Johns Hopkins University
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The Webb Telescope's first confirmed exoplanet is 99 percent the diameter of Earth
We peered 41 light years into the cosmos and found a planet in the Octans constellation with a diameter 99 percent that of Earth itself — say hello to LHS 475 b.
Brain-machine interface helped a man with paralysis feed himself using robotic arms
Scientists have developed robotic arms that let people with paralysis feed themselves.
Hitting the Books: The continuing controversies surrounding e-cig safety
In Viral BS: Medical Myths and Why We Fall for Them, Dr. Seema Yasmin examines controversies surrounding the tobacco replacement technology — as well as a host of other pieces of “common” medical knowledge. Excerpted from Viral BS: Medical Myths and Why We Fall For Them by Dr. Seema Yasmin, published by Johns Hopkins University Press. In the spring of 2019, young people, mostly young men in Illinois and Wisconsin, began to fall sick with a strange lung disease.
Researchers hope a blood test can reveal early signs of cancer
Scientists hope to perfect a new blood test that can detect the early signs of eight different types of cancer. Thrive Earlier Detection, a company founded by three Johns Hopkins cancer researchers, has raised $110 million from investors in order to bring ts early screening tool CancerSEEK to market, reports MIT Technology Review. Known as a "liquid biopsy," CancerSEEK works by detecting genetic mutations in tumor DNA and protein markers in blood plasma that are implicated in cancer.
Ultima Thule is unlike anything we’ve seen in the solar system
It turns out Ultima Thule is a kind of lumpy space snowman. If you've been following NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, you know Ultima Thule is an object in Kuiper Belt, the donut-shaped region of icy bodies beyond Pluto. New Horizons made the farthest flyby in human history when it passed Ultima Thule on New Year's Day. As data from New Horizons makes its way back to Earth, scientists are beginning to analyze the data it collected, and they're making surprising discoveries.
Edible robot surgeons will cure you from the inside out
Back in 1985, the best robotic surgeon we had was the Puma 560, a manipulator arm just barely more advanced than Rocky Balboa's robo-butler. Just barely. The Puma was nevertheless revolutionary. It was the very first mechanical operator, progenitor to steady-handed robo-surgeons like the DaVinci system. But in the near future, robots will no longer be cutting into us -- from the outside, at least.
TrueCrypt development stopped amid a cloud of mystery
Last Wednesday the SourceForge page for popular open-source disk encryption software TrueCrypt started recommending the use of BitLocker on Windows instead. Visitors were told that the application was "not secure" anymore. Of course, social networks exploded with speculation, with people claiming the page was hacked or that the government, using a National Security Letter, might be requesting "changes" on the software. The truth is much more mundane: a developer of TrueCrypt confirmed to Reuters that it had been shut down out of boredom. Security researcher Steve Gibson said that after 10 years of work, the developers simply got tired of the project.
Researchers find a way into MacBook cameras
A few years ago, while on Skype, I asked a friend why his camera was dark. He replied that he had put tape over the camera light so that no one could spy on him. I wrote it off to paranoid silliness and told him that wasn't possible. Well, turns out I was wrong. Jeff Gamet at The MacObserver tells us in a piece titled Researchers Hacked into MacBook Camera, but that Doesn't Mean They're Spying on You that two researchers have found a way to disable that little green light, which lets you know that your camera is on. Don't despair though; this only works on older Macs. Plus, it requires a firmware hack. Matthew Brocker and Stephen Checkoway from Johns Hopkins University recently published a technical paper, ıSeeYou: Disabling the MacBook Webcam Indicator LED. The paper details their tests in disabling an iSight camera's green LED light in some versions of MacBooks, iMacs and the iMac G5 circa 2008 and before. The 13-page paper gives you all the details on the internal iSight architecture, modifying the various Mac's firmware and defending the iSight against attacks. Our results in this paper demonstrate that, at least in some cases, people have been correct to worry about malware covertly capturing images and video. We show a vulnerability in the iSight webcam that affects a particular range of Apple computers ... that can be exploited to turn on the camera and capture images and video without the indicator illuminating. Newer Macs are not susceptible to this firmware hack, but this does give you food for thought. While no one has published a hack for newer Mac FaceTime HD cameras, one never knows what basement hackers are working on presently. Gamet points out that, "Giving anyone unsupervised access to your Mac ... is a good way to end up with apps you don't want and settings changes that reduce your overall security." If you want to dredge up one of your older Macs, you can add trying out the iSight firmware hack to our list of Twelve things to do with an old Apple computer. If your current Mac in use is from 2008 and before, may we recommend decorative tape from Scotch Products?
da Vinci Robot pwns Operation, deems our childhoods forlorn (video)
What happens when a robot with immaculate dexterity comes to grips with a notorious board game from our childhood? Just ask Johns Hopkins University students, who successfully removed the wish bone from an Operation board using the da Vinci Robot. If you're familiar with the game, you'll know how incredibly difficult it was to prevent that ear-piercing noise from occurring-- even with our tiny fingers. Of course, we should have expected that a robot -- especially one capable of folding a tiny paper airplane -- would be able to accomplish this feat with such ease. Be sure to peep the pseudo-surgery in video form below the break.
DARPA-funded prosthetic arm reaches phase three, would-be cyborgs celebrate
Last we heard from Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, it wanted a neurally-controlled bionic arm by 2009. Needless to say, the school overshot that goal by a tiny bit, and have now been beaten (twice) to the punch. But DARPA sees $34.5 million worth of promise in their third and final prototype, which will enable the nine pound kit (with 22 degrees of freedom and sensory feedback) to begin clinical trials. Rechristened the Modular Prosthetic Limb, it will be grafted onto as many as five real, live persons, the first within the year. Using the targeted muscle reinnervation technique pioneered at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, patients will control these arms directly with their thoughts, and for their sakes and the fate of humanity, hopefully not the other way around. Press release after the break.
JHU researchers create self-assembling organic wires
Once more it looks like Johns Hopkins has taken humanity a step closer to full-blown Borg-hood. A research team at the school has created water-soluble electronic materials that spontaneously assemble themselves into wires some 10,000 times smaller than a human hair, for potential uses that include regulating cell-to-cell communication, re-engineering neural networks, repairing damaged spinal cords and transforming individuals into cybernetically enhanced drones. The researchers also point out that the self-assembly principles used to create the nano-scale wires are based on those of beta-amyloid plaques (which have been associated with Alzheimers), so the research may someday lead to a better understanding of the disease. This is definitely good news, but we can't help but think that once we've been assimilated into the hive mind Alzheimer's will be the least of our concerns.[Via TG Daily]
