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4.25.24 [Just today in social media.]
Amanda Mantiply
APL is developing a suite of solutions, including coral engineering, eDNA analysis and climate intelligence, that work together to improve long-term resilience at the coastline. Credit: Josh Diaz/Johns Hopkins APL
When storms, hurricanes and tsunamis strike, the coastline offers essential protection for shoreside communities and critical infrastructure against tidal surge and flooding. Coastal disasters can destroy buildings and roads, shut down businesses and schools, cost cities and nations billions of dollars, and potentially lead to injuries or deaths.
As global water temperatures and sea levels rise, however, natural protection such as coral and oyster reefs is disappearing, making coasts more difficult to secure. Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, built models to investigate solutions, such as creating oyster reefs, for minimizing damage along coasts. But when they found that oyster reefs could also increase erosion in certain scenarios — effectively, that one solution could lead to unintended consequences elsewhere — the APL researchers took a new approach.
“We don’t want to trade apples for oranges in terms of problems,” said Sarah Herman, program manager for biological and chemical sciences at APL. “We can’t rely on a single solution to establish coastal resilience. We need a suite of targeted solutions that can solve the entirety of the problem without creating new challenges.”
Cross-disciplinary teams at APL are combining expertise in materials engineering, marine biology, plant biology, computer science and modeling to create unique, impactful solutions to fortify coastal resilience. The teams will highlight their work during two conferences at APL: the Atlantic Coastal Resilience workshop on May 30 and the third National Workshop on Marine Environmental DNA (eDNA) from June 3 to 5.
“On their own, these projects address important challenges we face at the coastline,” said Herman. “Together, they provide defense in depth and a clearer picture of how we can enhance natural resources and improve long-term resilience.”
Anticipating and Avoiding “Tipping Points”
Anticipating how different resolutions to coastal issues impact each other is crucial to building a suite of effective solutions. “Our oceans are made up of complex, interconnected systems,” said Marisa Hughes, assistant program manager for human and machine intelligence at APL. “When there is a change to one system, there are significant, destabilizing ripple effects. We need to understand the interdependencies between these systems to develop effective, long-term solutions.”
Two APL staff members, artificial intelligence (AI) expert Jennifer Sleeman and oceanographer Jay Brett, lead a team that is developing an AI scientific discovery assistant named Causal-Cascading AI Tipping-Point Neuro-symbolic Intervention and Prediction (CATNIP). This system aims to understand how climate “tipping points” — critical thresholds that, once crossed, could change the state of the natural climate system — can trigger cascading responses.
CATNIP builds on the success of an earlier project3 for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) AI-assisted Climate Tipping-point Modeling program. The work includes a generative adversarial network (TIP-GAN) that learns to predict what could tip the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), an important climate system of ocean currents that circulates warm water from the South Atlantic to the colder North Atlantic. If the AMOC were to slow or collapse, there could be consequences for food security, sea levels, delicate ecosystems and the Arctic.
The program was the first demonstration that AI can be used as a climate modeling assistant, where researchers can run experiments by asking the AI climate modeling assistant natural language questions, similar to using a large language model. CATNIP extends this capability to examine the tipping points of coral reefs, sea-ice melt and sea-level rise so it can study how tipping points are interconnected and interventions that could mitigate individual and cascading tips.
CATNIP’s new coral reef model looks at how factors such as temperature, carbon dioxide levels, wave energy and pollution affect reef populations and local flooding, which in turn can lead to food insecurity, infrastructure damage and population displacement.
“Before, we were addressing a simple question,” Brett explained, “but we now want to get to questions that involve multiple parts, like if we reach a state of bleached or dead coral, what would need to happen for the coral to recover, and how did the AI get its result?”
Reversing the Loss of Coral Reefs
With their ability to slow waves and reduce coastal erosion, coral reefs are critical for mitigating the effects of rising sea levels. Yet worldwide, they’re disappearing. Last summer’s record-high ocean temperatures, for example, led to a massive coral bleaching event in the Florida Keys, creating die-offs that preliminary data suggests left just one of five surveyed reef sites with sustained populations of certain coral species.
While the CATNIP team is modeling events to understand coral tipping points, other teams at APL are working in parallel to develop methods to support coral settlement, reverse coral loss and improve coral thermal resilience.
Jenny Boothby, a biomaterials engineer, led a project in collaboration with the University of Miami for DARPA’s Reefense program to develop a unique biocompatible hydrogel that can adhere to underwater structures. As coral larvae spawn, the team encapsulates the new larvae into the protective gel and attaches them directly to artificial structures underwater. The hydrogel provides a method to deliver nutrients and support the coral until they become self-sustaining.
In a separate internally funded project, APL biologists are developing a food additive material that would stop coral polyps from expelling their symbiotic algae during a heat wave. The additive delivers a snippet of genetic material to adult coral to mitigate coral bleaching. This messenger RNA, or mRNA, blocks chemical stress signals and acts like a vaccine against heat stress.
Enlisting eDNA to Understand Ecosystems
Warming oceans are hurting more than just coral; they’re jeopardizing all types of marine ecosystems and habitat for fish. APL researchers are leveraging eDNA — the genetic material organisms slough off as they move through their environment — to better understand how these ecosystems and marine organisms are responding.
“eDNA helps detect the unseeable,” said Hayley DeHart, a genomics researcher at APL. “We don’t always know the effects of climate change, but by studying genetic signatures, we can learn which organisms are in an environment and when there are unexpected changes in their movement.”
DeHart is part of an APL team developing a low-cost eDNA analysis tool to collect samples and then process and analyze the data. Compared with traditional data collection, eDNA is faster, cheaper and less labor intensive. Recently, the team deployed its eDNA tool in Antarctica aboard Lindblad Expeditions’ National Geographic Resolution.
“It’s amazing to see where eDNA has progressed in the past five years,” said DeHart. “What started as a question into whether we could even get DNA from water or air samples has developed into tools being actively used in the field. As we look ahead, we’re asking how the community can ensure eDNA is used responsibly for completing environmental impact assessments.”
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Founded on March 10, 1942—just three months after the United States entered World War II— The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab -was created as part of a federal government effort to mobilize scientific resources to address wartime challenges.
The Applied Physics Lab was assigned the task of finding a more effective way for ships to defend themselves against enemy air attacks. The Laboratory designed, built, and tested a radar proximity fuze (known as the VT fuze) that significantly increased the effectiveness of anti-aircraft shells in the Pacific—and, later, ground artillery during the invasion of Europe. The product of the Laboratory’s intense development effort was later judged to be, along with the atomic bomb and radar, one of the three most valuable technology developments of the war.
On the basis of that successful collaboration, the government, The Johns Hopkins University, and APL made a commitment to continue their strategic relationship. The Laboratory rapidly became a major contributor to advances in guided missiles and submarine technologies. Today, more than seven decades later, the Laboratory’s numerous and diverse achievements continue to strengthen our nation.
The Applied Physics Lab continues to relentlessly pursue the mission it has followed since its first day: to make critical contributions to critical challenges for our nation.
Johns Hopkins University opened in 1876, with the inauguration of its first president, Daniel Coit Gilman. “What are we aiming at?” Gilman asked in his installation address. “The encouragement of research … and the advancement of individual scholars, who by their excellence will advance the sciences they pursue, and the society where they dwell.”
The mission laid out by Gilman remains the university’s mission today, summed up in a simple but powerful restatement of Gilman’s own words: “Knowledge for the world.”
What Gilman created was a research university, dedicated to advancing both students’ knowledge and the state of human knowledge through research and scholarship. Gilman believed that teaching and research are interdependent, that success in one depends on success in the other. A modern university, he believed, must do both well. The realization of Gilman’s philosophy at Johns Hopkins, and at other institutions that later attracted Johns Hopkins-trained scholars, revolutionized higher education in America, leading to the research university system as it exists today.
The Johns Hopkins University is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, the university was named for its first benefactor, the American entrepreneur and philanthropist Johns Hopkins. His $7 million bequest (approximately $147.5 million in today’s currency)—of which half financed the establishment of the Johns Hopkins Hospital—was the largest philanthropic gift in the history of the United States up to that time. Daniel Coit Gilman, who was inaugurated as the institution’s first president on February 22, 1876, led the university to revolutionize higher education in the U.S. by integrating teaching and research. Adopting the concept of a graduate school from Germany’s historic Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, [Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg] (DE), Johns Hopkins University is considered the first research university in the United States. Over the course of several decades, the university has led all U.S. universities in annual research and development expenditures. The university has graduate campuses in Italy, China, and Washington, D.C., in addition to its main campus in Baltimore.
Johns Hopkins is organized into 10 divisions on campuses in Maryland and Washington, D.C., with international centers in Italy and China. The two undergraduate divisions, the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and the Whiting School of Engineering, are located on the Homewood campus in Baltimore’s Charles Village neighborhood. The medical school, nursing school, and Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Johns Hopkins Children’s Center are located on the Medical Institutions campus in East Baltimore. The university also consists of the Peabody Institute, Applied Physics Laboratory, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, School of Education, Carey Business School, and various other facilities.
Johns Hopkins was a founding member of the Association of American Universities. Nobel laureates and Fields Medalists have been affiliated with Johns Hopkins. Founded in 1883, the Blue Jays men’s lacrosse team has captured national titles.
Research
The opportunity to participate in important research is one of the distinguishing characteristics of Hopkins’ undergraduate education. About 80 percent of undergraduates perform independent research, often alongside top researchers. Johns Hopkins has members of the Institute of Medicine, The Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators, The National Academy of Engineering, and The National Academy of Sciences. Nobel Prize winners have been affiliated with the university as alumni, faculty members or researchers.
The Johns Hopkins University is among the most cited institutions in the world ranking No. 3 globally [after Harvard University and The MPG Society (DE)] in the number of total citations published in Thomson Reuters-indexed journals over 22 fields in America.
Johns Hopkins received research grants from The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, as a leading recipient of NASA research and development funding. Totals include grants and expenditures of JHU’s Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.
The Johns Hopkins University also offers the “Center for Talented Youth” program—a nonprofit organization dedicated to identifying and developing the talents of the most promising K-12 grade students worldwide. As part of the Johns Hopkins University, the “Center for Talented Youth” or CTY helps fulfill the university’s mission of preparing students to make significant future contributions to the world. The Johns Hopkins Digital Media Center (DMC) is a multimedia lab space as well as an equipment, technology and knowledge resource for students interested in exploring creative uses of emerging media and use of technology.
In 2013, the Bloomberg Distinguished Professorships program was established by a $250 million gift from Michael Bloomberg. This program enables the university to recruit fifty researchers from around the world to joint appointments throughout the nine divisions and research centers. For The American Academy of Arts and Sciences each professor must be a leader in interdisciplinary research and be active in undergraduate education. Directed by Vice Provost for Research, there are Bloomberg Distinguished Professors at the university, including Nobel Laureates, fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and members of the National Academies.