Focus: Hidden - Maryland

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Hearing has long been suspected as being "on" all the time -- even in our sleep. Sounds that occur during the night have a way of registering in the brain. Now scientists are reporting results on what is heard and not heard during sleep and what that might mean for a developing brain. At the Acoustical Society of America's 176th Meeting, Nov. 5-9, researchers from Vanderbilt University will present preliminary results from a study in which preschool children showed memory traces for sounds heard during nap time.

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To find ways to improve man-made active sensing, scientists worldwide study the sonar systems of bats and dolphins. During the Acoustical Society of America's 176th Meeting, Nov. 5-9, Laura Kloepper will compare bat and dolphin sonar systems, describing her work on how the two animals cope with acoustic interference. She'll use her findings to argue why bats have the superior system.

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Landfill gases contain numerous contaminants, but one group has demonstrated a promising new application of plasma technology capable of removing such compounds. Researchers have demonstrated an experimental plasma device capable of cleaning gas samples of D4, one of the most common siloxanes. Drawing on a technique for creating plasma called dielectric barrier discharge, the group was able to significantly reduce the amount of D4 samples after treating it with a helium-based plasma. They will present at the APS 71st Annual Gaseous Electronics Conference and 60th Annual meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, Nov. 5-9.

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Many of today’s methods of purifying water rely on filters and chemicals that need regular replenishing or maintenance. Millions of people, however, live in areas with limited access to such materials, leading the research community to explore new options of purifying water in using plasmas. Many plasma-based approaches are expensive, but a new class of plasma devices may change that. Researchers at the have been studying a new type of plasma generator for water purification. They will present the research next week at the APS 71st Annual Gaseous Electronics Conference and the 60th Annual meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, Nov. 5-9.

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A whiff of plasma, when combined with a nanosized catalyst, can cause chemical reactions to proceed faster, more selectively, at lower temperatures, or at lower voltages than without plasma. Using computer modeling, researchers investigated the interactions between plasmas and metal catalysts embedded into ceramic beads in a packed bed reactor. They discovered that together, the metals, beads and gas create plasma that intensifies electric fields and locally heats the catalyst, which can then accelerate reactions. They will present at the APS 71st Annual Gaseous Electronics Conference and 60th Annual meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, Nov. 5-9.

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Genetics has far less influence on life span than previously thought, according to a new analysis of more than 400 million people. The results suggest the heritability of life span is well below past estimates, which didn’t account for our tendency to select partners with similar traits to our own.

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Elevated levels of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO)—a compound linked with the consumption of fish, seafood and a primarily vegetarian diet—may reduce hypertension-related heart disease symptoms. New research in rats finds that low-dose treatment with TMAO reduced heart thickening (cardiac fibrosis) and markers of heart failure in an animal model of hypertension. The study is published ahead of print in the American Journal of Physiology—Heart and Circulatory Physiology and was chosen as an APSselect article for November.

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With thousands of fans, college basketball games can be almost deafeningly loud. Some arenas have decibel meters, which can provide some indication of the noise generated. Researchers at Brigham Young University wanted to see whether machine learning algorithms could pick out patterns within the raw acoustical data that indicated the crowd’s mood, thereby providing clues as to what was happening in the game itself. They’ll present at the Acoustical Society of America's 176th Meeting, Nov. 5-9.

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Some conversations are forgotten as soon as they are over, while other exchanges may leave lasting imprints. Researchers want to understand why and how listeners remember some spoken utterances more clearly than others. They’re specifically looking at ways in which clarity of speaking style can affect memory. They will describe their work at the Acoustical Society of America's 176th Meeting, Nov. 5-9.

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Next month, Rodney Rountree, “The Fish Listener,” will talk about his work with Francis Juanes of the University of Victoria, to document calls made by fish in the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve in Peru in a presentation at the Acoustical Society of America's 176th Meeting, Nov. 5-9. These calls may be useful for tracking piranha populations through passive acoustic monitoring.

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Shortly after birth when the world is a blur, babies may be learning to identify patterns. According to a new study funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI), the initial phase of blurry vision may be fundamental to the development of normal visual processing.

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One concern with the increase vessel transits in the western Canadian Arctic is how noise pollution can detrimentally affect marine animals -- including Arctic cod -- given the critical importance of these fish in the arctic food web. Researchers at the University of Victoria, WCS Canada and JASCO Applied Sciences have found that the negative impact of noise from shipping vessels can be mitigated by reducing the ship's speed. They will present their research at the Acoustical Society of America's 176th Meeting, Nov. 5-9.

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Astronomers have found what could be one of the universe’s oldest stars, a body almost entirely made of materials spewed from the Big Bang.

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Imagine looking under your couch and instead of finding fluffy dust bunnies, you see the dust is arranged in straight lines—you might wonder what caused this order.

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Imagine looking under your couch and instead of finding fluffy dust bunnies, you see the dust is arranged in straight lines—you might wonder what caused this order.

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Antimatter is an exotic material that vaporizes when it contacts regular matter. If you hit an antimatter baseball with a bat made of regular matter, it would explode in a burst of light. It is rare to find antimatter on Earth, but it is believed to exist in the furthest reaches of the universe.

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Imagine building a machine so advanced and precise you need a supercomputer to help design it. That’s exactly what scientists and engineers in Germany did when building the Wendelstein 7-X experiment.

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New insights have been gained about stellar winds, streams of high-speed charged particles called plasma that blow through interstellar space. These winds, created by eruptions from stars or stellar explosions, carry with them strong magnetic fields which can interact with or effect other magnetic fields

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Scientists have produced an extremely bright spot of light that can travel at any speed—including faster than the speed of light. Researchers have found a way to use this concept, called “flying focus,” to move an intense laser focal point over long distances at any speed. Their technique includes capturing some of the fastest movies ever recorded.

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The cosmos is a void dotted with stars and an ever-increasing number of newly-observed planets beyond our solar system. Yet, how these stars and planets formed out of clouds of interstellar dust and gas remains mysterious.

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As you walk away from a campfire on a cool autumn night, you quickly feel colder. The same thing happens in outer space. As it spins, the sun continuously flings hot material into space, out to the furthest reaches of our solar system.

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We all know microwaves are good for cooking popcorn, but scientists have recently shown they can also prevent dangerous waves in plasmas and help produce clean, nearly limitless energy with fusion.

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Fusion offers the potential of near limitless energy by heating a gas trapped in a magnetic field to incredibly high temperatures where atoms are so energetic that they fuse together when they collide. But if that hot gas, called a plasma, breaks free from the magnetic field, it must be safely put back in place to avoid damaging the fusion device—this problem has been one of the great challenges of magnetically confined fusion.

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The Plasma Sciences Expo—planned as the biggest celebration of plasma physics in the country—presents teachers, students and the public with a free opportunity to explore what scientists call “the fourth state of matter.”

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Scientists are working to dramatically speed up the development of fusion energy in an effort to deliver power to the electric grid soon enough to help mitigate impacts of climate change. The arrival of a breakthrough technology

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AIP Publishing has announced its selection of Daniel S. Clark, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and leader of the National Ignition Facility’s (NIF) Capsule Modeling Working Group within the inertial confinement fusion (ICF) Program, as the winner of the 2018 Ronald C. Davidson Award for Plasma Physics.

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Antimatter is an exotic material that vaporizes when it contacts regular matter. If you hit an antimatter baseball with a bat made of regular matter, it would explode in a burst of light. It is rare to find antimatter on Earth, but it is believed to exist in the furthest reaches of the universe.

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Looking for ways to make your Thanksgiving feast more nutritious? Here are some suggestions for preparing dishes:

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Ever ask yourself who are the people behind the scenes, the ones taking charge and handling patient care, administrative duties and emergencies in the wee hours after senior leaders (presidents, vice presidents and the like) have finished their normal shifts

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Johns Hopkins School of Nursing professor Jacquelyn Campbell, PhD, RN, FAAN, earned two of the most prestigious awards in nursing, including the Ada Sue Hinshaw Award from the Friends of the National Institute for Nursing Research (FNINR) and the American Academy of Nursing (AAN) 2018 Living Legend.

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In experiments performed in mice, Johns Hopkins researchers report they have identified the cascade of cell death events leading to the physical and intellectual degeneration associated with Parkinson's disease.

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Dr. Okihide Hikosaka, senior investigator at the National Eye Institute (NEI) Laboratory of Sensorimotor Research, is a recipient of the 2018 Gruber Prize in Neuroscience.

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AIP Publishing has announced its selection of Daniel S. Clark, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and leader of the National Ignition Facility’s Capsule Modeling Working Group within the inertial confinement fusion Program, as the winner of the 2018 Ronald C. Davidson Award for Plasma Physics. The annual award is presented by AIP Publishing in collaboration with the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics, to recognize outstanding plasma physics research by an author published in the journal Physics of Plasmas.

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Is running a regular part of your routine? Here are five things you need to know about purchasing running shoes:

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The Kepler spacecraft launched in 2009 with the goal of finding exoplanets orbiting distant stars. In the years since, astronomers have used Kepler observations to discover 2,818 exoplanets as well as another 2,679 exoplanet candidates which need further confirmation. On October 30, 2018 NASA announced that Kepler had run out of fuel and would be decommissioned. While spacecraft operations have ceased, its data will continue to be publicly available through the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) at the Space Telescope Science Institute. These data will enable new scientific discoveries for years to come.

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There is no cure for lymphedema, chronic swelling (usually in the arms and legs, though other body parts can be affected) resulting from fluid buildup caused by blockages in the lymphatic system.

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Janelia and Allen Institute scientists team up, combining genetic analyses, anatomical maps, and detailed studies of neuronal activity to reveal brain cells’ roles in controlling movement.

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The American Physical Society (APS) 71st Annual Gaseous Electronics Conference and 60th Annual meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics will take place next week, Nov. 5-9, at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland. These two co-located meetings will form one of the largest gatherings of their kind anywhere in the world this year, with more than 2,000 attendees expected from around the world to convene and discuss the basic understanding and groundbreaking applications of different types of plasma science.

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Like a fly that wanders into a flashlight’s beam, a young star’s planet-forming disk is casting a giant shadow, nicknamed the “Bat Shadow.” Hubble’s near-infrared vision captured the shadow of the disk of this fledgling star, which resides nearly 1,300 light-years away in a stellar nursery called the Serpens Nebula. In this Hubble image, the shadow spans approximately 200 times the length of our solar system. It is visible in the upper right portion of the picture. The young star and its disk likely resemble what the solar system looked like when it was only 1 or 2 million years old.

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NIBIB funded researchers have developed laser-activated nanomaterials that integrate with wounded tissues to form seals that are superior to sutures for containing body fluids and preventing bacterial infection.

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The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology announced today that Kerry-Anne Rye of the University of New South Wales Sydney and Nicholas O. Davidson of Washington University in St. Louis will be the next editors-in-chief of the Journal of Lipid Research.

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Children who are given antibiotics or antacids in their first two years of life are more likely to become obese during their childhood, according to a new study published today in the British Medical Journal, Gut.

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Five faculty from the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing (JHSON) will be inducted as fellows in the American Academy of Nursing’s 2018 fall meeting on November 3. Induction into the Academy marks significant contributions to nursing and health care and a career that has influenced policy and the well-being of all.

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A genetic defect tied to a variety of neurodegenerative diseases and mental illnesses changes how cells starved of sugar metabolize fatty compounds known as lipids, a new study led by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health shows. The finding could lead to new targets to treat these diseases, which currently have no cure or fully effective treatments.

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By studying barn owls, scientists believe they’ve taken an important step toward solving the longstanding mystery of how the brain chooses what most deserves attention.

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All bee larvae eat royal jelly when they’re new, but only future queens continue to eat it. To figure out why, researchers in Austria are taking a close look at the molecular ingredients of the fancy fare.

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University of Maryland physician-scientists have treated the first patient in the United States with MRI-guided focused ultrasound for neuropathic leg pain as part of a pilot clinical trial.

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Johns Hopkins Medicine’s “A Woman’s Journey” — Baltimore is an annual women’s health program that features 32 seminars highlighting medical issues that impact women. Topics range from the microbiome to the rise in lung cancer among women who have never smoked to the health benefits of eating chocolate.

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Beet juice deicer, a natural alternative to road salt that is considered to be an eco-friendlier winter road management solution, may not be ecologically friendly to nearby aquatic species. The findings—the first to explore the physiological effects of beet juice deicer in freshwater animals—were presented at the American Physiological Society’s (APS) Comparative Physiology: Complexity and Integration conference in New Orleans.

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A new Johns Hopkins study of more than 75,000 teenagers and children who suffered a firearm-related injury between 2006 and 2014 pinpoints the financial burden of gunshot wounds and highlights the increasing incidence of injury in certain age groups.