summer series 2018
From Juggling to Biomechanics
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
For any aspiring juggler, the path to greatness requires mastering the dreaded “five-club backcross.” It’s a move that begins by juggling five clubs in front of your body and transitions to doing the same thing behind your back! Dr. Noah Cowan has nailed it once, and vows to do it again one day.
But this NIH-funded neuroscientist and bioengineer, who directs the Locomotion in Mechanical and Biological Systems (LIMBS) Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School of Engineering in Baltimore, doesn’t have much time to practice his juggling these days. Instead, he is focusing on ways to use virtual juggling, such as the ball-and-paddle system shown in the video above, to explore the biomechanics of motion. His ultimate goal? To apply what he’s learned to advance the fields of robotics, prosthetics development, and physical therapy.
A Scientist Whose Music Gives Comfort
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Over the past few years, my blog has highlighted a wide range of Creative Minds from across biomedical research. But creative minds come in many forms, and, for a change of pace, I’d like to kick back this August and highlight some talented scientists who are also doing amazing things in the arts, from abstract painting to salsa dancing to rock’n’roll.
My first post introduces you to Dr. Pardis Sabeti, a computational geneticist at the Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard, Cambridge, and one of Time Magazine’s 2014 People of the Year for her work to contain the last major Ebola outbreak in West Africa. When she’s not in the lab studying viruses, Sabeti is the hard-driving voice of the indie rock band Thousand Days that has been rocking Boston for more than a decade.
