Tag: Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

  • Nation & World

    An idea that changed the world

    Harvard celebrates the 100th anniversary of a computational principle that was little noticed in its time, but that underlies all of modern science.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Wonders of Wintersession

    Wintersession and Winter Break offer many chances to try out a new skill or return to a passion.

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Pickles, prisms, and scientists

    Celebrating its 11th year of public engagement, the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences’ (SEAS) Holiday Lecture Series dazzled and delighted audiences on Dec. 8 with a show guaranteed to kindle curiosity about the natural world.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    For a day, geek is chic

    Hundreds of students — hackers and newcomers alike — showed off their programming chops at Monday’s CS50 Fair, a raucous exhibit of mobile apps, websites, and other projects created for Harvard’s wildly popular computer science class.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    New device hides from infrared cameras

    A new device invented at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) can absorb 99.75 percent of infrared light that shines on it. When activated, it appears black to infrared cameras.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    New way to model human disease

    Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have mimicked pulmonary edema in a microchip lined by living human cells. They used this “lung-on-a-chip” to study drug toxicity and identify potential new therapies to prevent this life-threatening condition.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Cautious geohacking

    By tailoring geoengineering efforts by region and by need, a new model promises to maximize the effectiveness of solar radiation management while mitigating its potential side effects and risks.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Applied physics as art

    Harvard researchers spray-paint ultrathin coatings that change color with only a few atoms’ difference in thickness.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    An engineering landmark

    The Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences celebrates a landmark degree accreditation, and a broadening, flexible future of programs that break down academic barriers.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Needle beam stays on point

    A Harvard-led team of researchers has demonstrated a new type of light beam that propagates without spreading outward, remaining very narrow and controlled along an unprecedented distance. It could greatly reduce signal loss for on-chip optical systems and may eventually assist the development of a more powerful class of microprocessors.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    No summer lull in learning

    It was a busy summer of Harvard-supported learning on campus and in the neighboring communities.

    8 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Super gel

    A team of experts in mechanics, materials science, and tissue engineering at Harvard has created an extremely stretchy and tough gel that may suggest a new method for replacing damaged cartilage in human joints.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Perfecting optics

    Applied physicists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have created an ultrathin, flat lens that focuses light without imparting the distortions of conventional lenses.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Merging the biological, electronic

    For the first time, Harvard scientists have created a type of cyborg tissue by embedding a 3-D network of functional, biocompatible, nanoscale wires into engineered human tissues.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Action figures come to life

    A group of graphics experts led by computer scientists at Harvard have created an add-on software tool that translates video game characters — or any other three-dimensional animations — into fully articulated action figures, with the help of a 3-D printer.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Giving slime the slip

    A team of Harvard scientists has developed a slick way to prevent the troublesome biofilms from ever forming on a surface.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Airborne pollutants lead a double life

    Researchers at Harvard University and the University of British Columbia (UBC) have provided visual evidence that atmospheric particles — which are ubiquitous, especially above densely populated areas — separate into distinct chemical compositions during their life cycle.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    NaCl to give way to RockSalt

    A team led by Harvard computer scientists, including two undergraduate students, has developed a new tool that could lead to increased security and enhanced performance for commonly used Web and mobile applications.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Smart suit improves physical endurance

    Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering announced that it has received a $2.6 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a smart suit that helps improve physical endurance for soldiers in the field.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Carbon counter

    Atmospheric scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and Nanjing University have produced the first “bottom-up” estimates of China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, for 2005 to 2009, and the first statistically rigorous estimates of the uncertainties surrounding China’s CO2 emissions.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Clot-busting technology goes straight to work

    Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard have developed a novel biomimetic strategy that delivers life-saving nanotherapeutics directly to obstructed blood vessels, dissolving blood clots before they cause serious damage or even death.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Fuel cell keeps going after hydrogen runs out

    Materials scientists at Harvard have demonstrated that a solid-oxide fuel cell (SOFC), which converts hydrogen into electricity, can also store electrochemical energy like a battery. This fuel cell can continue to produce power for a short time after its fuel has run out.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Sampling Harvard, and science

    Harvard hosted a Step UP/Project TEACH event for students and parents from the Hennigan Elementary School in Jamaica Plain and the E. Greenwood Leadership Academy in Hyde Park. The effort is part of a program to show young students what college is like, particularly in the sciences.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Now, ice won’t stick

    A Harvard team of researchers has invented a way to keep any metal surface free of ice and frost. The treated surfaces quickly shed even tiny, incipient condensation droplets or frost, simply through gravity.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A new master’s program

    Harvard will offer a master’s degree in computational science and engineering.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Toxic mercury springs from a hidden source

    Environmental scientists at Harvard have discovered that the Arctic accumulation of mercury, a toxic element, is caused by both atmospheric forces and the flow of circumpolar rivers that carry the element north into the Arctic Ocean.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Crime probe

    A Harvard engineering class helps find a metric for a computer scheme that tracks gang violence.

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Meserve, Fisher to lead Overseers

    Richard A. Meserve, J.D. ’75, has been elected president of Harvard’s Board of Overseers for 2012-13 and Lucy Fisher ’71 will become vice chair of the board’s executive committee.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Rethinking mitosis

    The mitotic spindle, an apparatus that segregates chromosomes during cell division, may be more complex than the standard textbook picture suggests, according to researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    ‘Warming hole’ delayed climate change

    Climate scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have discovered that particulate pollution in the late 20th century created a “warming hole” over the eastern United States — that is, a cold patch where the effects of global warming were temporarily obscured.

    5 minutes