Johns Hopkins University

Third-degree burns typically require very complex treatment, and leave nasty scars once they've healed. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University, however, are reporting success at treating such burns on lab mice, using a new type of hydrogel that grows new skin (as opposed to scar tissue) over burn sites. The gel contains no drugs or biological components - it's made mainly from water and dissolved dextran, which is a sugar-like polymer.  Read More

For almost a hundred years, it has been widely accepted that the Universe is expanding, and that it’s been doing so ever since the Big Bang occurred approximately 14 billion years ago. It was initially assumed that the rate of expansion was slowly declining. What came as a surprise to many scientists, however, was the relatively recent announcement that the rate is in fact increasing. That was the remarkable conclusion reached by three physicists located in two countries, and it has just earned them the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2011.  Read More

We’ve previously looked at the development of cancer treatments that deliver drugs directly into cancer cells before releasing their chemotherapeutic payload to reduce the damage done to healthy cells. But a new protein “switch” approach developed by researchers at Johns Hopkins University changes the game again by instructing cancer cells to produce their own cancer medication, causing the cancer cells to self-destruct while sparing healthy tissue.  Read More

Individually, insects have proven a deep well of inspiration for robotics engineers looking to mimic designs refined over millions of years of evolution. Now Boeing has demonstrated swarm technology for reconnaissance missions using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that is similar to the way insects communicate and work together as an intelligent group. Potential uses for the technology include search-and-rescue missions and identifying enemy threats ahead of ground patrols.  Read More

Soldiers whose faces have been marred by explosions could be among the recipients of a new biomedical material, designed to permanently replace soft tissue. Developed at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, PEG-HA is a composite consisting of synthetic and biological materials. Lab tests have indicated that it doesn’t break down like pure biologicals, or get rejected like some synthetics.  Read More

Despite years of health promotion campaigns advising us about the dangers of skin cancer, the incidence of the most dangerous type - melanoma - has been steadily rising since the 1970s with around 130,000 cases now diagnosed globally each year according to the World Health Organization. Even if we no longer spend hours sunning ourselves on the beach, extended time outdoors playing sport or socializing can still put us at risk of this deadly cancer. MelApp is an iPhone app designed help detect melanoma at an early - and likely curable - stage using mathematical algorithms and image based pattern recognition technology.  Read More

There are approximately 1.5 million people worldwide who require regular hemodialysis treatments, due to the fact that their kidneys are no longer able to clean their blood. Clinicians generally reuse the same access point on each patient's body, for routing their bloodstream to the dialysis machine. Unfortunately, over time this can cause infections, blood clots or narrowing of the arteries at that access point. This can result in the need for a blood-vessel-opening procedure, or sometimes even in death. Now, however, a group of five biomedical engineering graduate students from Johns Hopkins University have created an implantable device, that could act as a safe, easy access point for dialysis.  Read More

The use of mushrooms by man for practical, culinary or recreational purposes is said to date back to at least Paleolithic times, with perhaps the best-known variety in recent times being Amanita muscaria or Fly Agaric. Nibbling on one side of this fungus made Alice grow in size and the other made her shrink, leading to some rather bizarre adventures and inspiring one of my favorite songs - White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane. The favored psychoactive mushrooms of the drop-out 1960s, though, were members of the Psilocybe genus. Researchers now believe that they have found the optimum dose of the pure chemical found in those so-called magic mushrooms, a level which offers maximum therapeutic value with little risk of having a bad trip.  Read More

Just three years ago, a study conducted by the University of Westminster, London, determined that the “hygenic” warm air hand dryers commonly found in public washrooms actually left users with more bacteria on their hands than if they’d simply used paper towels. Now, it seems that the good name of hands-free electronic-eye faucets is being similarly besmirched – researchers at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore have discovered that water coming from such faucets contains more Legionella bacteria than that dispensed by conventional fixtures. Their theory is that the high-tech faucets’ complex inner workings are to blame.  Read More