Tag: School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
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Nation & World
National parks face dangerous foe
Thirty-eight of the United States’ national parks are experiencing “accidental fertilization” at or above a critical threshold for ecological damage, according to a study led by Harvard University researchers and published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
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Nation & World
Robots to the rescue
The Second Annual Northeast Robotics Colloquium highlighted Harvard’s work on the next generation of robotics.
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Nation & World
The beep ball player
Aqil Sajjad is blind, but he loves sports. So he’s playing on beep ball, a sport that features a chirping baseball that is delivered by a sighted pitcher to a blindfolded batter.
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Nation & World
Where students own their education
The class Applied Physics 50 is grounded in a teaching philosophy that banishes lectures and encourages hands-on exploration, presenting a collection of best practices gleaned from decades of teaching experience and studious visits to college physics classrooms nationwide.
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Nation & World
Advancing science and technology
The National Science Foundation is awarding grants to create three new science and technology centers this year, with two of them based in Cambridge. The two multi-institutional grants total $45 million over five years.
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Nation & World
Forks, knives, beakers
New York Times columnist Harold McGee and chef Dave Arnold introduced this year’s “Science and Cooking” public lecture series, which runs through December.
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Nation & World
Wildfires projected to worsen with climate change
A Harvard model predicts that by 2050, wildfire seasons will be three weeks longer, up to twice as smoky, and will burn a wider area in the western United States.
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Nation & World
Perfecting digital imaging
Despite advances, the best software and video cameras cannot seem to get computer-generated images and digital film to look exactly the way our eyes expect them to. Harvard’s Hanspeter Pfister and Todd Zickler are working to narrow the gap between “virtual” and “real” by asking the question: How do we see what we see?
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Nation & World
Designing a cleaner future
A slum on the outskirts of Accra, Ghana, received major media attention when the world realized it’s where computers go to die. That was when Harvard undergraduate Rachel Field ’12 devoted her senior thesis project to addressing the problem. Her solution was an award-winner.
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Nation & World
A globe-trotter, by design
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences graduate William Marks departs Harvard with a hat trick of achievements: a Fulbright Scholarship, a Gates Cambridge Scholarship at Cambridge University in England, and an offer of admission to Harvard Business School’s 2+2 M.B.A. program.
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Nation & World
Taking stock of technology
At the recent Harvard IT Summit, Anne Margulies, vice president and University chief information officer, mentioned how Harvard had been at the forefront of information technology since its inception, even to the point of naming the burgeoning field.
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Nation & World
A pragmatic way to teach science
Harvard scientists at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have been helping fifth graders in Boston’s Hennigan Elementary School this spring, bringing technical expertise and life experiences to help students better understand science and engineering, and visualize college careers of their own.
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Nation & World
A Little Idea | From My House to Our Harvard
Harvard students turn little ideas into big solutions every day. From My House to Our Harvard | 2012 FAS Film
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Nation & World
Robot hands gain a gentler touch
Researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have developed an inexpensive tactile sensor for robotic hands that is sensitive enough to turn a brute machine into a dexterous manipulator.
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Nation & World
Imagining impact, and believing in it
Sixth annual Harvard College Innovation Challenge supports student projects through a year of development and beyond. From common roots — intellectual curiosity and the desire to make life just a little bit easier — 64 ideas blossomed this year in the challenge.
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Nation & World
Hello again, climate change
Superstorm Sandy’s hurricane winds and torrential downpours killed at least 106 people, left millions without power, and caused billions of dollars in damage. It also got people talking again about climate change.
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Nation & World
Pecking order
Harvard researchers have found that a new investigation of tissues and signaling pathways in finches’ beaks reveals surprising flexibility in the birds’ evolutionary tool kit.
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Nation & World
‘Thou shall be inventive’
Chef-mixologist Dave Arnold and kitchen science author Harold McGee kicked off the third season of the “Science and Cooking” lecture series, looking at both the history and versatility of food.
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Nation & World
Clues in the cucumber’s climb
Harvard researchers, captivated by a strange coiling behavior in the grasping tendrils of the cucumber plant, have characterized a new type of spring that is soft when pulled gently and stiff when pulled strongly.
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Nation & World
Feeding culinary curiosity
A summer program aims to teach local schoolchildren that the kitchen and the laboratory — both intimidating places to newcomers — are a great place to explore their natural curiosity, and to learn lifelong healthy habits, too.
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Nation & World
Artificial jellyfish swims in a heartbeat
A team of researchers at Harvard University and the California Institute of Technology has turned inanimate silicon and living cardiac muscle cells into a freely swimming “jellyfish.”
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Nation & World
Touch, drag, learn
Research by computer scientists, biologists, and cognitive psychologists at Harvard, Northwestern, Wellesley, and Tufts suggests that collaborative touch-screen games have value beyond play.
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Nation & World
Meticulous design
A recent SEAS workshop emphasized comprehensive planning, cultural awareness, and a holistic approach to design in developing solutions to global problems.
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Nation & World
Ahead of the learning curve
From the $40 million Hauser gift to support teaching and learning initiatives to the recent announcement of the global online platform edX, Harvard tackled the future of higher education head-on in 2011-12. As the University’s 375th anniversary draws to a close, the Gazette asked some prescient professors: “What’s the one big idea that will transform…
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Nation & World
Sharing design, in all its forms
The first Design Fair at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) displayed the wealth of ideas that have emerged at SEAS throughout this past academic year.
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Nation & World
Self-assembly as a guide
Vinothan Manoharan, an assistant professor of chemical engineering and physics at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, wants to make self-assembly — when particles interact with one another and spontaneously arrange themselves into organized structures — happen in the laboratory to treat life-threatening diseases or manufacture useful objects.