scientific research

• Maryland

'To excite and inspire': Preview of Aberdeen science center to open this fall

The Aberdeen Proving Grounds Discovery Center is pegged for an opening in 2022, but it's without a location and much of the funds it will need.

By Christine Condon

Jul 8, 2019

• Travel

Great white shark detected near Chincoteague — but beachgoers shouldn't worry, expert says

OCEARCH, a research organization, says a 10-foot great white shark last pinged off the coast of Wallops Island, Virginia on June 30 and is headed north.

• About

Baltimore Sun newsroom directory

• Opinion

'Hooray for seniors and centenarians'

There were 86,248 centenarians living in the United States in July 2017. Happily, for me and my friends, research on aging well is happening daily.

• Health

Twitter is eroding your intelligence — there's data to prove it

Twitter, used by 126 million people daily and now ubiquitous in some industries, has vowed to reform itself after being enlisted as a tool of misinformation and

• Opinion

Where's Trump's bioethics commission?

Every week it seems, we see a major news story about another controversy in bioethics, yet Trump has not appointed a bioethics commission like his predecessor.

• Business

Johns Hopkins founded medical research firm LifeSprout gets financing boost

Baltimore-based medical research firm LIfeSprout, a maker of synthetic tissue, has secured $6.5 million in financing.

By Lorraine Mirabella

May 29, 2019

• Opinion

Take back the thermostat, ladies

A study published Wednesday confirmed what most women and girls already know: cold office and classroom conditions compromise our work.

• Maryland

Archaeologists excavate possible slave cabin along Maryland's Underground Railroad route

Maryland archaeologists are excavating the earth beneath the wooden floorboards inside the Bayly Cabin, located behind one of the oldest homes in Cambridge.

By Lillian Reed

May 22, 2019

• Health

‘Even one cigarette’ in pregnancy can raise risk of baby’s death, study finds

The risk of sudden unexpected infant death (SUID) increases with every cigarette smoked during pregnancy, according to a new study.

• News

Hotter, wetter, more bugs? Researcher finds Maryland's climate is becoming more like Mississippi's

Maryland just won’t be the same in 60 years, and a new study predicts its climate will come to resemble someplace nearly 1,000 miles away, somewhere hotter and wetter and thick with mosquitoes. Welcome to Mississippi, sugah.

By Tim Prudente

Apr 2, 2019

• Opinion

Research will support personalized medicine for African Americans

We have launched the African American Neuroscience Research Initiative within the Lieber Institute as a much needed effort to understand how genomic risk for brain disorders influences the development and function of the brain and to ensure personalized medicine serves the needs of all persons.

• News

Flown the coop: Last whooping crane from 50-year-old breeding program leaves Maryland's Patuxent refuge

The squawking bugle-like call of the whooping crane can no longer be heard in the woods of Maryland's Patuxent Research Refuge. The last of a flock of 75 cranes left the Laurel site on Wednesday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

By Scott Dance

Mar 13, 2019

• Obituaries

Dr. Paul Talalay, Johns Hopkins molecular pharmacologist who made broccoli famous as a cancer fighter, dies

Dr. Paul Talalay, a noted molecular pharmacologist who headed a Johns Hopkins School of Medicine research team that found a chemical in broccoli that boosted the cancer-fighting abilities of humans and animal cells, died Sunday of heart failure at his Roland Park home. He was 95.

By Frederick N. Rasmussen

Mar 13, 2019

• Health

Listening to music can 'significantly impair' creativity, study says

Do you listen to music while working? It could be affecting your creativity, according to a new report.

• News

What has climate change done to Maryland? Here's what one group studying tidal flooding found

Marylanders may have already lost out on $555 million in property value appreciation due to increased tidal flooding caused by sea level rise, according a new report.

By Lillian Reed

Feb 27, 2019

• Maryland

In School

The following local students were named to the dean's list for the fall 2018 semester at Bridgewater College, in Virginia: Kayla E. Boswell, a sophomore

• Obituaries

Dr. J. Thomas August, Johns Hopkins scientist who worked to tame viruses, dies

Dr. J. Thomas August, who did pioneering research in immunology and vaccine development at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, died Feb. 11 of metastatic cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. The former Poplar Hill resident was 91.

By Jacques Kelly

Feb 25, 2019

• Opinion

We must strictly regulate gene-editing now, before it becomes the norm

Gene editing may soon become a risk-free or low-risk procedure for individual patients. Ethical arguments may not be able to withstand the pressures of the public health need coupled with attaining advantages that money can buy.

• Science

An asteroid could destroy humanity like it did dinosaurs. A Hopkins team has a plan to save the world.

DART is NASA’s first mission not to explore space, but to defend against it. Researchers at Johns Hopkins plan to launch a spacecraft and smash it into an asteroid. BOOM! The impact, they hope, will bump the big space rock off course.

By Tim Prudente

Feb 4, 2019

• News

Maryland will test to determine if Eastern Shore chicken farms are polluting the air

A year after fighting off a proposal to monitor air pollution levels around industrial-scale chicken houses on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, the poultry industry has joined with state environmental regulators to study whether the farms are polluting the air.

By Scott Dance

Jan 29, 2019

• Obituaries

Margaret Bright, Johns Hopkins scientist, dies

As a professor in John Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health, Margaret Bright blended social and behavioral science methods into the field of epidemiology.

By Jacques Kelly

Jan 25, 2019

• Opinion

Correcting some facts about the Chesapeake Bay

A recent letter to the editor got some facts wrong about the Chesapeake Bay.

• Opinion

There is plenty of good research on addiction treatment

There is a wealth of new research on treating those who are addicted to drugs.

• News

Maryland regulators: Is medical marijuana effective for treating opioid addiction? Answer: It's complicated

Medical marijuana has not been proven to be an effective treatment for opioid addiction, according to a study the Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission submitted to the General Assembly.

By Doug Donovan

Jan 10, 2019

• Health

Johns Hopkins professor questions conventional wisdom on blood pressure after research among Amazonian tribes

It has long been assumed that blood pressure automatically rises with age, but a Hopkins epidemiology professor shows, by studying two remote tribes, that it might simply be due to our Western diet.

By Jonathan M. Pitts

Dec 14, 2018

• Opinion

Oyster losses are not due to climate change alone

It's a mistake to overlook overfishing and pollution as factors in decline of Chesapeake Bay's oyster population.

• Obituaries

Ralph E. Phinney, aerospace engineer and researcher, dies

Ralph E. Phinney, a retired aerospace engineer and researcher, died Nov. 20 from heart failure at Springwell Senior Living in Mount Washington. The former longtime Bolton Hill resident was 90.

By Frederick N. Rasmussen

Dec 7, 2018

• Maryland

After 20 years, Baltimore Ecosystem Study federal funding ramps down

The data collected by the project has been used by state agencies and researchers around the country.

By Cody Boteler

Dec 4, 2018

• Health

This STD is more common than gonorrhea, but few people know about it. Johns Hopkins is hoping to change that.

Johns Hopkins researchers are spearheading efforts to raise awareness and learn more about a sexually transmitted disease few people know about but scientists believe makes people infertile.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Nov 14, 2018

• News

Research links dramatic declines in Chesapeake Bay oyster population to warmer winters — not overfishing

Warmer winters — not overfishing — have depleted Chesapeake Bay oyster populations in recent decades, researchers have found. The changing environment affected oysters, clams and scallops up and down the East Coast of the United States, according to a study.

By Scott Dance

Oct 30, 2018

• Weather

Uneven heat: Researchers say some Baltimore blocks were 16 degrees hotter than others during August heat wave

On one of Baltimore's hottest days of 2018, the city baked at 98 degrees, according to the official reading at the Inner Harbor. But it was only 86 in leafy Leakin Park — and the mercury rose to 103 in East Baltimore's McElderry Park and Middle East neighborhoods.

By Scott Dance

Oct 15, 2018

• News

End of an era: 50-year-old whooping crane breeding program coming to a close at Maryland's Patuxent refuge

The era of the whooping crane at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel is ending. The Trump administration cut the 50-year-old crane breeding program's $1.5 million budget, and by the end of the year, the birds' squawks will no longer be heard at the Patuxent Research Refuge.

By Scott Dance

Oct 12, 2018

• Health

Johns Hopkins University to name building for Henrietta Lacks

The Turner Station woman’s cells, dubbed the HeLa cells, were significant for their ability to survive outside of the body and became the basis for research that lead to techniques including vaccines, cancer treatments and in vitro fertilization.

By Lillian Reed

Oct 8, 2018

• News

Where do Maryland crabs come from? Researchers use a virus, ocean current maps and more to find out.

Scientists are using a crab virus akin to the common cold, computer models of ocean currents and tides, and genetic analysis of crustaceans from Massachusetts to Argentina to figure out just how much different populations of swimming crabs have in common.

By Scott Dance

Sep 21, 2018

• Health

University of Maryland virus institute joins hunt for opioid treatment

The University of Maryland's Institute of Human Virology is testing a drug that could curb the cravings that often lead to drug use relapse.

By Meredith Cohn

Sep 19, 2018

• Opinion

YouTube: a digital library of human behavior

More than 300 hours of video footage are uploaded every minute to YouTube, providing direct access to a variety of situations you might never otherwise witness. While there are ethical and privacy debates about all this video, the scientific potential can’t be ignored.

• Health

New advice on kids' concussions calls for better tracking

New U.S. guidelines for concussions in children recommend against routine X-rays and blood tests for diagnosis.

• Opinion

The hidden agenda of the EPA 'transparency rule'

On the surface, the proposed EPA 'transparency rule' sounds harmless, even open-minded, doesn’t it? After all, transparency is an important principle of good science. But, the truth is, President Trump and his band of climate changers, has pulled a fast one. Here’s why.

• Features

Cat-like creature spotted in Sykesville was a bobcat, DNR says

A large feline captured on a trail camera in Eldersburg was probably a bobcat, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

By Sarah Meehan

Aug 31, 2018

• News

Cownose ray study suggests maligned Chesapeake creatures could be more vulnerable to overfishing than previously thought

New research suggests that if anglers, watermen or even bowhunters kill too many of the Chesapeake Bay's cownose rays, the oft-maligned creatures could disappear from the estuary. Smithsonian Environmental Research Center scientists found that rays often return to the same rivers each year.

By Scott Dance

Aug 23, 2018

• Health

Hopkins invests $100 million in institute to focus on basic science

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine is investing $100 million in an institute to focus on the role of basic science in medicine.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Aug 23, 2018

• Opinion

There is no wall against infectious diseases

If lawmakers in Washington truly seek to strengthen America against all threats foreign or domestic, they must reauthorize the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act. Isolationism is not an option with infectious diseases, and PAHPRA keeps the United States engaged and vigilant.

• Health

Grant cuts by March of Dimes imperil research at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere

The March of Dimes Foundation unexpectedly cut existing grant awards, jeopardizing research into 37 medical programs across the country, including two at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

By Mark Puente

Aug 2, 2018

• Maryland

National additive manufacturing research center coming to Aberdeen

The National Center for Manufacturing Sciences has announced plans to establish a new manufacturing center in Aberdeen at the former University Center near the Interstate 95/Route 22 interchange.

• Sports

NFL names Johns Hopkins' Dr. Nicholas Theodore chairman of Head, Neck and Spine Committee

The NFL has named Dr. Nicholas Theodore of Johns Hopkins as chairman of the NFL Head, Neck and Spine Committee, a board of independent and NFL-affiliated physicians and scientists, that advises the league on neuroscience, concussion and other health issues.

• News

Program that aims to reduce power plant emissions has spurred $4 billion in economic activity, study finds

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a power plant emissions-capping program that includes Maryland, has generated $4 billion in net economic activity, even accounting for the costs it has added to electricity, a study has found.

By Scott Dance

Apr 17, 2018

• Environment

Study confirms what environmentalists knew about water quality: 'Sewage bad, stormwater projects good'

A study of 20 years of precipitation, pollution and water quality data has traced degradation of Baltimore's Gwynns Falls to frequent sewage leaks, and some environmental improvements to projects to clean up or reduce stormwater runoff.

By Scott Dance

Apr 16, 2018

• Politics

More lab animals could be put up for adoption after Maryland General Assembly OKs 'Beagle Freedom Bill'

Researchers who use dogs or cats in research will have to "take reasonable steps" to offer the animals for adoption under legislation the Maryland General Assembly passed Friday.

By Scott Dance

Apr 7, 2018

• Health

Johns Hopkins to continue with international alcohol study despite criticism about funding

Johns Hopkins researchers have moved forward with an alcohol study despite a New York Times investigation that criticized it for being funded by the alcohol industry.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Mar 31, 2018