Begun as a mapping software decades ago, geographical information systems, known as GIS, today functions to manage different time- and place-dependent data and allows different variables to be projected together,…
Professor Michael Dawson’s most recent book, “Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary African American Mass Political Ideologies” (University of Chicago Press, 2001), brings a historical perspective to black political ideologies.…
Bike couriers have become as a much a part of the urban landscape as sky-scrapers and traffic-clogged streets. Boston messengers collectively make between 3,000 and 4,000 deliveries on a given…
Michael B. McElroy, Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies and director of Harvard’s Center for the Environment, is among the scientists who since the 1970s have been using paleoclimatic data…
Even though asthma is responsible for more deaths and more hospitalizations than arthritis in the United States, the greater political influence of arthritis sufferers prompts the federal Food and Drug…
“We have obtained the first glimpse inside an antihydrogen atom, and this is a significant step on the way to precision measurements that will allow matter/antimatter comparisons to be made,”…
Every day an oak tree moves hundreds of gallons of water up from the soil and out, in evaporated form, through its leaves. “Mechanically, it’s a pretty substantial feat,” says…
Regrowing missing teeth may someday be a possibility, based on work by a team of scientists at the Forsyth Institute, an independent, Harvard-affiliated research organization specializing in oral and craniofacial…
Grain weevils alone cost the global economy about $35 billion, or a third of the world’s grain crop, every year. Various other beetle species damage dozens of crops including bamboo,…
First published in 1543, Nicholas Copernicus’ De revolutionibus orbium coelestium introduced the world to the concept of a sun-centered universe. In it, Copernicus detailed how the motions of the sun,…
Radiologist Beryl Benacerraf is a Harvard Medical School clinical professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Benacerraf, a handful of like-minded maternal-fetal ultrasound specialists, and…
The Rwandan genocide memorial was a tiny one-room church, pervaded still by a penetrating stench. On a table in the church was a pile of human skulls and femurs, a…
A nautical group of bacteria known as Prochlorococcus removes carbon dioxide from air and fixes it into the carbon content of their own tiny bodies. The more carbon dioxide they…
Riccardo Giacconi worked at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics from 1973 to 1981. During that period, he led the development of the Einstein X-ray Observatory, which was launched in 1978.…
Wondering what to do if you discover a bunch of old books are floating in backed-up sewer water or if a parchment manuscript gets soaked by an automatic sprinkler? The…
If an ill-timed delivery left them short of linens, nurses observed by Harvard Business School doctoral student Anita Tucker found a way to borrow from another unit. Such initiative taking…
American diplomacy in the 1920s was subtle but ambitious and effective, instead of isolationist, argues Harvard Assistant Professor of Government Bear F. Braumoeller. American policy in the years leading up…
Astronomers have been using the Chandra X-ray Observatory and radio telescopes to observe two opposing jets of high-energy particles emitted following an outburst, first detected in 1998 by NASA’s Rossi…
Huge numbers of arachnid and insect species remain unknown. Arachnologists like Gonzalo Giribet, toiling in relative obscurity, routinely identify new species – and their work is far from over. Giribet,…
A new report catalogues the connections between biodiversity and human health. The interim executive summary was presented at the United Nations in late October 2002, following the U.N. World Summit…
Statistics and reports on environmental damage and progress routinely come from dozens — if not hundreds — of nonprofit, government, and other agencies. Often the information disagrees with previously published…
Lynn Amowitz, a researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital an a medical instructor at Harvard Medical School, found that women in the Herat province of Afghanistan receive some of the…
Molds are found in all kinds of environments. Estimates of the number of kinds of molds range from tens of thousands to more than 300,000, with more than 1,000 species…
“We’re hoping to make clear what’s blocked and what’s not—something only previously understood piecemeal,” said Professor Jonathan Zittrain, faculty co-director of the Berkman Center. “With the right data, we can…
Even as the Internet allows patients access to information previously only available through their doctors, patients still trust the information they get from their doctors more than they do from…
“Beyond the Beltway: Focusing on Hometown Security,” prepared by participants in the Kennedy School’s Executive Session on Domestic Preparedness, calls upon federal officials to place greater emphasis upon local emergency…
Henry Wechsler, lecturer on social psychology in the Department of Health and Social Behavior and director of the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Studies Program, defines binge drinking…
Kurt Fischer from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Brandeis’ Malcolm Watson tracked 440 children and adolescents over seven years to determine what causes children to become aggressive and…
While the 2000 census results illustrate that the United States has more racial and ethnic diversity than ever before, school data from the year 2000-2001 collected by the U.S. Department…
Scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) report that two arc-like structures of multimillion-degree gas in the galaxy Centaurus A appear to be part of a ring 25,000 light…
Featured series 
Podcast
