Science & Tech

All Science & Tech

  • Transit search finds super-Neptune

    Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics havediscovered a planet somewhat larger and more massive than Neptuneorbiting a star 120 light-years from Earth. While Neptune has a diameter3.8 times that…

  • Researchers find new molecule to block ‘Hedgehog’ signaling in cancer, development

    Researchers have achieved a feat drug developers had thought difficult, if not impossible, discovering a compound that blocks the functioning of a key developmental protein by binding to an “undruggable”…

  • Inmates suffer from chronic illness, poor access to health care

    The nation’s prison and jail inmate population struggles with high rates of serious illness and poor access to care, according to the first nationwide study of inmate health and health…

  • “My genome, my self”

    One of the perks of being a psychologist is access to tools that allow you to carry out the injunction to know thyself. I have been tested for vocational interest…

  • Researchers control the assembly of nanobristles into helical clusters

    From the structure of DNA to nautical rope to distant spiral galaxies, helical forms are as useful as they are abundant in nature and manufacturing alike. Researchers at Harvard’s School…

  • Researchers see exotic force for first time

    For the first time, researchers have measured a long-theorized force that operates at distances so tiny they’re measured in billionths of a meter, which may have important applications in nanotechnology…

  • Milky Way bigger, faster than previously thought

    Our own Milky Way galaxy, long considered a “little sister” to the larger Andromeda Galaxy, is all grown-up, according to new research presented today that shows the Milky Way to be bigger and faster than previously thought.

  • New visualization techniques yield star formation insights

    New computer visualization technology developed by the Harvard Initiative in Innovative Computing has helped astrophysicists understand that gravity plays a larger role than previously thought in deep space’s vast, star-forming…

  • John P. Holdren named President-elect Obama’s Science Advisor

    President-elect Barack Obama today announced that he has selected Harvard’s John P. Holdren to serve as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology in the new administration. The post,…

  • Fair shows progress of humanities in digital world

    Bill and Carrie meet in a Harvard College library you might know. The walls are reddish stone and in one corner a working fireplace blazes brightly.

  • ‘Bicycle Environments’ takes HSPH and GSD students for a ride

    At a time when the United States scrambles to resolve the country’s obesity epidemic, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, and lessen dependency on foreign fossil fuels, this semester the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the Graduate School of Design (GSD) have launched an interdisciplinary course that tackles all three problems (and more). Titled “Bicycle Environments in the U.S. and the Netherlands/Denmark: Case Studies in the Promotion of Physical Activity,” the class uses case studies to examine how the bicycle communities in the Netherlands and Denmark help individuals stay healthy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. One clear objective is to find strategic ways to make the United States more bicycle friendly in an attempt to address these central social issues.

  • Robotic radical hysterectomy has advantages

    New technologies now allow surgery to be performed with less impact on patient quality of life. As the trend toward minimally invasive surgery grows, robotic-assisted surgery has become an appealing tool for gynecologic oncology surgeons. However, to date, there is little data to confirm the benefits of this technology. New research from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) compares robotic radical hysterectomy (RRH) using the DaVinci robot to classically performed open radical hysterectomies (ORH) in patients with stage I and II cervical cancer. Researchers found that RRH results in lower blood loss and shorter length of stay compared with ORH. The findings are available online and published in the December print issue of Gynecologic Oncology.

  • Idle computing power may ID candidate molecules for efficient solar panels

    The world today uses enough power to illuminate 150 billion light bulbs for a year. According to some estimates, by 2050, demand will double, creating irreversible climate change without reductions in humanity’s carbon output.

  • Modeling the forest … and the trees

    When building computer models of the ecosystems that cover the earth’s surface, it is tempting to incorporate sweeping generalizations in your calculations.

  • Researchers study glaciers on Earth’s coldest desert

    It’s December, and undergraduate Jenny Middleton bundles up to face the cold. While all across campus, students, and faculty don their winter gear, Middleton is not preparing for the New England winter; she is preparing for an expedition through the Earth’s coldest desert: the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica.

  • Climate options must include ‘all of the above’

    Climate change has so much momentum behind it that “either/or” discussions about options are meaningless because it’ll take all we can do just to arrest carbon dioxide at levels double those in preindustrial times, a top climate scientist said Dec. 11.

  • Shai Agassi dreams of a gas-free future

    Electric cars with zero emissions. Powered by renewable energy. All over the world. That is Shai Agassi’s dream. The 40-year-old Israeli entrepreneur left a lucrative corporate software track last year to found Better Place, a transportation company based on sustainability and independence from oil.

  • Lovins: Protecting the environment is ‘a highly profitable enterprise’

    As U.S. automakers plead for a government bailout, the next great automotive revolution is already under way, as Japanese automakers plan for a generation of lightweight cars that vastly increase mileage and whose advanced materials pay for themselves through dramatically streamlined assembly and smaller engines, an energy expert said Wednesday (Dec. 3).

  • Of Neanderthals and dairy farmers

    Harvard Archaeology Professor Noreen Tuross sought to rehabilitate the image of Neanderthals as meat-eating brutes last week, presenting evidence that, though they almost certainly ate red meat, Neanderthal diets also consisted of other foods — like escargot.

  • Thinking globally and mapping locally

    Akiyuki Kawasaki thinks globally and maps locally. To do that, the Japanese researcher, who is spending the academic year as a visiting scholar at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied…

  • Having happy friends can make you happy

    If you’re happy and you know it, thank your friends — and their friends. And while you’re at it, their friends’ friends. But if you’re sad, hold the blame. Researchers…

  • Scientists explore nature’s designs

    As a graduate student, Harvard physical chemist Joanna Aizenberg acquired a passionate curiosity about — of all things — sponges. She particularly liked the ones made of glass, whose apparent fragility belied the fact that they could withstand terrific pressure in the deep sea.

  • Students looking to light African night

    Some current and former Harvard students have joined forces in an effort to apply new technology to an old problem: how to light Africa’s rural areas far from modern power supplies.

  • Woolsey: New technologies will make need for oil obsolete

    Salt was once highly valued as a preservative for meat, but eventually a new technology — refrigeration — greatly reduced its value. Today, rather than a contentious commodity, salt is a humdrum condiment.

  • U.S. energy answers there for the taking, says Amory Lovins

    As U.S. automakers plead for a government bailout, the next great automotive revolution is already under way, as Japanese automakers plan for a generation of lightweight cars that vastly increase…

  • Strong evidence brown dwarfs form like stars

    Astronomers have uncovered strong evidence that brown dwarfs form like stars. Using the Smithsonian’s Submillimeter Array (SMA), they detected molecules of carbon monoxide shooting outward from the object known as…

  • Looking at the universe, one particle at a time

    Masahiro Morii is a tinkerer at heart, looking under the hood of the universe in hopes of finding unseen particles that explain how it all works.

  • Humanity may hold key for next Earth evolution

    Human degradation of the environment has the potential to stall an ongoing process of planetary evolution, and even rewind the evolutionary clock to leave the planet habitable only by the bacteria that dominated billions of years of Earth’s history, Harvard geochemist Charles Langmuir said Thursday (Nov. 13).

  • Quantum computers could excel in modeling chemical reactions

    Quantum computers would likely outperform conventional computers in simulating chemical reactions involving more than four atoms, according to scientists at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Haverford College. Such improved ability to model and predict complex chemical reactions could revolutionize drug design and materials science, among other fields.

  • Moral dimensions of ‘the scientific life’

    Scientific knowledge is reliable and it is authoritative. It is also often understood to be impersonal: The personal characteristics of a researcher are not thought to influence his or her findings. In recent work, historian Steven Shapin assumes the reliability and authority of scientific knowledge but illustrates how scientists’ personal characteristics and traits figure prominently in the making, maintenance, and perceived authority of scientific knowledge.