SOM honors student researchers
It is said that you shouldn't forget where you came from, and it is clear at Johns Hopkins that faculty remember the days they slaved away as graduate students and postdocs. For the 26th consecutive year, the School of Medicine celebrates the scientific contributions of graduate and medical students, postdoctoral and clinical fellows with its annual Young Investigators' Day.
   A long-standing tradition of Young Investigators' Day is a series of awards that recognize some of the best work to come out of Johns Hopkins. Of 95 applicants, 19 have been selected to receive awards this year, which carry prestige and cash prizes. Representative of their compatriots, awardees will present their work at the celebration, which begins at 4 p.m. on Thursday, April 10, in Mountcastle Auditorium in the Preclinical Teaching Building in East Baltimore. Full story...

Teaching tools in the digital age
For Paul Nelson, frustration, not so much necessity, was the mother of invention. Like all bachelor of music candidates at Peabody, Nelson is required to take four semesters of French, German or Italian. The prospect of studying a foreign language, however, made Nelson wince, as he recalled the uphill battle he faced during his high school days. He thought there had to be a better and easier way to learn.
   So, he went to his drawing board.
   Nelson, who in a recent prior life was a computer programmer, set out to develop a testing program to help him learn Italian, specifically one that could drill him on vocabulary. His labor produced a tool that, in terms of his ability to retain words, yielded instant dividends. Not wanting to keep a good thing to himself, he put the program on his Web page for others at Peabody to use. The result was Beatle-esque: The hits (albeit of the Web variety) just kept on coming. Full story...

What counts as scientific evidence?
Johns Hopkins' Center for History and Philosophy of Science will sponsor a first-of-its-kind seminar this week on the nature of scientific evidence. The interdisciplinary seminar, which will be held on the Homewood campus Friday through Sunday, April 11 to 13, has free registration and, in addition to featuring some current Johns Hopkins faculty members and scholars from other universities, will bring back a number of doctoral degree recipients in philosophy of science who have gone on to become prominent in their fields.
    Philosophers, as well as scientists, have disagreed and debated for centuries on what counts as scientific evidence, developing a number of different theories, said Peter Achinstein, professor of philosophy in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. Full story...

And they're off!
The journey from high school to Homewood began for the class of 2007 as the Office of Undergraduate Admissions staff carted its admissions responses to the campus post office on March 31. Full story...

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