By combining the art of origami with nanotechnology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers have folded sheets of DNA into multilayered objects with dimensions thousands of times smaller than the thickness of…
After years of planning, officials broke ground this month for a new high-energy physics experiment that will probe the behavior of one of the basic particles that make up the universe: the neutrino.
As NASA’s Kepler space telescope this week begins scanning the Milky Way for planets that might harbor life, scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) are keeping their fingers crossed and waiting for the data to start flowing.
Harvard researchers have created a new type of microscopic swimmer: a magnetized spiral that corkscrews through liquids and is able to deliver chemicals and push loads larger than itself.
Biologists have long wondered why the embryonic heart begins beating so early, before the tissues actually need to be infused with blood. Two groups of Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers from Children’s Hospital Boston (Children’s) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) — presenting multiple lines of evidence from zebrafish, mice, and mouse embryonic stem cells — provide an intriguing answer: A beating heart and blood flow are necessary for development of the blood system, which relies on mechanical stresses to cue its formation.
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) has created a new Web site to provide faculty, staff, and students with up-to-date information on cost-saving measures.
Last year, Harvard University pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2016. That ambitious goal raised a single big question: How?
Harvard researchers have created a new type of microscopic swimmer: a magnetized spiral that corkscrews through liquids and is able to deliver chemicals and push loads larger than itself. Though…
Nearly 500 Harvard undergraduates will learn about other cultures by participating in high-quality international experiences this summer, thanks to the generosity of David Rockefeller, longtime University benefactor and member of the Harvard College Class of 1936.
New research from the Harvard Forest shows that carnivorous pitcher plants use sweet nectar to attract ants and flies to their water-filled traps, not color, as earlier research had indicated.
Researchers at Harvard University have found that humans aren’t the only ones who can groove to a beat — some other species can dance, too. The capability was previously believed to be specific to humans. The research team found that only species that can mimic sound seem to be able to keep a beat, implying an evolutionary link between the two capacities.
We are likely not alone in the universe, though it may feel like it, since life on other planets is probably dominated by microbes or other nonspeaking creatures, according to scientists who gave their take on extraterrestrial life at Harvard last week.
The Paul Tillich Lecture, offered annually at Harvard since 1990, commemorates the memory of a public intellectual who was once “the largest theological figure in our orbit,” said The Rev. Peter J. Gomes.
The distinguished chemist Carol Robinson has used mass spectrometry throughout her career to tackle increasingly complex problems in biology. When she delivered the Radcliffe Institute’s first Lecture in the Sciences…
It was a crisp, classic fall day in Cambridge, but little of the golden afternoon sunlight trickled down to Cynthia Friend’s laboratory in the basement of the Harvard chemistry building.…
Ancient protein dating back 80 million years to the Cretaceous geologic period has been preserved in bone fragments and soft tissues of a type of duck-billed dinosaur, according to a…
HMNH welcomes opportunities to develop NSF research-related outreach programs with University researchers Posted April 27, 2009 at http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/directory/programs/husec The Harvard Museum of Natural History has partnered successfully with faculty from…
Earth is shielded by a film of air barely 6 miles high. About 10 million species of plants and animals, including 6 billion humans, reside within this thin skin of gases.
“Miles per gallon” (mpg) is the most common measure of a car’s fuel efficiency. The typical U.S. consumer, in shopping for a car, uses mpg as a way of calculating gas consumption and carbon emissions.
It was near midnight. Gnarly oak trees and sandy pines draped with Spanish moss encroached upon the narrow road. Warm air sweetened by the scent of orange blossoms wafted through the windows as the van lurched to a stop. The headlights illuminated a metal sign pinned to a gate that read “Archbold Research Station.” We had arrived.
Seguro Popular, a Mexican health care program instituted in 2003, has already reduced crippling health care costs among poorer households, according to an evaluation conducted by researchers at Harvard University in collaboration with researchers in Mexico.
When environmental advocate Alexandra Cousteau left in February on a nonstop, 100-day expedition to critical water sites across five continents, she brought with her a writer, a photographer, an editor, and a support team of more than 60 researchers, all Harvard Extension School students. But the students needed no airline tickets. From their desktops in Cambridge and its environs, these intrepid virtual explorers provide critical support for the expedition team’s field activities.
In 1973, four weeks after the Arab oil embargo, President Richard Nixon went on national television to talk about an energy crisis that had been mounting for two years. He asked Americans to turn off their Christmas lights.
What will the cities of the future look like?
Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD) offered some ideas last week at a three-day international conference, “Ecological Urbanism: Alternative and Sustainable Cities of the Future,” April 3-5.
A former Massachusetts water official is proposing a new network of central Massachusetts reservoirs to meet population-driven demand that he says will outstrip current supplies in the coming decades.
Conservation pioneer Russell A. Mittermeier started this year’s Roger Tory Peterson Memorial Lecture (April 5) with a quiz. In front of several hundred listeners at Harvard’s Science Center he turned on a small recorder.
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