Health

Cuttlefish, the “chameleon of the sea,” may offer researchers a model for bio-inspired human camouflage and color-changing products, some of which could be invaluable in wartime.

Four creations are back on display at the Harvard Museum of Natural History’s Glass Flowers gallery after a long absence.

A landmark study across many cancer types reveals that the universe of cancer mutations is much bigger than previously thought. By analyzing the genomes of thousands of patients’ tumors, a Broad Institute-led research team has discovered enough new cancer genes to expand the list by 25 percent.

The average life expectancy in the United States has fallen behind that of other industrialized nations as the American income gap has widened. Also, particular health habits, including weight control, nutrition, and exercise, clearly influence the effects aging among segments of the U.S. population.

A group of Harvard Medical School students is using the viral success of tongue-in-cheek video on the spleen to promote science education, launching a contest for younger students to make organ-themed music videos.

Research by Harvard Stem Cell Institute scientists shows that much lincRNA, which had been generally believed useless, plays an important role in the genome.

For patients in the early stages of multiple sclerosis (MS), low levels of vitamin D were found to strongly predict disease severity and hasten its progression, according to a new study led by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) investigators in collaboration with Bayer HealthCare.

Though variability is often portrayed as a flaw to be overcome, Harvard researchers now say that, in motor function, it is a key feature of the nervous system that helps promote better or more successful ways to perform a particular action.

“Beige fat” cells found in healthy subcutaneous fat in mice play a critical role in protecting the body against the disease risks of obesity, report Harvard researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who say their study findings may have implications for therapy of obesity-related illness in humans.

Harvard scientists say they’re closer to unraveling one of the most basic questions in neuroscience — how the brain encodes likes and dislikes — with the discovery of the first receptors in any species evolved to detect cadaverine and putrescine, two of the chemical byproducts responsible for the distinctive — and to most creatures repulsive — smell of rotting flesh.

New research brings scientists closer to unraveling one of the longest-standing questions in evolutionary biology — whether limbs, particularly hind limbs, evolved before or after early vertebrates left the oceans for life on land.

HIV antiviral therapy lets infected people live relatively healthy lives for many years, but the virus doesn’t go away completely. If treatment stops, the virus multiplies again from hidden reservoirs in the body. Researchers may have found HIV’s viral hiding place — in a small group of recently identified T cells with stem cell-like properties.

The waterproof, light-activated glue developed by researchers at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital Boston and their colleagues at MIT can successfully secure biodegradable patches to seal holes in a beating heart.

Using color-coded labels to mark healthier foods and then displaying them more prominently appears to have prompted customers to make more healthful long-term dining choices in their large hospital cafeteria, according to a report from Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital

The idea that the wave of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer breaking over the world is largely the result of wealth and inactivity is not only wrong, it’s counterproductive, says a Harvard research fellow who recently founded a nonprofit organization to fight disease.

Ludwig Cancer Research, on behalf of its founder, Daniel K. Ludwig, has given Harvard Medical School $90 million to spur innovative scientific inquiry and discovery. According to the Ludwig announcement, this new financial support is among the largest private gifts ever for cancer research.

A new Harvard study shows that, in as little as a day, diet can alter the population of microbes in the gut – particularly those that tolerate bile – as well as the types of genes expressed by gut bacteria.

Five species of giant, long-lived Galapagos tortoises are thought to have gone extinct, but recent DNA analysis shows that some may survive on other islands in the archipelago, according to work by Michael Russello, Harvard Hrdy Fellow in Conservation Biology.

Harvard scientists have devised the first method to measure the push and pull of cells as embryonic tissue develops. The cells’ tiny forces are measured in 3-D tissues and living embryos.

The healthiest diets cost about $1.50 more per day than the least healthy diets, according to new research from Harvard School of Public Health. The finding is based on the most comprehensive examination to date comparing prices of healthy foods and diet patterns against less healthy ones.

Politics and change are the only sure things ahead in the continued implementation of the Affordable Care Act, according to a panel of experts at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Irene Pepperberg, best known for her work with an African grey parrot named Alex — whose intelligence was estimated as equal to that of a 6-year-old child — recently relocated her lab to Harvard, where she continues to explore the origins of intelligence by working with birds.

A new report chaired by Harvard economist and University Professor Lawrence Summers says that eliminating health disparities between rich and poor nations is not only possible by 2035, it’s cost-effective. The study also sets out the steps to achieve it.

A new suite of courses designed by the Harvard School of Public Health’s FXB Center for Health and Human Rights aims to bring academic rigor to the field of child protection.

A Massachusetts General Hospital-led research team of Harvard affiliates has identified an immune cell protein that is critical to setting off the body’s initial response against viral infection.

Experts on forced labor and sexual slavery outlined what remains a large-scale problem.

In the largest study of its kind, people who ate a daily handful of nuts were found to be 20 percent less likely to die from any cause over a 30-year period than those who didn’t consume nuts, say Harvard researchers.

Using an imaging technique known as high-speed holographic microscopy, Laurence Wilson, a fellow at Harvard’s Rowland Institute, worked with colleagues to produce detailed 3-D images of malaria sperm — the cells that reproduce inside infected mosquitoes — that shed new light on how the cells move.

Harvard stem cell scientists have discovered that the same chemicals that stimulate muscle development in zebrafish can be used to differentiate human stem cells into muscle cells in the laboratory, which makes muscle cell therapy a more realistic clinical possibility.

A drug approved for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis may also turn out to be the first targeted therapy for one of the most common forms of kidney disease, a condition that almost inevitably leads to kidney failure.