Science & Tech

A conference at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study examined the prevalence of patterns in the natural world, from enormous ones that order the cosmos to cellular and molecular patterns in living things.

Trees from the Harvard Forest to the Amazon rainforest are experiencing changing climactic conditions, with rising temperatures potentially making tropical trees a significant source of carbon dioxide.

The archaeological work of Harvard students, using satellite photos to locate ancient structures, is on display at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

Shell Oil President Marvin Odum said he expects global energy demand to double by mid-century, with renewables making up 30 percent of the total and fossil fuels remaining an important part of the mix.

A new report on global health policy calls for the United States to maintain its commitment to fight HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis and to double the funds committed to maternal and child…

Bill Gates speaks about how someone following in his footsteps might contribute toward the efforts made in the area of green technology.

Research suggests that when people are convinced they’re engaging in a moral act, either for good or ill, they become stronger in performing physical tasks.

Some physicists spend their lives obsessed with questions about the possibility of parallel universes, or of travel at the speed of light. Amy Rowat is obsessed with the mechanical properties of the tiny…

Carolyn Porco is on a mission. As she explained to an audience of several hundred gathered at the Radcliffe Gymnasium earlier this month, in a lecture titled “At Saturn: Tripping the Light Fantastic,”…

Sophie Morel turned 30 on December 16 of last year, the day after she was appointed a professor of mathematics in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and a Radcliffe Alumnae Professor…

Environmental panel discusses the problems facing the Earth, and what it would take to reverse the damaging trends.

Harvard’s research spans the gamut from the sciences to the humanities, examining key questions about this critical challenge facing humanity.

U.S. Undersecretary of Energy Kristina Johnson said the United States plans to have 80 percent of its energy come from alternative and unconventional fossil fuels by 2050. She spoke as part of the “Future of Energy” discussion series sponsored by the Harvard University Center for the Environment.

Just over a century ago, one of the world’s leading mathematicians posed this question to a number of his colleagues: What are the most important unsolved questions in mathematics? The…

Carbon nanotubes, long touted for applications in materials and electronics, may also be the stuff of atomic-scale black holes. Physicists at Harvard University have found that a high-voltage nanotube can…

Esteemed biologist Edward O. Wilson called for renewed efforts to understand and conserve the planet’s biodiversity, in the first of three Prather Lectures being presented this week.

Scientists believe that tiny carbon nanotubes may also create something like atomic-scale black holes.

Scientist Carolyn Porco explored the deeper regions of the solar system and her work with the Cassini mission to Saturn during a talk at Radcliffe.

Clean, renewable wind and solar power may be the most-preferred fossil fuel alternatives, but their land-hungry collecting requirements make them difficult options for replacing more conventional power sources, according to a British energy…

David MacKay, physics professor at Cambridge University and scientific adviser to the United Kingdom’s Department of Energy and Climate Change, outlines challenges facing efforts to eliminate fossil fuels from the world’s energy mix.

In 1900, renowned mathematician David Hilbert laid down a challenge to future generations: 23 handpicked mathematical problems, all difficult, all important, and all unsolved. Since then, countless mathematicians around the world have struggled…

Women conducting research in the life sciences continue to receive lower levels of compensation than their male counterparts, even at the upper levels of academic and professional accomplishment, according to…

Major media outlets are this weekend reporting that President Barack Obama has selected Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) professor Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPP,  to head the federal government’s…

Count Harvard computer experts among those who responded swiftly to the deadly earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, throwing their expertise behind an effort to improve information flow for responders on…

Harvard’s Center for Geographic Analysis created Web clearinghouses to aid information flow in response to Haiti’s and Chile’s earthquakes.

Creative vibe colors enormous CS 50 innovation fair

Human societies in Europe at the end of the last ice age expanded north across a harsh but changing environment, as glaciers melted and the world got warmer and more humid.

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. We hear this mantra time and again. When it comes to carbon—the “Most Wanted” element in terms of climate change—nature has got reuse and recycle covered. However, it’s up to us to reduce.

Author-turned-activist Bill McKibben says the fight to arrest global warming requires an international movement to force political change.

Researchers find strong clues that sea ice covered tropical climes, including the equator, 716.5 million years ago, suggesting there was a time of a “snowball Earth.”