Tag: Taylor Beck

  • Nation & World

    Listening for clues

    Baby songbirds learn to sing by imitation, just as human babies do. So researchers at Harvard and Utrecht University, in the Netherlands, have been studying the brains of zebra finches — red-beaked, white-breasted songbirds — for clues to how young birds and human infants learn vocalization on a neuronal level.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Making sense of memory

    It happens to all of us: We think we learned of the Sept. 11 attacks from a radio report, when, in fact, the news came from a co-worker; we’re sure the robber running from the bank was tall, when actually he was short; we remember waking up at 7 yesterday, when 8 is closer to…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Estrogen and female anxiety

    Some women’s vulnerability to anxiety and mood disorders may be explained by their estrogen levels, according to new research by Harvard and Emory University neuroscientists.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Deep glow

    Dancers and scholars explored the art and science of bioluminescence during “Living Light” July 31 at the Science Center.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    E.O. Wilson wins Cosmos Prize

    E.O. Wilson, Pellegrino University Professor Emeritus, has been awarded the 20th annual International Cosmos Prize by Japan’s Expo ’90 Foundation. The prize, worth 40 million Japanese yen ($511,444), will be presented to Wilson on Oct. 29 in Osaka, Japan.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    What wakes me

    Clifford Saper, chair of neurology at Harvard Medical School, and colleagues at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center recently discovered a brainstem area that senses oxygen dips and drives waking.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Giving phobias a rest

    A Harvard-led research team has found that exposure therapy for irrational fear of spiders seems to be more effective if it is followed by sleep, according to a recent study in the Journal of Psychiatric Research.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    When the beat goes off

    Rhythm research has implications for both audio engineering and neural clocks, said Holger Hennig, a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Eric Heller in the Physics Department at Harvard, and first author of a study of the Ghanaian and other drummers in the journal Physics Today.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Doctor knots

    Harvard researchers have developed a method to determine the effect of social networks among doctors on cost and quality of care across the nation.

    5 minutes