Health

The brain is awash in sights, sounds, smells, and other stimuli every moment. How can it sort through the flood of information to decide what is important and what can be relegated to the background? Harvard researchers found evidence that oxytocin, popularly known as the “love hormone,” plays a crucial role in helping the brain process social signals.

Harvard researchers are bringing an engineer’s perspective to a medical mystery — how does gastric bypass surgery do so much more than reduce weight?

Harvard-trained psychiatrist Mark Epstein talks about his new book, “Advice Not Given: A Guide to Getting Over Yourself.”

Harvard researchers worked with colleagues to map brain lesions in 17 patients who exhibited criminal behavior after — but not before — the lesions appeared.

Harvard researchers are collaborating with government officials in China on an experiment aimed at improving quality of care at hospitals in some of the country’s poorer regions.

To look at him, Griffin doesn’t seem like he’d be smarter than your typical 4-year-old — he’s a bird, after all. But the African grey parrot can easily outperform young children on certain tests, including one that measures understanding of volume.

Researchers discovered hundreds of genetic “switches” that influence height, then performed tests that demonstrated how one such switch altered the function of a key gene involved in height difference.

When fill-in physicians take over care in hospitals temporarily, mortality levels remain stable, a new study says.

Surgeons at MassGeneral Hospital for Children faced a wrenching decision in a procedure to separate twins conjoined at the abdomen and pelvis.

McLean Hospital researchers have found energy dysfunction in the cells of late-onset Alzheimer’s patients, which may be a piece of the disease’s complex puzzle.

A collection of 150,000 beetle specimens, donated by businessman and longtime Harvard benefactor David Rockefeller, arrives at the Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology.

If current trends continue, more than 57 percent of U.S. children will be obese at age 35, according to a new study from the Harvard Chan School.

Harvard scientists are among those who will receive more than $150 million in funding over the next five years through the National Institutes of Health’s Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative.

New research on the immune system suggests that the molecule interferon plays an important role in activating antiviral genes across many tissues, helping against infection.

A new study has shown that — under certain conditions — gut microbes can consume enough of a key nutrient to cause a deficiency in their hosts.

Experts gathered at the Harvard Chan School to discuss recent developments in the fight against the country’s diabetes epidemic.

Scientists from Harvard and Woods Hole are collaborating on deep-sea technologies that could be a model for exploring oceans on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

Harvard professors hosted a “virtual dinner” at the Harvard Ed Portal to explain the microbial processes involved in food production, preparation, and consumption.

A festival at the Harvard Museum of Natural History will feature these photos capturing an “invisible” world in all its glory.

A new study finds that physical activity has an even larger health benefit than thought in reducing the risk of death in women.

Manipulating mitochondrial networks inside cells may increase lifespan and promote health, according to a new study.

The Harvard Chan School welcomed Lawrence Appel of Johns Hopkins to discuss his work testing the DASH diet.

A Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study symposium looked at epidemics and emerging ways to contain contagion, both biological and societal.

Harvard Museum of Natural History brings art and science together as two Harvard scientists capture the “invisible,” and stunningly beautiful, life force that is everywhere: microbes.

Harvard study reveals underlying genetic basis for halictid bee communication and social behavior.

Scientists at Harvard University and the Broad Institute have developed a new class of DNA base editor that can repair the type of mutations that account for half of human disease-associated point mutations. These single-letter mutations are associated with disorders ranging from genetic blindness to sickle-cell anemia to metabolic disorders to cystic fibrosis.

Antibiotic resistance has the potential to take millions of lives by 2050 if nothing is done to address the problem, Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institutes of Health’s Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said at Harvard Business School.

Flour Bakery owner Joanne Chang ’91 explained for 500 listeners the uses of sugar in a “Science and Cooking” lecture.

Systems aren’t sexy, but they save lives, says Harvard Medical School Professor and author Atul Gawande during HUBweek events in Boston.

A Harvard-sponsored HUBweek panel discussed recent developments in cancer treatment, including advances in immuno-oncology.