Science & Tech

In remarks last month at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md., President Barack Obama said not only do we need stimulus money to create thousands of jobs…

Harvard science historian and physicist Peter Galison is using part of his Radcliffe year to explore the intersections of forbidden wilderness and nuclear wasteland.

A new study seeking to answer the question of why some galaxies are extremely dark compared with others may eventually help to explain the formation of all galaxies, according to…

Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., founding director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, has been awarded the Biomedical Engineering Society’s prestigious Pritzker Distinguished Lectureship for 2009.…

Amid calls for transformative change in the world’s energy supply, Harvard chemist Ted Betley is taking a back-to-basics approach and examining the mother of all energy supplies — photosynthesis —…

University of Calgary Professor David Keith calls for investment in geoengineering research as part of the search for solutions to climate change.

Two Harvard faculty members who study present and past ice sheets and the science behind familiar objects and everyday events have been named recipients of prestigious MacArthur Foundation “genius” grants.…

Researchers from chemistry, computer science, and astronomy are learning a trick or two from video games and investigating a new kind of computing based on graphics processing units.

A new analysis of extinct sea creatures suggests that the transition from egg-laying to live-born young opened up evolutionary pathways that allowed these ancient species to adapt to and thrive…

A team of environmental scientists from Harvard and Tsinghua University has demonstrated the enormous potential for wind-generated electricity in China.

Rewards go further than punishment in building human cooperation and benefiting the common good, according to research published in the journal Science by researchers at Harvard University and the Stockholm School of Economics.

Chia Shen at the Scientists Discovery Room Lab is devising new ways for researchers to visually explore large data sets.

The Berkman Center and the Center for Research in Computation and Society (CRCS) have joined their fellowship programs for the 2009-10 academic year.

Outcomes matter more than intention when choosing to punish or reward individuals who’ve caused accidents, according to new research from Harvard University.

A multidisciplinary team of computer scientists, engineers, and biologists at Harvard received a $10 million National Science Foundation (NSF) Expeditions in Computing grant to fund the development of small-scale mobile robotic…

Adam Cohen and Ben Rapoport needed materials to conduct a science experiment, but supplies were hard to come by. Cohen, assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology and of physics…

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu described the U.S. failure to anticipate changes in the global energy supply during a talk at the John F. Kennedy School of Government Aug. 6.…

As the climate warms in the coming decades, atmospheric scientists at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and their colleagues expect that the frequency of wildfires will increase…

Substantial numbers of parents who have children in school or day care report that two-week closings in the fall would present serious financial problems for them, according to the results…

There she is again: the cute girl at the mall. Big eyes. Long legs. She smiles at you. You’re about to make your move … but wait! What’s she wearing?…

Last week (July 8), Harvard University planners presented preliminary designs to residents of Allston for the new 1.74-acre public park to be constructed behind the Honan-Allston Branch of the Boston Public Library on North Harvard Street.

New research shows that childhood adversity is associated with diminished neural activity in certain regions of the brain. Harvard researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to monitor brain activity…

A new study of the cognitive processes involved with honesty suggests that truthfulness depends more on absence of temptation than active resistance to temptation. Using neuroimaging, psychologists looked at the…

Four Harvard researchers have been named among the winners nationwide of this year’s Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). They are Roland G. Fryer Jr., Patrick J.…

Harvard researchers are building a celestial time machine that lets astronomers look back at hundreds of thousands of objects in the Earth’s skies over the past century.

One of the surprises of the global AIDS epidemic has been the high level of adherence to antiretroviral drug treatment in sub-Saharan Africa.

Massachusetts Lt. Governor Timothy Murray on Wednesday toured Harvard labs in both Cambridge and Boston. “The Patrick Administration has been very supportive of the university research sector in Massachusetts and…

Women are more likely than men to reject unattractive-looking babies, according to a study by researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital, possibly reflecting an evolutionary-derived need for diverting limited resources towards…

On Sunday, June 21, a new exhibit developed by educators and scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) will open at the Boston Museum of Science. Called “Black Holes:…

In November 2008, Caroline Moore, a 14-year-old student from upstate New York, discovered a supernova in a nearby galaxy, making her the youngest person ever to do so.