study lead
author Ilan Wittstein of the School of Medicine. Blood
tests and magnetic resonance imaging scans reveal that
patients with broken heart syndrome do not have the
irreversible muscle damage and elevated levels of certain
enzymes indicative of a true heart attack. "Our study
should help physicians distinguish between stress
cardiomyopathy and heart attacks," Wittstein
said.
Cassini Captures First-Ever Images of
Saturn's Radiation Belts
Using
an innovative camera on NASA's Cassini spacecraft,
scientists have, for the first time ever, captured
photographs of a
radiation belt inside the
rings of Saturn as well as the clearest picture to
date of the planet's giant magnetosphere. Cassini entered
Saturn's orbit in July 2004, kicking off a four-year study
of the sixth planet from the sun. Among the 12 science
instruments on the spacecraft is the Magnetospheric Imaging
Instrument (MIMI) — developed by the Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory — which
scientists are using to study the energetic charged
particle environment around Saturn and to obtain images.
Stamastios Krimigis, principal investigator for MIMI at
APL, said that MIMI has allowed researchers to "visualize
the invisible" — to "see" the plasma and radiation
belts in Saturn's environment. They've learned that the
belts are more intense on the planet's right side and that
there is an unexpected radiation belt inward of the "D"
ring. They've also discovered that there is a "virtual
soup" of ions that derive from the dissociation of water.
Glimpse at Early Universe Reveals
Surprisingly Mature Galaxies
A
rare glimpse into the universe's
early evolution has revealed something startling:
mature, fully formed galaxies where scientists expected to
discover little more than infants. Though scientists
previously assumed that galaxies were just beginning to
form between 8 and 11 billion years ago, a group of
multinational researchers, including Karl Glazebrook of
Johns Hopkins, found, instead, an unexpectedly large
fraction of stars in big galaxies was already in place
early in the universe's formation. "It was a surprise, to
say the least," said Glazebrook, an associate professor or
physics and astronomy and study co-author. Glazebrook and
other team members likened their results to a kindergarten
teacher entering a classroom on the first day of school and
discovering, instead of five year olds, young
adolescents.
Soil Beside the Stream Can Remove
Pollutants From Drinking Water
Making
river water clean and safe to drink doesn't have to be
expensive or complicated, according to researchers in the
Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering at
Johns Hopkins. The scientists found that the soil alongside
a river can serve as a natural filter, removing impurities
and hazardous materials such as industrial solvents. This
technique, called
riverbank filtration, has been
used in Europe for more than half a century to improve the
taste and smell of drinking water and to remove dangerous
microbes and organic matter. A six year study oft three
rivers in the Midwestern United States, revealed that
passing river water through nearby sediment not only cuts
water treatment costs, but also produces other health
benefits — namely, a decrease in the presence of
bacteria and viruses, say the researchers. "Our research
indicates that riverbank filtration can naturally remove
pathogens and organic material that can cause health
problems," said Josh Weiss, a doctoral student who worked
with the team. "If you think about what it costs to build a
full-scale treatment plan to make river water safe to
drink, you can see how this would be very
beneficial."
Abused Women Less Likely To Be in Stable
Relationships
Poor women who have been physically or
sexually abused at some point in their lives are less
likely to maintain stable intimate relationships,
according to a new study of more than 2,500 women by
sociologists from Johns Hopkins and Penn State University.
Many in the study who had been abused as adults told the
researchers that they had decided to forgo marriage and
cohabiting relationships, at least temporarily, said Andrew
Cherlin, Griswold Professor of Public Policy at Johns
Hopkins and lead author of the report "The Influence of
Physical and Sexual Abuse on Marriage and Cohabitation."
Those who had been sexually abused as children were not as
likely to avoid relationships altogether. Instead, they
engaged in a series of short-term, transient relationships,
many of them abusive. "What's changed over the past few
decades is the social context of abuse," Cherlin said.
"Women don't have to stay with abusive men anymore, because
they have alternatives to marriage."
Hurricanes Found To Fight Global
Warming
Feared for their destructive
capacity,
hurricanes have also been
found to have a surprising benefit: they fight global
warming by spurring the growth of tiny aquatic
plants. Steven M. Babin, an Applied Physics Lab
meteorologist, discovered that in the wake of 13 North
Atlantic hurricanes between 1998 and 2001, phytoplankton
— minute organisms that produce about half of the
oxygen we breathe — flourished. Phytoplankton fight
global warming by absorbing carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere and then drawing it down to the ocean floor when
they die. This process essentially locks up great
quantities of the greenhouse gas under the sea for hundreds
of years. "Hurricanes stir up the colder deep ocean water,
bringing nutrients to the surface to feed the phytoplankton
and push it toward the sunlight, causing it to bloom,"
Babin said.
Eat More Peanuts to Ensure Allergy is
Outgrown
Children who outgrow their
allergies to peanuts have a slight chance of relapse, but
researchers from the Johns Hopkins Children's Center
contend that the risk is much lower in children who
frequently eat peanuts or peanut products.
The team recommends that those who
have outgrown peanut allergy consume concentrated forms
of peanut, such as peanut butter, shelled peanuts or peanut
candy, at least once a month in order to maintain
their tolerance. "The exact mechanism by which peanut
allergy may recur is not known, but we know that the
children in our study who ate concentrated forms of peanut
frequently had a considerably lower chance of having a
recurrence of their allergy," said Robert Wood, the study's
author and a pediatric allergist. Wood said that an
estimated 20 percent of children stop having allergic
reactions to peanuts as they grow older.
Sea Change: Skeletons of Ancient Corals
Different From Today's
A Johns Hopkins
graduate student may have solved a problem that has been
baffling marine biologists and paleontologists for years:
Why do coral reefs disappear from the fossil record during
the beginning of the Cretaceous period — 120 million
years ago — only to reappear after its end 35 million
years ago? The possible answer: Ancient seawater's low
magnesium-to-calcium ratio during that time period made it
difficult for the marine mammals — which build their
skeletons from a mineral called aragonite calcium carbonate
— to grow and flourish into vast reefs. That left
very few to end up in the fossil record, according to
Justin Ries, a doctoral student in the Department of Earth
and Planetary Sciences and his advisor, Steven Stanley.
Ries spent two months growing three species of
Scleractinian corals (the major reef building corals in
today's oceans) in 10- gallon tanks of seawater formulated
at six different chemical ratios that have existed
throughout the geologic history of corals. At the end of
that time period, Ries concluded that
the skeletons of corals cultivated in
ancient seawater had a different mineral composition from
those grown in modern seawater. He also discerned
that those cultivated in ancient seawater grew more slowly
than their counterparts raised in a more modern aquatic
environment. "This solves, experimentally, the longstanding
question of why the Scleractinian corals stopped making
reefs during the Cretaceous: because the low
magnesium-to-calcium ratios in the oceans at the time
inhibited their growth," Ries said.
Replicating Eel's Nerve Circuitry May Aid
Paralyzed People
Unraveling the circuitry in an eel's spinal cord may help
develop a
microchip implant that could someday help
paralyzed people walk again, according to researchers at
The Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland.
Following a spinal cord injury, many patients are unable to move
because their brains are cut off from nerve control centers,
which are believed to be located in the lower back. The two-
school research team hopes to use a blend of biology and robotics
to make a device that could mimic the signals sent by the brain
to coax the nerve centers into sending "walking" instructions to
a patient's leg muscles. "This is a challenging, long-term
project, but we believe it has a good chance to succeed," said
Ralph Etienne-Cummings, an electronic and robotics expert who is
Johns Hopkins' lead researcher on the project. "We've started by
modeling the way swimming signals move along the spinal cord of a
lamprey eel." Very primitive vertebrates, lamprey eels are
"remarkably like humans" in the way they move and locomote,
Etienne-Cummings said.
Patients with Implanted Heart Devices Can
Undergo MRI Scans
Johns Hopkins scientists have found that
modern implanted heart devices — such
as pacemakers and defibrillators — are safe for use in
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, a diagnostic
and imaging tool long been thought to be potentially unsafe and
off limits for the more than 2 million Americans who have them in
their bodies. The School of Medicine team also developed new
guidelines for the use of MRI scans with implanted devices,
making the diagnostic test more available to people who might
benefit from early detection of cancer and other diseases, and
for guiding devices during minimally invasive surgery. The
guidelines stipulate that only modern devices, such as models
from the past seven years, are safe in MRIs and call for low-
energy-level-scans, avoiding scan settings higher than 2 watts
per kilogram, which might lead to overheating. The protocol also
recommends close monitoring by a cardiologist and a radiologist,
and using MRIs only when clinically necessary.
From Our Bathrooms Into Our Rivers and
Streams
Many rivers and streams in the United States are believed to
contain a toxic antimicrobial chemical that has been used for
almost half a century but whose impact on the environment has
never been thoroughly scrutinized before, according to
researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health. Used for decades in hand soaps and cleaning products,
triclocarban contamination has been greatly under
reported, researchers say. "We've been using triclocarban for
almost half a century at rates approaching 1 million pounds per
year, but we have essentially no idea of what exactly happens to
the compound after we flush it down the drain," said Rolf U.
Halden of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and a
founding member of its Center for Water and Health. The team's
nationwide assessment of triclocarban contamination was based in
part on analysis of water samples collected from rivers in and
around Baltimore, Md., as well as from local water filtration and
wastewater treatment plants.
Dual Action Medicines Could Fight Both Malaria
and Cancer
Using an ancient Chinese folk remedy as a model, researchers at
Johns Hopkins have designed
several new compounds that, in early testing,
promise to be both safer and more effective in fighting malaria
and some forms of cancer than the current "gold standard"
treatment. " Lead by Gary Posner, a professor of chemistry in the
Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, and Theresa Shapiro,
a professor of clinical pharmacology in the School of Medicine,
the research team developed several compounds called trioxanes
that imitate the action of artemisinin, the active agent in an
herbal folk remedy used for centuries to treat malaria in China.
Laboratory tests on rodents revealed that two of the new
compounds were substantially more effective in killing malaria
parasites than were the gold standard treatment drugs. Other
tests showed that two other of the trioxanes were up to three
times as effective in the treatment of prostate cancer as
Adriamycin, the standard chemotherapy drug. "The results are
preliminary, but exciting, and certainly worth pursuing," Posner
said.
Heart Disease Risk in Older Adults Cut By
Moderate Physical Exercise
Johns Hopkins researchers have determined that in people ages 55
to 75,
a moderate program of exercise can
significantly offset the potentially deadly mix of risk factors
for heart disease and diabetes known as "metabolic
syndrome." More specifically, the researchers found that
exercise improved overall fitness, but the 23 percent fewer cases
were more strongly linked to reductions in total and abdominal
body fat and increases in muscle leanness, rather than the
improved fitness. These findings raise the importance of physical
exercise in treating people with metabolic syndrome, described as
the clustering of three or more risk factors that increase the
likelihood that a person will develop heart disease, diabetes and
stroke, including high blood pressure, elevated blood glucose
levels, excess abdominal fat and abnormal cholesterol levels. The
study is believe to be the first to focus on the role of exercise
in treating metabolic syndrome in older people. "Older people are
very prone to metabolic syndrome," said Kerry Stewart, professor
of medicine and director of clinical exercise physiology and
heart health programs for the School of Medicine. "While each
component of metabolic syndrome increases disease risk by itself,
when combined, they represent an even greater risk of developing
heart disease, diabetes and stroke." It is estimated that between
25 and 40 percent of Americans ages 40 and older have metabolic
syndrome.
Security System in Car Keys, Gas Pumps May Be
Vulnerable
A popular
radio-frequency ID system that is used
to deter car thefts and as a convenience device for the purchase
of gasoline can be defeated with low cost technology, according
to a team of computer scientists from the Whiting School of
Engineering at Johns Hopkins and RSA Laboratories. Using a
relatively inexpensive electronic device, the team wirelessly
probed a car key and payment tag in close proximity, and used the
information obtained to crack the keys' secret cryptographic tag.
By obtaining this key, lawbreakers would more easily circumvent
the auto theft protection system in that person's car, or
potentially charge their own gasoline purchases on the tag
owner's account. "We've found that the security measures built
into these devices are inadequate, " said Aviel Rubin, technical
director at Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute and an
author of the study. "Millions of tags that are currently in use
by consumers have an encryption function that can be cracked
without requiring direct contact. An attacker who cracks the
secret key in an RFID tag can then bypass security measures and
fool tag readers in cars or at gas stations."
Simulations Reveal Surprising News About Black
Holes
For the last three decades, scientists have believed that
black holes can swallow nearby
matter and release a tremendous amount of energy as a result.
Until recently, however, the mechanisms that bring matter close
to black holes have been poorly understood, leaving researchers
puzzled about many of the details of the process. Now, however,
computer simulations developed by researchers, including two at
Johns Hopkins, are answering some of those questions and
challenging many commonly held assumptions about the nature of
this enigmatic phenomenon. The team created computer programs
powerful enough to track all the elements of accretion onto black
holes, from turbulence and magnetic fields to relativistic
gravity, and are revealing for the first time how tangled
magnetic fields and Einsteinian gravity combine to squeeze out a
last burst of energy from matter doomed to imprisonment inside a
black hole. The team's first realistic calculations have revealed
that life in the vicinity of a black hole is anything but calm
and quiet. "These programs are opening a new window on the
complicated story of how matter falls into black holes," said
Julian Krolik, a professor of physics and astronomy and team co-
leader.
Birth Simulator Helps Physicians Manage
Problem Deliveries
Using a novel birthing simulator designed by biomedical
engineering faculty, staff and students, researchers at Johns
Hopkins have identified what may be the
least forceful way to deliver a baby whose
shoulders are stuck in the birth canal. Shoulder dystopia
occurs in 5 percent of births. Of these, up to a quarter of
deliveries can result in injury to a baby's brachial plexus, the
nerves that control sensation and movement in the arm. As many as
10 percent of infants suffer permanent damage. "Every
obstetrician is likely to face this circumstance at some point in
his or her career, and the longer the baby remains stuck, the
higher the risk that the baby will suffocate," said Edith D.
Gurewitsch, assistant professor of gynecology and obstetrics and
lead author of the team. The researchers found that turning the
baby so its spine faces the mother's belly requires less force
than either turning the baby so its spine faces the mother's
spine, or moving the mother's legs back to try to reduce the
force of the baby's shoulders against the mother's pelvis. For
the study, Gurewitsch performed 30 mock deliveries using a
complex birthing device composed of pleather "skin," carpet foam,
foam sealer and other components and featuring a birth canal, a
mock uterus connected to a pneumatic pump to simulate the natural
pattern of uterine contractions and force from a mother's
pushing, and flexible legs that can be moved to rotate the
pelvis. The fetal model consisted of a cloth mannequin outfitted
with a joystick device, a spring and wooden dowels representing
the cervical vertebrae.
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