Health

All Health

  • Diagnosing Ebola in minutes

    A new test can accurately diagnose the Ebola virus disease within minutes at the point of care.

  • Alone with evolution

    Efforts by Harvard faculty to understand island evolution form the centerpiece of a new exhibition at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.

  • Sequencing Ebola’s secrets

    A global team from Harvard University, the Broad Institute, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and other institutions sequenced more than 200 additional Ebola samples to capture the fullest picture yet of how the virus is transmitted and changes over a long-term outbreak.

  • Another turning point for Obamacare

    Panelists at the Harvard Chan School weighed the possible implications of the latest Supreme Court challenge to the Affordable Care Act.

  • Coordinating against malaria

    Leaders in the global fight to eradicate malaria are at Harvard this week for a leadership training course that explores many facets of the scientific underpinnings of the effort to eradicate malaria from the planet.

  • Cracking the egg

    Mary Caswell Stoddard of Harvard’s Society of Fellows is bringing an interdisciplinary approach to her study of bird eggs.

  • Vital genes in fat production found

    Scientists at Harvard Stem Cell Institute have found a way to both make more energy-burning human brown fat cells and make the cells themselves more active, a discovery that could have therapeutic potential for diabetes, obesity, and other metabolic diseases.

  • A dearth of nutrition in school lunches

    About 200 people interested in improving the quality of meals served in America’s public schools gathered at Harvard to discuss topics ranging from getting wholesome food into schools to institutional barriers.

  • Confronting the creep of opioid abuse

    Specialists in care and policy came together at the Harvard Chan School to trade ideas on combating opioid abuse.

  • Changing the way genomes work

    In the Wyss Institute’s inaugural podcast “Disruptive,” host Terrence McNally spoke with Pamela Silver and George Church about today’s breakthroughs in technology and modifications to an organism’s genome that can be conducted more cheaply, efficiently, and effectively than ever before.

  • Leaving a beautiful scar

    Feature on surgeon and violinist Terry Buchmiller as part of the Practice series.

  • At Medical School, a late bloomer

    Afamefuna Nduaguba, a Nigerian immigrant, overcame early struggles at Roxbury Community College to gain a bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and now an M.D. from Harvard Medical School.

  • Improved accuracy in genome editing

    A team of scientists has engineered a form of the genome-editing protein Cas9 that can be controlled by a small molecule and offers improved DNA specificity.

  • Creatures of habit

    The motor cortex is critical to learn new skills, but may not be needed to perform them, a new Harvard study says.

  • ‘New clarity’ against Alzheimer’s

    Rudolph Tanzi of Harvard Medical School, recently named to Time’s list of the most influential people in the world, talks about the promising future of Alzheimer’s research.

  • Meditation may relieve IBS and IBD

    A small pilot study by Harvard-affiliated researchers finds symptom improvement and changes in expression of inflammation-associated genes in irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease patients who practice the relaxation response.

  • Insight into seeing

    Harvard-affiliated researchers have been able to make a comparison of neurons in optic nerves to learn more about why some regenerate and others don’t.

  • Rapid evolution

    As part of the Harvard Horizons Symposium, Ph.D. candidate Shane Campbell-Staton will discuss his work with the green anole lizard, which corroborates the fact that rapid evolutionary responses can be viewed in real time.

  • A home fit for a king

    State wildlife biologists installed a peregrine falcon nesting platform high on Memorial Hall’s tower.

  • Promising stem cell therapy

    Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have developed an “imageable” mouse model of brain-metastatic breast cancer and shown the potential of a stem-cell-based therapy to eliminate metastatic cells from the brain and prolong survival. The study, published online in the journal Brain, also describes a strategy for preventing the potential negative consequences of stem cell therapy.

  • Why birds don’t crash

    A new study shows that birds use two highly stereotyped postures to avoid obstacles in flight. The study could open the door to new ways to program drones and other unmanned aerial vehicles to avoid similar obstacles.

  • Health as an economic engine

    Finance ministers from Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Southeast Asia gathered at Harvard Art Museums on April 21 to discuss links between health care and economic performance.

  • E-cigarette battle heats up

    In a talk titled “Can E-cigarette Regulation Protect the Public’s Health? Making Sense of the Science,” public health experts speaking at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Thursday said they worry the battery-powered smokes may provide a dangerous gateway for teens and others to start smoking.

  • You are when you eat

    A new study may help explain why glucose tolerance — the ability to regulate blood-sugar levels — is lower at dinner than at breakfast for healthy people and why shift workers are at increased risk of diabetes.

  • Gates Foundation CEO challenges students

    Sue Desmond-Hellmann, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, shared the “Big Bet,” an ambitious series of goals the Gateses issued in their annual letter. Desmond-Hellman challenged Harvard Chan students to help make the bet pay off during her talk as part of the Dean’s Distinguished Lecture series.

  • Hand-held disasters

    Harvard’s Center for Health Communication last week arranged a media briefing at the Massachusetts State House on distracted driving, a problem that takes some 3,000 lives a year in the United States. The Gazette spoke to center director Jay Winsten about the problem.

  • Wine watcher

    Harvard biologist Elizabeth Wolkovich is studying wine grape phenology and changes that might be needed in a warming world.

  • Pesticides result in lower sperm counts

    Men who ate fruits and vegetables with higher levels of pesticide residues had lower sperm counts and lower percentages of normal sperm than those who ate produce with lower residue levels, according to a new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

  • Mystery motor

    Harvard researchers have solved the mystery of how some bacteria move across surfaces with the discovery of a rotary motor in the bacterium Flavobacterium johnsoniae.

  • Healthy school lunches have to taste good, too

    School collaborations with a professionally trained chef to improve the taste of healthy meals significantly increased students’ consumption of fruits and vegetables, according to a new study led by researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.