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A study by a group led by Dr. Gilbert Burnham of the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, to be published Thursday on the Web site of the Lancet, a British medical journal, will claim that about 600,000 Iraqis have died from violence in Iraq since Operation Iraqi Freedom began. ... They used a methodology known as "cluster sampling," which can be valid if using real data and not anecdotal reporting. Most of the original Lancet clusters reported no deaths at all, with the journal admitting, "two-thirds of all violent deaths were reported in one cluster in the city...

Credit the newsmaking scientists at Johns Hopkins with this: They know a political opportunity when they see one. This latest Iraq war-death estimate -- 655,000, four times higher than anyone else's -- is released a few weeks before Election 2006, just like their last Lancet study, which appeared right before the 2004 election. Here we are again, watching science meet anti-war politics. Yesterday the study got generous coverage in The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere. Why that happened is unclear, because the scientists -- the lead author this time is Dr. Gilbert Burnham, last time Dr. Les...

Johns Hopkins researchers have devised a way to use a brief burst of electricity to release biomolecules and nanoparticles from a tiny gold launch pad. The technique could someday be used to dispense small amounts of medicine on command from a chip implanted in the body. The method also may be useful in chemical reactions that require the controlled release of extremely small quantities of a material.The technique was described Sept. 10 in a presentation by Peter C. Searson, a Johns Hopkins professor of materials science and engineering, during the 232nd national meeting of the American Chemical Society in San...

Johns Hopkins is mostly known as a staid old Baltimore institution famous for the breakthroughs of its medical researchers but the university’s alumni magazine shows a campus that is more new age than old guard. President Bush did speak there, a rarity in an academy that loathes the Republican chief executive, but the appearance did not sit too well with students and alums. “The sheer narcissism, risk-aversion, deference, and partisanship of the event and its report in the magazine betray the intellectual and political standards Johns Hopkins values,” Sayres Rudy, a visiting scholar at Amherst College writes. “I know that...

For more than a half a century, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It has been a widely used textbook in both college and high school advanced placement courses. For about the same time period, it has been misleading students everywhere. For example, the author of the book, Columbia professor Richard Hofstadter offered up a chapter on Abraham Lincoln that never mentioned the Gettysburg Address. In like fashion, he claimed that the authors of the constitution “wanted freedom from fiscal uncertainty and irregularities in the currency, from trade wars among the states, from economic discrimination by more...

Adult stem-cell research may lead one day to cures for terminal and debilitating diseases "I hope we will always be guided by both intellect and heart, by both our capabilities and our conscience." -President George W. Bush1 Few areas of scientific study hold as much potential as adult stem-cell research. This research is already generating medical breakthroughs and treatments for debilitating diseases and disabilities, such as spinal cord injuries, sickle cell anemia and Parkinson's. Indeed, scientists laud stem-cell treatments as the "miracle cure" of the 21st century. Unlike so many areas of biotechnology, adult stem cells do not spark a...

For the 16th straight year, Johns Hopkins Hospital has earned the top spot in the in U.S. News and World Report's annual list of the best hospitals nationwide. "Once again, the magazine and medical professionals across the nation have affirmed the excellence of our faculty physicians, our nurses and our staff," Dr. Edward Miller, dean and chief executive of Johns Hopkins Medicine, said in a letter to employees. Hopkins also ranked first in five specialties: ear, nose and throat, gynecology, kidney disease, urology and rheumatology. It also ranked second in neurology/neurosurgery, ophthalmology and psychiatry; third in cancer, digestive disorders, endocrinology,...

(AgapePress) -- Johns Hopkins University (JHU) in Baltimore, Maryland, is being accused of condoning mob censorship. An academic freedom and individual rights watchdog group is decrying school officials' part in an apparent attempt to silence a conservative newspaper. In May, the Carrolton Record published an issue critical of a group that brought a pornographic film director to the JHU campus. Afterward, hundreds of copies of the newspaper were stolen; however, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), the university administration "turned a blind eye to the theft." According to the Record's editor, about half of the 600...

The very idea of a personality profile of the mastermind of the September 11th, 2001 attacks upon the United States brings to mind the image of the Nazi playwright played by Kenneth Mars explaining his musical tribute to Adolf Hitler in the classic Mel Brooks film The Producers. “The Fuhrer was a great dancer,” Franz Liebkind insists to would-be producers Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom, played by, respectively, Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. There is more than a little of this line of dialogue echoed in the summary Johns Hopkins professor Peter Bergen makes of his book The Osama bin...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire known for his philanthropy, anonymously donated $100 million Thursday to Johns Hopkins University to support stem cell research, a new children's hospital and other projects, The Associated Press has learned. The Republican mayor, who graduated from Johns Hopkins and is a former Hopkins board chairman, has donated hundreds of millions to the school over the years. The school of public health at Hopkins bears his name. A person familiar with his philanthropy confirmed the latest $100 million gift on condition of anonymity, citing Bloomberg's desire for privacy. The mayor's spokesman, Stu Loeser, declined to comment...

Transcript: Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's Speech on the Future of Iraq Delivered at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Courtesy FDCH/e-Media Monday, December 5, 2005; 2:39 PM SPEAKER: DONALD H. RUMSFELD, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE [*] RUMSFELD: Thank you very much, Dean Einhorn. I see here Ruth Wedgwood in the front row, a member of the Defense Policy Board. And a couple of friends here from 30 or 40 or even more years back. Bill Coleman (ph) and Hal Sonnenfeld (ph), it's good to see you. Colonel Hickey (ph), thank you for all you do -- as well...

(1010 WINS) BALTIMORE Tests show a Johns Hopkins University sophomore from Long Island who died earlier this week most likely had a meningococcal infection. Gilbert Duvalsaint of Searingtown, Long Island was taken by ambulance to a hospital Wednesday. His condition quickly deteriorated, and he died. The university says it first believed Duvalsaint had suffered an allergic reaction. But preliminary lab results now point to the infection. Meningococcal infections can lead to bacterial meningitis. But they spread only after very close contact. Campus authorities are contacting those close to Duvalsaint so they can begin taking antibiotics as a precaution. The 19-year-old...

Saturday, September 24thBaltimore, MD - Johns Hopkins University5:45-6:45 PM - Rally & News Conference at John Hopkins University at the Glass Pavillion - located right by Levering Hall and Gilman Hall. “Support the Troops” banner-sheets will be on display, for you to sign and include a message of support. The sheets will be sent to the troops upon the completion of the nationwide bus tour and Washington, D.C. rally. Audience members will recite the pledge of allegiance to protest the ruling against the pledge by activist U.S. District Judge, Lawrence Karlton. Campus Map: (PDF) === From Yahoo Maps === I...

Unabashed terrorist supporter, Cindy Sheehan, delivered another one of her Al-Qaeda pep talks at Johns Hopkins University, on September 20th. (For which our hero mother is paid an estimated $30,000 a pop.) You can watch the video here. It is fascinating viewing, especially as it is delivered in Cindy's bizarre 14 year old Valley Girl sing-song.Among Cindy's talking points: Congress gave away their responsibilities to declare war to "someone they knew was a maniac. And they did it anyway."The media "challenges me for calling my second grade teacher a poo-poo head.""If [Bush] says he is making America safer, I say...

This was just posted to a web forum hosted by my local newspaper. Before I comment on it to the poster (who has posted before that he's a registered Republican, but who is a frothing liberal), I want to find out if anyone here knows anything about this. If Freepers really did this, I'm ashamed. But I have a hard time believing that, especially since DU is mentioned. In fact, as I re-read it I notice that there are no checkable or verifiable facts here. What can you all tell me about this? Here then is the post: This is...

You see them at night in big cities: men dressed up as women, complete with makeup, jewelry, and high heels. Despite their best efforts, it’s not a pretty sight. Nor is the sight of men who take a more drastic step: undergoing so-called sex-reassignment surgery. When these surgeries were first performed at Johns Hopkins University in the early seventies, one psychiatrist—Paul McHugh—started asking questions about the wisdom of this. After all, the outcomes were not women, but grotesque caricatures of them. When McHugh became psychiatrist-in-chief in 1975, he decided to test the claim that men who underwent sex-change surgery were...

A drug developed by Genentech significantly improved the eyesight of people with a condition that is the leading cause of blindness in the elderly, the company said yesterday. The results represent the first time that a drug for the disease - age-related macular degeneration - has been able to improve vision, not just preserve it, in a large clinical trial. It thus represents a potentially big advance. "If this pans out, it would be a significant advantage," said Dr. Julia A. Haller, a professor of ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins University who was involved in the trial and has occasionally consulted...

What's New Cancer News from Johns Hopkins No plastics in microwave No water bottles in freezer No plastic wrap in microwave Johns Hopkins has recently sent this out in their newsletters. This information is being circulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Dioxin Carcinogens cause cancer, especially breast cancer. Don't freeze your plastic water bottles with water as this also releases dioxin in the plastic. Dr. Edward Fujimoto from Castle hospital was on a TV program explaining this health hazard. (He is the manager of the Wellness Program at the hospital.) He was talking about dioxin and how bad they...

Johns Hopkins Begins Human Trials With Donor Adult Stem Cells To Repair Muscle Damaged From Heart Attack Researchers at Johns Hopkins have begun what is believed to be the first clinical trial in the United States of adult mesenchymal stem cells to repair muscle damaged by heart attack, or myocardial infarct. The so-called Phase I study is designed to test the safety of injecting adult stem cells at varying doses in patients who have recently suffered a heart attack. An estimated 7 million Americans alive today have suffered at least one heart attack and so are at greater risk for...

On campuses around the country there is a deep commitment to diversity of race, ethnicity, nationality, sex or religion. Yet, while we all share the goal of being educated in a diverse environment, we may have different ideas about what constitutes diversity. This is not to say that certain aspects of diversity are more important than others -- in no way should any facet be ignored, but invariably due to a lack of resources certain groups are skipped over or not given their fair share. As a senior on my way out of Hopkins and off into the real world,...