Science & Tech
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Solving evolutionary mystery of how humans came to walk upright
New study identifies genetic, developmental shifts that resculpted pelvis, setting ancestors apart from other primates
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Seeding solutions for bipolar disorder
Brain Science grants promote new approaches to treat the condition and discover underlying causes
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Researchers uncover surprising limit on human imagination
Humans can track a handful of objects visually, but their imaginations can only handle one
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Possible clue into movement disorders like Parkinson’s, others
Rodent study suggests different signaling ‘languages’ in parts of brain for learned skills, natural behaviors
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‘Turning information into something physical’
Houghton exhibit looks at how punched cards — invented 300 years ago to streamline weaving — led to modern computing
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How do math, reading skills overlap? Researchers were closing in on answers.
Grant terminated at critical point of ambitious study following students for five years
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Single metalens focuses all colors of the rainbow in one point
Harvard researchers have created the next generation of flat lenses, developing a “metalens” that can focus all the colors of the spectrum at the same time. The new design opens up the field for wearable optic devices.
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Study uncovers botanical bias
Climate change studies that rely on herbarium collections need to account for biases in the data, new research says.
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Improved image of supermassive black hole
Improved image allows astronomers to follow filament much closer to the galaxy’s central black hole.
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How tall trees move sugars
A nine-member team of scientists, mostly from Harvard, has discovered that the hydraulic resistance to moving sugar-rich sap downward from the leaves of tall trees does not increase with the length of the tree as much as would be expected.
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Single-stranded DNA and RNA origami go live
For the first time, researchers have enabled the design of complex single-stranded DNA and RNA origami that can autonomously fold into diverse, stable, user-defined structures, with the potential for precision drug delivery.
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Feast for the mind
The General Education course “Ancient Lives” connects undergrads with the earliest civilizations.
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Opioid deaths jump
A new Harvard study shows people who end up in the hospital due to an opioid-related condition are four times more likely to die now than they were in 2000.
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Climate made scary
Journalist David Wallace-Wells and others debated the most effective way to communicate climate urgency in a Harvard discussion.
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Researchers create quantum calculator
Researchers have developed a special type of quantum computer, known as a quantum simulator, that is programmed by capturing super-cooled rubidium atoms with lasers and arranging them in a specific order, then allowing quantum mechanics to do the necessary calculations.
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Skin pigmentation is far more complex than thought
The genetics of skin pigmentation become progressively complex the closer populations reside to the equator.
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Babies understand cost-reward tradeoffs behind others’ actions, study says
Harvard and MIT study reveals that babies understand the cost-reward tradeoffs behind others’ actions.
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Students help groups to pursue climate action
Harvard living lab course works to find practical alternatives to carbon use.
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Small media, big payback
Researchers found that if just three outlets write about a particular major national policy topic, discussion of that topic across social media rises by more than 62 percent.
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The selfie’s gone, but the damage is done
New HBS research examines whether we are less inhibited when posting on temporary social media and how others perceive the posts.
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History under the microscope
Researchers delivered lectures on recent findings to launch the Max Planck-Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean.
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First glimpse of a kilonova, and Harvard was there
Marking the beginning of a new era in astrophysics, scientists for the first time have detected gravitational waves and electromagnetic radiation, or light, from the same event. Harvard researchers were pivotal in the work.
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When machines rule, should humans object?
Harvard scholars shared concerns and ideas in a HUBweek panel titled “Programming the Future of AI: Ethics, Governance, and Justice.”
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In surge of strawberries, some dirty details
Julie Guthman sets her sights on a tangled story involving land, plant breeding, border policy, pathogens, and highly effective, highly toxic soil fumigants.
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Putting tomorrow’s doctors on opioid alert
Gov. Charlie Baker joined HMS faculty members in discussing the opioid crisis and the role physician education must play in fighting it.
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How to defend against your own mind
Harvard psychology chair Mahzarin Banaji is working with a research fellow to launch a new project called “Outsmarting Human Minds.”
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Not a popularity contest
New research from faculty at Harvard Business School and Harvard Medical School finds that a majority of college freshmen believe others have more friends than they do, when they often don’t.
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The robots are coming, but relax
As artificial intelligence takes hold in more fields, you’ll likely have a job, analysts say, but it may be a different one.
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New England is losing 65 acres of forest a day
A new Harvard Forest report, “Wildlands and Woodlands, Farmlands and Communities,” calls for tripling conservation efforts across the region.
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Connecting the dots in data sciences
Harvard’s new Data Science Initiative hosted its inaugural event, the first in a series of planned seminars featuring talks by faculty members focusing on new methods of managing and analyzing data and on cutting-edge applications.
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Students aiding the environment
Five undergraduate women from Harvard College talk about how they spent the summer researching climate and ecological stresses.
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A master of explaining the universe
Brian Greene ’84, a Columbia University theoretical physicist and mathematician, has made it his mission to illuminate the wonders of the universe for non-scientists.
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A pragmatic model to conserve land
Martha’s Vineyard is best known as a summer playground for the rich, but it’s also setting an important conservation example, according to a new book by Harvard Forest Director David Foster.
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Building a robot, developing a nation
Harvard College sophomore Sela Kasepa looked for robotics competitions that Zambian youth could join, and found FIRST Global, an annual student robotics Olympiad.
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Voting-roll vulnerability
Online attackers may be able to purchase enough personal information to alter voter registration information in as many as 35 states and the District of Columbia, a new study says.
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Branching out from her own tree of knowledge
Seattle Times environmental reporter Lynda Mapes turned her fellowship year at Harvard Forest into a book titled “Witness Tree.”