Category: Wholly Hopkins Winter 2009

Toying with Legos to solve a nanoengineering problem

December 2, 2009 |  by Michael Anft

You could mistake it all for the jerry-built geeky kid stuff of a high school science fair: a small fish tank, some bricks, balls, viscous goo, and several pieces of Lego-brand building blocks. And yet, the simple-if-tortured setup has yielded Johns Hopkins engineers some clues as to how nano-sized particles travel through liquids. The findings could lead to cheaper and more effective medical tests, and technology that more accurately measures toxic substances in water.

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Minor named provost

December 2, 2009 |  by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson

Weeks into his tenure as Johns Hopkins’ new provost, Lloyd Minor had yet to unpack all the boxes from his move to the Homewood campus. The books had made it to the shelves, but framed diplomas and photographs still sat neatly stacked in cardboard. Minor had not had time to get to them. As the university’s chief academic officer and the second-ranking member of senior administration, Minor, 52, devoted his first days to getting to know the intricacies of nine schools spread across Baltimore and beyond. What’s more, he found himself standing in for President Ron Daniels at some public occasions after the latter entered the hospital for abdominal surger

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Questioning the “net black advantage”

December 2, 2009 |  by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson

Pamela Bennett’s study of immigrant black and African American success in higher education could be game-changer for educational policy-making.

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The paperless professor’s crusade to save trees and time

December 2, 2009 |  by Michael Anft

There’s not a scrap of paper to be scribbled on, or even a book to crack open. It’s life in the digital, paperless world of George Dimopoulos.

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Bottom Line

December 2, 2009 |  by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson

1,350: The number of freshmen who came to Johns Hopkins University this fall, defying expectations that the economic downturn would dampen enrollment at Homewood. This is the largest freshman class ever, capping a seven-year run of record enrollment. This year also saw a 1 percent increase in admissions applications, with 16,124 applicants competing for spots. […]

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Vignette: Drawings by Zelda Fitzgerald

December 2, 2009 |  by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson

Imagine moving into a townhouse in Baltimore’s tony Bolton Hill neighborhood. It’s 1936 and the previous tenants have left behind a few things in the cupboards, in particular some drawings on paper— magnolia flowers blooming on a branch, a mother nursing a child—rendered in chalk, colored pencil, pastel, and graphite. Now imagine the previous tenants were F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

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A virtual environment teaches real science

December 2, 2009 |  by Michael Anft

Video-game style learning tool allows students to stand at the foot of Mount St. Helens and explore terrain during the volcano’s eruption in 1980.

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Software hunts for malignant mutations

December 2, 2009 |  by Greg Rienzi

Bert Vogelstein and Kenneth Kinzler, co-directors of the Ludwig Center at Johns Hopkins, liken themselves to detectives—only instead of hunting criminals, they hunt rogue cells. Vogelstein and Kinzler are among the pioneers in uncovering genetic mutations responsible for the onset and development of cancer. They work to better understand the DNA changes, or mistakes, in genetic instructions. In particular, they focus on the somatic mutations—or cell mutations—that reduce the activity of proteins that suppress tumors or hyperactivate proteins and thus make it easier for tumors to grow and spread. Cancer cells develop lots of mutations, Kinzler explains, but not all of them are relevant. Finding the 5 percent to 20 percent that are worth studying can be time consuming. It’s not unlike a detective’s need to narrow down a long list of suspects. “You need to know what suspects to investigate further and rule out others,” he says.

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Quote, unquote

December 2, 2009 |  by Johns Hopkins Staff

There are a lot of myths about [childless adults] in the sense that they are all healthy and they are all young. Some of them are sick. Most of them can’t afford coverage. —Lisa Dubay, associate professor of health policy, Bloomberg School of Public Health, quoted 10.11.09 in The Wall Street Journal It feels degrading, […]

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Now we know…

December 2, 2009 |  by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson

…Physicians may have less respect for obese patients. Data collected from 238 individuals at 14 urban community medical practices in Baltimore found that as a patient’s body mass index increased, physicians reported lower respect for them. The study, led by Mary Margaret Huizinga, assistant professor of general internal medicine at the School of Medicine, was published in the November issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

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