Focus: Hidden - Maryland

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Modern communication systems often employ optical fibers to carry signals across or between devices. These integrated optics combine more than one function into a single circuit. However, signal transmission requires long optical fibers, which makes it difficult to miniaturize the device. Instead of long optical fibers, scientists have started testing planar waveguides. In the Journal of Applied Physics, investigators report on a laser-assisted study of a type of glass that shows promise as a material for broadband planar waveguide amplifiers.

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The dust that coats much of the surface of Mars originates largely from a single thousand-kilometer-long geological formation near the Red Planet’s equator,

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A team of researchers recently discovered a new aspirin polymorph that’s predicted to dissolve faster than current form I aspirin tablets, which would mean faster pain relief after ingestion. Greater dissolving efficiency also means that each tablet would require less of the compound. Chunhua (Tony) Hu, New York University, will present the painstaking story of aspirin IV alongside its structural definition at the 68th Annual Meeting of the American Crystallographic Association.

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Dogs are thought to be very aware of people’s emotions, but if a pup’s owner was really upset, would it actually go out of its way to offer help and comfort? Some not only will, but they’ll also overcome obstacles in a hurry to do it.

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Phospholipases are enzymes that cleave the tail group off of phospholipids, which make up cell membranes. These tails, or free fatty acids, can go on to act as signaling molecules. Lysosomal phospholipase A2, or LPA2, is a phospholipase from the macrophages that protect the lung.

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People with chronic kidney disease are at unusually high risk of also developing cardiovascular disease; in fact, a patient with non-dialysis kidney disease is more likely to die of heart failure than to develop end-stage kidney failure. However traditional atherosclerosis risk factors contribute less strongly to cardiovascular disease in chronic kidney disease patients than in subjects with intact kidney function.

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More communities nationwide will have an opportunity to improve the lives of low-income, older adults through the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing’s innovative CAPABLE program, which will be implemented by Habitat for Humanity in six new areas across the United States.

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John T. Campbell, M.D., Director of Research for The Institute for Foot & Ankle Reconstruction at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, MD, has been named board member-at-large for the 2,200-member American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society (AOFAS).

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Although the popularity of solar energy has surged, the unpredictability of a weather-dependent technology has kept even more people from embracing it. A new project hopes to change that by improving our ability to forecast sunshine and backup power needs.

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The overexertion of muscles through rigorous physical training and exercise can affect athletes’ performance and increase their risk for injury. In between those strenuous workouts, the body could use some pampering.

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Many vaccines become ineffective when exposed to room temperature or heat. This challenge can prevent patients from accessing lifesaving immunizations and increase the risk of global pandemics. During the 68th Annual Meeting of the American Crystallographic Association, Jeremiah Gassensmith, University of Texas at Dallas, will describe his lab’s work developing metal-organic framework vaccines. This new biocompatible polymer framework “freezes” proteins inside vaccines. The proteins then dissolve when injected in human skin. This innovation could help health care providers transport and administer vaccines in remote areas with unreliable power.

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A laboratory at the Illinois Institute of Technology is using fiber diffraction to examine tissue structures in the human brain and heart, as well as in T. rex fossils. Few researchers use this type of X-ray diffraction because of the time and labor required to complete experiments, the researchers have resolved images of the fine threads of collagen fibrils in connective, neurological and dinosaur tissues to one-billionth of a meter. During the 68th Annual Meeting of the American Crystallographic Association, they will explain their work.

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This week, to better understand this microbiome, scientists will be collecting bacteria from monuments at Gettysburg Battlefield and Fort McHenry in Baltimore.

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A drug currently in clinical trials for treating symptoms of Parkinson’s disease may someday have value for treating heart failure, according to results of early animal studies by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers.

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Gestational diabetes may increase the risk of blood vessel dysfunction and heart disease in offspring by altering a smooth muscle protein responsible for blood vessel network formation. Understanding of the protein’s function in fetal cells may improve early detection of disease in children. The study is published ahead of print in the American Journal of Physiology—Cell Physiology.

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Shape Memory Medical recently announced FDA clearance for U.S. marketing of their IMPEDE Embolization Plug, a technology funded by NIBIB and created to block irregular blood vessels.

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Scientists at HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus have taken detailed pictures of the entire brain of an adult female fruit fly using transmission electron microscopy.

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Metallic glasses are an exciting research target for tantalizing applications; however, the difficulties associated with predicting how much energy these materials release when they fracture is slowing down development of metallic glass-based products. Recently, researchers developed a way of simulating to the atomic level how metallic glasses behave as they fracture. This modeling technique could improve computer-aided materials design and help researchers determine the properties of metallic glasses. The duo reports their findings in the Journal of Applied Physics.

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Recent articles in the journal Molecular & Cellular Proteomics investigate metabolic quirks of cancer cells, other roles for the enzyme that generates amyloid beta, and the action mechanism of a bacterial toxin.

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An analysis of more than 1,000 people with and without psychiatric disorders has shown that nitrates—chemicals used to cure meats such as beef jerky, salami, hot dogs and other processed meat snacks—may contribute to mania, an abnormal mood state. Mania is characterized by hyperactivity, euphoria and insomnia.

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Leading Argonne National Laboratory researcher Seth Darling describes the most advanced research innovations that could address global clean water accessibility.

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In the heart, aging can disrupt the protein network within muscle cells that move blood around the body. However, a new discovery in how heart muscles maintain their shape in fruit flies sheds light on the crucial relationship between cardiac function, metabolism, and longevity. Researchers have discovered that maintaining high levels of the protein vinculin confers health benefits to fruit flies. Their work, published in APL Bioengineering, shows that fruit flies bred to produce 50 percent more vinculin enjoyed better cardiovascular health and lived a third of their average life span longer.

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Studying the photochemistry has shown that ultraviolet radiation can set off harmful chemical reactions in the human body and, alternatively, can provide “photo-protection” by dispersing extra energy. To better understand the dynamics of these photochemical processes, a group of scientists irradiated the RNA base uracil with ultraviolet light and documented its behavior on a picosecond timescale. They discuss their work this week in The Journal of Chemical Physics.

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The interaction of traveling waves in dissipative systems, physical systems driven by energy dissipation, can yield unexpected and sometimes chaotic results. These waves, known as dissipative pulses are driving experimental studies in a variety of areas that involve matter and energy flows. In the journal Chaos, researchers discuss their work studying collisions between three types of DSs to determine what happens when these traveling waves interact.

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Men may recover more quickly from influenza infections because they produce more of a key lung-healing protein, a study from scientists at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests.

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Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center will participate in a $26.5 million effort to conduct the first large-scale, multi-institutional study on African-American men with prostate cancer to better understand why they are at higher risk for developing more aggressive forms of the disease and why they are more likely to die from it.

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A Johns Hopkins Medicine analysis of information gathered for an ongoing and federally sponsored study of aging and disability adds to evidence that a substantial majority of older adults with probable dementia in the United States have never been professionally diagnosed or are unaware they have been.

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A study co-authored by a Johns Hopkins University marketing expert says this feeling of revulsion is not limited to counterfeit products; it also may extend to the genuine items being copied. This should raise alarms among the makers of legitimate products that may be subject to counterfeiting, the study warns.

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On July 18, scientists will be on Capitol Hill to showcase science and discuss the revolutionary opportunities that exists in medical research, due in large part to the federal investment in the National Institutes of Health. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage in hands-on table top experiments. Come experience fun and innovative science and learn about the advances researchers are making to improve health for all Americans.

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Josephine Pucci, a member of the 2014 silver medal-winning U.S. Women’s Olympic Hockey team will once again be representing her country – this time wearing the gold. Pucci, a New York native and co-founder of The Headway Foundation, will don the gold bars and uniform of an Army 2nd Lieutenant as a first-year military medical student at the F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences starting in August 2018.

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Most people who are familiar with the term associate it with stroke (i.e., brain damage caused by disrupted blood flow to the brain). But aphasia, an impairment of language, is not always caused by stroke.

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Athletes no doubt want to avoid the injuries you hear about most: ankle sprains, concussions, groin pulls, hamstring strains, ACL tears. But the risk for an eye injury is not to be overlooked. Sports-related eye injuries are quite common, particularly among kids.

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Eighty percent of women will develop uterine fibroids before they turn 50, and African-American women are particularly susceptible.

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Thanks to technology discovered through federally funded research, doctors are helping babies born early see better. Cynthia A. Toth, MD of Duke Eye Center will join other vision experts and researchers from around the country at the 2018 Focus on Eye Health National Summit to share the story of the technology used in neonatal intensive care units (NICU) around the country.

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Using the Hubble and Gaia space observatories, astronomers have made the most precise measurements to date of the expansion of space, which may suggest reworking our understanding of the physics of the universe.

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In a “proof of concept” study, scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine say they have successfully delivered nano-size packets of genetic code called microRNAs to treat human brain tumors implanted in mice. The contents of the super-small containers were designed to target cancer stem cells, a kind of cellular “seed” that produces countless progeny and is a relentless barrier to ridding the brain of malignant cells.

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A review of more than 200 studies reveals that olfactory receptors—proteins that bind to odors that aid the sense of smell—perform a wide range of mostly unknown functions outside the nose. The function of extra-nasal olfactory receptors has the potential to be used in the diagnosis and treatment of health conditions such as cancer.

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The gains in insurance coverage with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) have already translated into improved health for young women with gynecologic cancers, who are getting diagnosed at earlier stages of their disease because of ACA benefits. That’s the conclusion of a new study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine, who looked at nationwide trends in gynecologic cancer diagnosis in a large population of women before and after the ACA’s implementation in 2010.

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In April 2018, NASA launched the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). Its main goal is to locate Earth-sized planets and larger “super-Earths” orbiting nearby stars for further study. One of the most powerful tools that will examine the atmospheres of some planets that TESS discovers will be NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Since observing small exoplanets with thin atmospheres like Earth will be challenging for Webb, astronomers will target easier, gas giant exoplanets first.

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Advanced algorithms working from large chemical databases can predict a new chemical’s toxicity better than standard animal tests, suggests a study led by scientists at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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The world’s leading ocular oncology scientists and clinicians are meeting this summer to discuss the latest research and treatment developments in eye cancer. The Ocular Oncogenesis and Oncology Conference (OOO) will be held by the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARV0) in partnership with the Champalimaud Foundation, July 18 – 21 at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown in Lisbon, Portugal

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Ferroelectric materials are behind some of the most advanced technology available today. Findings that ferroelectricity can be observed in materials that exhibit other spontaneous transitions have given rise to a new class of materials, known as hybrid improper ferroelectrics. The properties of this type of material, however, are still far from being fully understood. New findings published in Applied Physics Letters help shine light on these materials and indicate potential for optoelectronic and storage applications.

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Only about one-third of young children in the U.S. receive recommended screenings or surveillance designed to catch developmental delays. Findings reveal wide variations in rates across states, with as few as 17 percent of children under three years old receiving developmental screening in the lowest performing state.

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Superconductor-ferromagnet structures are widely regarded as the building blocks of superconducting spintronic technology. More conventional spintronic devices typically require large currents, so researchers are investigating the viability of low-resistance superconductors. Their new results could answer longstanding questions about how SF structures interact. They reveal a general mechanism of the long-range electromagnetic proximity effect in SF structures in Applied Physics Letters.

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Johns Hopkins researchers have found that the cellular “garbage disposal,” known to scientists as proteasomes, may not only be responsible for the removal of cellular waste, but actually work on some of the most important proteins to neuronal development.

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Exposing newborn mice to vaginal microbes from stressed female mice may transfer the effects of stress to the newborns, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. These changes resemble those seen specifically in the male offspring of moms that were stressed during pregnancy.

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In a small study based on conversations with 20 hospital-based surgeons, Johns Hopkins researchers say they found that most report feeling pressure to operate under severe emergency situations, even when they believe the patients would not benefit.

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NIBIB-funded researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created an ingestible sensor to non-invasively monitor indicators of disease in the stomach and intestines.

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A drug used in stem cell therapy to treat certain cancers may also protect against cigarette smoke-induced lung injury. The study, published ahead of print in the American Journal of Physiology—Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology, was chosen as an APSselect article for July.

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Sex plays a role in hypertension, diabetes, arthritis – and in many neurological and psychiatric disorders. To better understand the molecular underpinnings of this disparity, Tracy Bale of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, along with several colleagues, focused on a molecule that plays a key role in placental health. In a study of mice, they found that the molecule, O-linked N-acetylglucosamine transferase (OGT) works by establishing sex-specific patterns of gene expression.