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Campus & Community
Dean appointed to Graduate School of Design
President Lawrence H. Summers announced Wednesday (Feb. 2) the appointment of Alan A. Altshuler, Ruth and Frank Stanton Professor of Urban Policy and Planning in the Harvard Graduate School of…
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Campus & Community
A record 22,717 students apply to the College
A record total of 22,717 students have applied for entrance next September to Harvard College. This unprecedented applicant pool is due in large measure to the new Harvard Financial Aid Initiative (HFAI) announced by President Lawrence H. Summers last February in his keynote address to the American Council on Education, said William R. Fitzsimmons, dean…
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Campus & Community
Biggest stars produce strongest magnets
Assistant Professor of Astronomy Bryan Gaensler and colleagues have discovered the source of powerful magnetic objects in the universe called magnetars, finding that some of the biggest stars in the…
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Campus & Community
Climate solutions through forests
Using the environment to help address the nation’s pollution problems. That’s the focus of a new report from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and researchers at the Kennedy…
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Campus & Community
Winds and waves sculpted a ‘snowball Earth’
It’s a world hard to imagine. Some 650 million years ago, Earth’s land and oceans were almost completely covered by ice and snow. The planet’s population – primitive plants and…
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Campus & Community
Suicide high among female doctors
Male doctors take their own lives at a higher rate than the general population of white men in the United States. That’s been known for some time. Now, the largest,…
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Health
Weight and weight gain may predict breast cancer survival
The study included 5,204 women with invasive breast cancer who were between the ages 30 to 55 when enrolled in the study in 1976. The researchers found that women who…
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Health
Phobic anxiety increases risk of sudden cardiac death in women
According to lead author Christine M. Albert, M.D., M.P.H., an epidemiologist at BWH and an electrophysiologist and cardiologist at MGH, “Phobic anxiety is associated with coronary heart disease risk factors.…
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Science & Tech
Most Milky Way stars are single
Common wisdom among astronomers holds that most star systems in the Milky Way are multiple, consisting of two or more stars in orbit around each other. Common wisdom is wrong.
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Health
Scientists discover “master switch” that triggers insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes
“We zeroed in on a factor called NF-kB,” said principal investigator Steven E. Shoelson, M.D., Ph.D., Helen and Morton Adler Chair and head of the Section on Cellular and Molecular…
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Health
Study says women don’t experience pain, anxiety during mammograms
“I think it’s an old wives tale that mammograms hurt,” says the study’s lead author, Alice Domar, PhD, director of the Mind/ Body Center for Women’s Health at Boston IVF…
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Health
Weight gain and obesity linked to higher risk of kidney stones
“Our study demonstrated that multiple measures of larger body size, including larger waist circumference, higher weight, and higher body mass index, were related to an elevated risk of kidney stones,”…
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Health
Snaring secrets of the Venus flytrap
While “speed” is not a word most people associate with the plant kingdom, the Venus flytrap closes its v-shaped leaves in just one-tenth of a second – fast enough to…
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Science & Tech
Racial, ethnic gap in youth violence linked to social factors
A study conducted by Robert J. Sampson of Harvard University and Jeffrey D. Morenoff and Stephen Raudenbush of the University of Michigan shows that the longstanding gap in the racial…
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Health
Solving the mystery of a centuries-old plague
Edward O. Wilson identified two different ant species in investigating the mystery of centuries-old plagues, a tropical fire ant in the early 1500s and an introduced African ant in the…
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Health
Safer cigarettes would cut fire deaths if made available
Researchers at Harvard School of Public Health, funded by the American Legacy Foundation, compared the physical properties of cigarettes sold in New York with cigarettes of the same brands sold…
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Health
One alcoholic drink per day improves cognitive function among older women
According to the study’s senior author, BWH’s Francine Grodstein, Sc.D., “Much evidence has demonstrated the heart benefits of light alcohol drinking, but less research has focused on cognitive functioning. While…
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Health
First view of many neurons processing information in living brain
A Harvard Medical School (HMS) research team used a new technique to obtain the first close-up look at the neural circuits that produce vision in cats and rats. “Put simply,…
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Science & Tech
Tiny RNA molecules fine-tune the brain’s synapses
Non-coding regions of the genome – those that don’t code for proteins – are now known to include important elements that regulate gene activity. Among those elements are microRNAs, tiny,…
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Health
Monitoring system needed to prevent safety hazard of problem physicians
Asserting that “physician performance failures are not rare and pose substantial threats to patient welfare and safety,” experts in medical error are calling on state medical boards and healthcare organizations…
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Health
Disparate proteins structurally identical
Gerhard Wagner, the Elkan Blout professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology, and Tucker Collins, the S. Burt Wolbach professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital, made…
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Health
Findings recommend herpes vaccine for human trials
Research published in the January 2005 Journal of Virology compared three different experimental vaccines for herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV-2), which causes most cases of genital herpes. Lead author Stephen…
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Health
RNA-making apparatus seen to uncoil and recoil DNA
Eukaryotic cells like to keep their DNA under wraps, winding the long strands of nucleic acid around millions of little protein complexes. This bead-on-a-string structure, called chromatin, ensures that the…
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Science & Tech
New maser measurements trace detail in active galactic core
The roiling cores of many active galaxies are difficult to see in detail because of surrounding gas and interstellar dust. Smithsonian astronomers announced Jan. 12, 2006, however, a first-time measurement…
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Science & Tech
Growing supermassive black holes from seeds
Astronomers announced Jan. 12, 2006 that they have found the first sample of intermediate-mass black holes in active galaxies – a discovery that will help in understanding the early universe.…
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Health
One third of U.S. adults use complementary and alternative medicines
The continued widespread use of individual and multiple CAM therapies underscores the need to rigorously evaluate the safety, efficacy, and cost-effectiveness of these approaches, according to the study’s lead author…
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Science & Tech
Astronomers spot the Great Orion Nebula’s successor
Astronomers announced Jan. 11, 2006, that they have found the next Orion Nebula. Known as W3, this glowing gas cloud in the constellation Cassiopeia has just begun to shine with…
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Science & Tech
Going beyond Einstein
Observations by two astronomers confirm one important theory about how a black hole’s extreme gravity can stretch light. The data also paint an intriguing image of how a spinning black…
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Science & Tech
See-through galaxy
To peer into the galactic center of our own Milky Way galaxy, astronomers Silas Laycock and Josh Grindlay used the unique capabilities of the 6.5-meter-diameter Magellan Telescope in Chile. By…