What determines whether excess calories are turned into fat or are burned off? The key lies in a process known as diet-induced thermogenesis, an intricate system of communications masterminded by…
Five years ago, scientists at Harvard University began to take a close look at Copolymer 1, a treatment for multiple sclerosis, that is put together from a string of amino…
Type II diabetes accounts for the majority of cases of the disease, and is a huge public health problem: As many as 16 million individuals in the United States have…
Harvard Medical School researchers conducted a study in which people were taught to type a sequence of keys on a computer keyboard as quickly and accurately as possible. A group…
The immediate goal of the treatment of heart attack patients is reperfusion, or the swift opening of the blocked artery and the restoration of blood flow to the heart muscle.…
Although much attention has been paid to public health efforts to reduce lead exposure in children between the ages of six months and five years, when environmental lead exposures (such…
For years, physicians have prescribed antiretroviral therapies for HIV-positive, pregnant women to reduce the risk of babies being born with the AIDS virus. About 6,000 HIV-infected women give birth each…
After a stroke, brain cells die and their connections to other parts of the brain are lost. In a study with rats conducted at Children’s Hospital in Boston, a naturally…
Metastasis occurs when cancer cells penetrate the boundaries of the tumor’s tissue and infiltrate the walls of blood vessels or lymph vessels, gaining a means of transport to other parts…
The discovery of six new cancer-susceptibility genes grew out of more than 10 years of research by Alan D’Andrea into Fanconi anemia, a condition known to affect only 500 families…
Iron-deficient anemia reduces the oxygen-carrying capacity of red blood cells, thus decreasing energy and endurance. When there is not enough iron, the red blood cells are not able to produce…
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is the most common cause of cardiac death among young people and affects one in every 500 individuals, including professional athletes. It is characterized by an enlargement…
In a study, researchers obtained cow oocytes (donor eggs from cow ovaries) and removed and discarded the nuclei, which contain the cells’ genetic material, leaving behind just the shell. A…
Scientists have known the identity of two genes that can influence the ability of insulin genes to trigger insulin production in the beta cells of the pancreas. Through subsequent research…
Scientists have known about the longevity benefits of caloric restriction since experiments in the 1930s showed that rats lived much longer if their food intake was severely restricted. Broadly speaking,…
In the United States, researchers at three Harvard University-affiliated hospitals — Massachusetts General Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital — have been testing a powerful drug on…
Discovered in the Children’s Hospital Boston laboratory of Judah Folkman, Endostatin is a natural substance that blocks the formation of new blood vessels around and in tumors, thereby disrupting their…
Developed as an antibiotic 30 years ago, a drug called minocycline was later discovered to ease acne, rheumatoid arthritis, and other inflammatory conditions. A few years ago, it was shown…
Monet and other painters exploited the parallel visual processing of color and brightness. A sunset seems to shimmer, a field of poppies seems to wave, and a river seems to…
A new book by Harvard School of Public Health Assistant Professor of Risk Analysis and Decision Science Kimberly Thompson takes a look at how the way we live is causing…
Doctors at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center are using radio waves –- the same energy that sends signals to your car radio -– to gently dissolve small amounts of unwanted…
Asthma is one of the most common chronic conditions in America, afflicting about 15 million people and causing 5,000 deaths annually, according to the National Institutes of Health. Asthma rates…
A study published in the May 7, 2002, issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association found that tea consumption is associated with an increased rate of survival following…
Clinicians have known for years that organs function at different rates — the heart beats, kidneys transport ions and electrolytes, the liver metabolizes lipids, sugars, and amino acids differently over…
Milk intake has decreased significantly over the past three decades while the prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes has increased. The authors of a Harvard research study note that…
Harvard Medical School researchers Vadim Bolshakov, Evgeny Tsvetkov, and Bill Carlezon, based at McLean Hospital, reported with colleagues in the April 11, 2002 issue of the journal Neuron that they…
A new technology developed by Harvard Medical School researchers in the laboratory of Yang Shi, associate professor of pathology, extends the range of possibilities of selective interference of gene expression…
Harvard researcher Herbert Benson, who has been studying a meditation technique known as “g Tum-mo” for 20 years, says that “Buddhists feel the reality we live in is not the…
A research report provides a possible explanation for a class of birth defects that appears to be on the rise. A protein normally involved in programmed cell death may, as…
Paul Harris, a professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, says there are two very different ways to define imagination. “You can either see it as disappearing or waning during…
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