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129 stories tagged ‘FAS’
Adam Cohen, professor of chemistry and chemical biology and of physics, and Hopi Hoekstra, professor of organismic and evolutionary biology and molecular and cellular biology, are among the 27 scientists nationwide to be appointed as investigators by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
The culmination of the Harvard Horizons initiative was a symposium in which eight Ph.D. students each offered five-minute presentations, styled on the popular TED talks, about a specific aspect of their current research.
Led by Joshua Sanes and Jeff Lichtman, a group of Harvard researchers has made a host of technical improvements in the “Brainbow” imaging technique.
Mourning that vexes the future
In a new paper, Professor of Psychology Richard McNally and graduate student Don Robinaugh say that while people suffering from complicated grief — a syndrome marked by intense, debilitating emotional distress and yearning for a lost loved one — had difficulty envisioning specific events in their future, those problems disappeared when they were asked to imagine an alternate future that included their lost loved one.
In research described earlier this year in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Elinor Amit, a College Fellow in psychology, along with two collaborators, Cheryl Wakslak and Yaacov Trope, showed that people increasingly prefer to communicate verbally (versus visually) with people who are distant (versus close) — socially, geographically, or temporally.
Lower health care costs may last
A slowdown in the growth of U.S. health care costs could mean a savings of as much as $770 billion on Medicare spending over the next decade, Harvard economists say.
Students in Matthew Liebmann’s “Encountering the Conquistadors” class recently got a feel for prehistoric life, trying their hands at an ancient weapon called the atlatl.
A team of Harvard scholars is cataloging, and transcribing, and digitizing thousands of 18th- and 19th-century anti-slavery petitions held in the Massachusetts State Archives.
Understanding student weaknesses
As part of an unusual study that surveyed 181 middle school physical science teachers and nearly 10,000 students, researchers found that the most successful teachers were those who knew what students would get wrong on standardized tests.
Latanya Sweeney, Harvard professor of government and technology in residence, wants to add a new factor to the weighting Google uses when delivering online ads, one that measures bias. In a new paper, she describes how such a calculation could be built into the ad-delivery algorithm Google uses.
Raj Chetty awarded Clark Medal
Harvard Professor of Economics Raj Chetty has been awarded the 2013 John Bates Clark Medal in recognition of his work, which combines empirical evidence and theory to inform the design of more effective government policies on everything from taxation to unemployment to education.
Using an unusual decision-making study, Harvard researchers exploring the question of motivation found that rats will perform a task faster or slower depending on the size of the benefit they receive, suggesting they maintain a long-term estimate of whether it’s worthwhile for them to invest the energy.
Professor Jill Lepore delivered the third and final presentation in Harvard College Dean Evelynn M. Hammonds’ book talks in the Widener Library rotunda. The series was designed to bring students and faculty together outside of the classroom.
Harvard researchers are adding nuance to our understanding of how modern and historical temperatures compare.
Online learning: It’s different
By interspersing online lectures with short tests, student mind-wandering decreased by half, note-taking tripled, and overall retention of the material improved, said Daniel Schacter, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Psychology, and Karl Szpunar, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology.
A panel of experts discussed the study of humanities in the digital age, and how humanists’ skill set is well-suited for careers in this advancing world of technology. The discussion was part of a series supported by the FAS Office of Career Services.
Scientists may soon be able to turn to one of the most powerful forces in biology — evolution — to help in their quest to develop new synthetic polymers.
Calvert Watkins, the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Linguistics and the Classics, emeritus, died March 20 at the age of 80.
Major weight loss tied to microbes
In a study conducted by Harvard and MGH researchers, gut microbes of mice underwent drastic changes following gastric bypass surgery, and transfer of the microbes into sterile mice resulted in rapid weight loss.
In a breakthrough that could one day yield important clues about the nature of matter itself, a team of Harvard scientists has measured the magnetic charge of single particles of matter and antimatter with unprecedented precision.
In a new paper, Christopher Marx, associate professor of organismic and evolutionary biology, says that beneficial mutations may occur more often than first thought, but many never emerge as “winners” because they don’t fall within the narrow set of circumstances required for them to dominate a population.
A Woodberry Poetry Room exhibition features the “Phone-a-Poem” archive, a Cambridge-based service that for 25 years allowed callers to dial in and listen to a famous poet recite his or her work as it was played back on an answering machine.
In a new paper, Harvard researchers show that changes in coat color in mice are the result not of a single mutation, but of many mutations, all in a single gene. The results start to answer one of the fundamental questions about evolution: Does it proceed by huge leaps — single mutations that result in dramatic changes in an organism — or is it the result of many smaller changes over time?
Professor of Psychology Matthew Nock is the author of a new paper, co-authored with other Harvard faculty, which examines suicidal thoughts and behaviors among adolescents. In a recent conversation with the Gazette, Nock discussed his research, and the resources available at Harvard for students and others in the community.
Fifty-seven FAS employees were honored at the fourth annual Dean’s Distinction awards ceremony and reception, held March 6 in the Faculty Room of University Hall.
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