Featured series 
All articles
-
Science & Tech
Young stars in Orion may solve mystery of our solar system
Scientists who study how our solar system formed have been hard pressed to explain the presence of extremely unusual chemical isotopes found in ancient meteoroids orbiting the Earth. The isotopes are short-lived and had to have been formed no earlier than the creation of the solar system, some five billion years ago. Yet these elements…
-
Science & Tech
Scientists find X-rays from stellar winds that may play significant role in galactic evolution
The Rosette Nebula is a nursery for stars. For hundreds of years, astronomers have been looking at this star-forming region and wondering about the forces at work there. Now, scientists using the Chandra X-ray Observatory have determined that colliding stellar winds create turmoil in this part of space, superheating gas in the region to 6…
-
Science & Tech
Young pulsar reveals clues to supernova
Using the Chandra X-ray Observatory to learn more about pulsars, A team led by Stephen Murray of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., studied 3C58, the remains of a supernova observed on Earth in 1181 AD in the constellation Cassiopeia. 3C58 is one of the youngest known pulsars, and behaves quite differently from…
-
Science & Tech
Chandra examines a quadrillion-volt pulsar
A pulsar is a rapidly spinning neutron star that emits massive amounts of radiation in rapid pulses that occur at regular intervals. A neutron star is created when the central part of a massive star collapses. The atoms in the star are crushed completely, and the electrons are jammed inside the protons to form a…
-
Science & Tech
Chandra discovers eruption and pulsation in nova outburst
The brightening of Nova Aquila was first detected by optical astronomers in December 1999. Although this star is at a distance of more than 6,000 light years, it could be seen with the naked eye for about a month, during which it was about 100,000 times brighter than our own Sun. An international research team…
-
Science & Tech
Astronomers take the measure of dark matter in the universe
Astronomers believe that most of the matter in the universe is invisible to us — so called “dark matter.” The nature of this dark matter is not known, but most astronomers think that it is in the form of an as-yet-unknown type of elementary particle that contributes to gravity through its mass but otherwise interacts…
-
Science & Tech
Chandra probes nature of dark matter
It’s one of the universe’s most enduring mysteries — what comprises the “dark matter” that scientists believe most of the universe is made of, but which humans have been unable yet to see? Scientists using the Chandra X-ray Observatory were able to precisely determine the distribution of dark matter in a distant galaxy cluster named…
-
Health
Study shows strong public interest in genetic testing for Alzheimer’s disease
A genetic test to determine a person’s chance of getting Alzheimer’s disease is still hypothetical. But scientists are getting closer and closer to being able to determine who is likely to get the disease. A study by Harvard researchers and their colleagues found that, once such a genetic test is developed, approximately 80 percent of…
-
Science & Tech
Chandra catches Milky Way monster snacking
Researchers using the Chandra X-ray Observatory have, for the first time, observed the black hole at the center of our galaxy devouring material.
-
Health
One-tenth of medical residents feel unprepared
Findings from a study suggest that gaps exist in the preparedness of physicians to manage the full range of patients, procedures and problems they may encounter. A surprising one in 10 of medical residents said they felt unprepared to deal with such tasks as the treatment of HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, nursing home patients, management of…
-
Campus & Community
Resistance to antibiotics is reversed
Infectious bacteria that have developed resistance to even the most potent antibiotics are making hospital stays increasingly hazardous. Take the drug vancomycin, for example, which used to be a last line of defense against virulent strains of enterococci and staphylococci that can be life-threatening. These bacteria continually develop new ways to beat vancomycin.
-
Health
Resistance to antibodies is reversed
It’s a frightening — and increasingly common — problem. A patient seeks treatment for a particular ailment in a hospital and develops an entirely different disease: a bacterial infection that is resistant to antibiotics. Researchers have worked to come up with better and more powerful antibiotics, but even an antibiotic such as vancomycin, which used…
-
Health
Common aspirin reveals mechanism of insulin resistance
In 1876, a German professor described a treatment that led to rapid improvement in two men who were suffering from what doctors now recognize as classic type 2 diabetes. In the late 1950s, scattered reports about this treatment for diabetes symptoms again appeared in the medical literature; the results were equally dramatic. What was this…
-
Health
Cell death in eggs traced to smoking
A woman is born with just so many egg cells, called oocytes. When she begins ovulating, she has about 400. Even though that may seem like a lot, considering the few that would ever be fertilized, scientists have found that loss of oocytes influences a woman’s health. Early loss of oocytes leads to early menopause…
-
Health
Sorting good eggs from bad ones
An oocyte is an immature egg cell in the ovaries. Before a woman is born, her ovaries will contain about five million eggs. At birth, about three million of those egg cells die — apparently by committing suicide. This fact of nature has long puzzled scientists. Now, Harvard researchers working at the Center for Blood…
-
Science & Tech
Medicaid coverage for anti-AIDS drugs would be cost effective
It’s long been said that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” A new study from the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis applies the principle to treating HIV-infected people with antiretroviral drugs, the so-called “AIDS cocktail.” Under Medicare rules, people without health insurance can’t get treatment until they develop full-blown AIDS and…
-
Health
Researchers discover new type of cancer
A team led by a Harvard researcher has identified a new type of cancer that primarily affects young girls. Sara Vargas, an instructor in pathology at Harvard Medical School and a researcher in the Department of Pathology at Children’s Hospital in Boston, led the study that identified the new syndrome. The cancer is characterized by…
-
Campus & Community
Scientists identify chromosome location of genes associated with long life
Researchers at Harvard-afilliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Children’s Hospital, and other institutions have pinpointed a region on human Chromosome 4 that is likely to contain a gene or genes associated with extraordinary life expectancy. Their findings, reported in the Aug. 28 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may lead to…
-
Health
Harvard scientists identify chromosome location of genes associated with long life
Scientists have long thought of aging as a complex process affected by perhaps a thousand genes. So a recent discovery by Harvard scientists that a gene or genes located on a region of human Chromosome 4 may help people to live to age 100 was something of a surprise. “This is the first study to…
-
Health
Nutrition book author Willett rebuilds USDA food pyramid
For more than 20 years researchers at Harvard and elsewhere have been looking at the long-term health effects of eating certain types of foods. These researchers now have a good idea what’s good for you and what’s not, and in what quantities. However, that information is not reflected in the “food pyramid” produced by the…
-
Science & Tech
U.S. stepped aside during Rwandan genocide
Samantha Power, executive director of the John F. Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, conducted a three-year-long investigation into what the United States government knew, didn’t know, and chose to do during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Based on hundreds of interviews and hundreds of pages of declassified government documents, Power’s conclusion finds…
-
Health
Study shows obesity can increase risk of pancreatic cancer
Each year almost 30,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. About the same number of people are killed by it. Pancreatic cancer is the fifth-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the U.S. A study by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Dana-Farber…
-
Health
Drug hits new molecular target in mice
When doctors diagnose and plan treatment for breast cancers they look for various indicators of how aggressive they are and what treatments will work best. Two-thirds of breast tumors are made up of cells that have receptor molecules for estrogen on their cell surface. The growth of these estrogen-receptor-positive (ER+) tumors depends in part on…
-
Campus & Community
Scientists explore antimatter
It’s the rarest, shortest-lived matter in the universe. In fact, it’s antimatter – the opposite of matter. When the two meet, they annihilate each other in a burst of energy.
-
Campus & Community
2001 Rappaport Public Service Interns
Merrell Aspin is working as an intern with the Massachusetts Division of Medical Assistance in the Managed Care Program, where she is researching contracting issues for the divisions upcoming contracting process. She is a student at the School of Public Health (SPH).
-
Campus & Community
Technology for educators
Glenn Kleiman recalls the time his 7-year-old son asked him when color was invented.
-
Campus & Community
Medical center and affordable housing are result of swap
Harvard University joined Brigham and Womens Hospital and the nonprofit tenants organization Roxbury Tenants at Harvard in an unusual three-way land-swap agreement that will make way for a new medical center while preserving affordable housing in Bostons Mission Hill neighborhood.
-
Campus & Community
Leadership takes faith-based route
Forty-nine concerned citizens from all over the United States came to the Summer Leadership Institute (SLI), sponsored by the Divinity Schools (HDS) Center for the Study of Values in Public Life to train clergy, lay leaders, and community developers in inner-city economic improvement.
-
Campus & Community
In Brief
Biomedical trade show to be held next month The 2001 Biomedical Research Equipment and Supplies Exhibit will be held on Wednesday, Sept. 19, and Thursday, Sept. 20, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Countway Plaza Courtyard, Harvard Medical School. Admission is free with a University, hospital, or corporate ID. Ying Quartet named 2001-03…