Ragweed, which flourishes along roadsides and in disturbed habitats throughout North America, produces one of the most common allergens. A study by Harvard researchers found that ragweed grown in an…
“Over the last century, the U.S. has set the world standard for ensuring a reliable, relatively safe drinking water supply to the general public,” said Ronnie B. Levin, a research…
In the first analysis of patterns of direct-to-consumer advertising before and after 1997 guidelines issued by the Food and Drug Administration, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard…
In a new study, Lachlan Forrow, director of ethics support services at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. and his co-authors used…
By one estimate (based on bacteria counts in the colon or stool samples), microbes that call our bodies home outnumber human cells 10 to 1. Most of the bacteria, viruses,…
Each day, about 7.5 million people in the United States use the Internet to get health information, while less than 3 million consult their doctors. Of the 110 million Americans…
Jennifer Leaning is a professor in the Harvard School of Public Health’s Department of Population and International Health. She is also one of Physicians for Human Rights’ founders. In January…
In one set of observations of quasar PKS 1127-145, researchers found an X-ray jet that extends over a length of at least a million light years. The jet reveals explosive…
Mutagen X, a by-product of chemicals used to disinfect public water supplies, is not monitored or regulated in the U.S. water supply. A new report from researchers at Harvard’s School…
Eric G. Campbell, of the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and his colleagues recently surveyed geneticists and other life scientists at the 100…
A planet discovered in the constellation Sagittarius is so distant that light takes 5,000 years to travel from there to here at a speed of 186,000 miles per second. Called…
Microbiologists have traditionally identified pathogens (disease-causing organisms) by growing them in a laboratory dish from a sample of infected tissue. But not all pathogens can be cultured this way. Molecular…
The Health Care Negotiation and Conflict Resolution program at the Harvard School of Public Health, led by Leonard Marcus, trains health care professionals to minimize the conflicts that inevitably arise.…
Eric Krakauer is an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School and part of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Palliative Care Service. He and his colleagues have been concerned that, according to…
Exploring one of astronomy’s last frontiers at a site near the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, the submillimeter array (SMA) project offers a unique opportunity for astronomers to observe…
Vega, located 25 light years away in the constellation Lyra, is the brightest star in the summer sky. Observations of Vega in 1983 with the Infrared Astronomy Satellite provided the…
Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory recently discovered relics of an ancient eruption that tore through a cluster of galaxies. The discovery implies that galaxy clusters are the sites of…
Andrew Kydd is an assistant professor of government at Harvard University who has developed an interesting theory about mediation. As Kydd writes in the introduction to a working paper, “Mediators…
The reform of health care systems is supposed to make access to health care better. But in the particular case of user fees, the opposite effect was observed. During the…
Between 1950 and 1980, the Colombian economy grew at a respectable average rate of 5 percent. Between 1980 and 2000, that average rate of growth fell to 3 percent. Why?…
In many countries, governments face policy decisions about how to help poor people who have difficulty helping themselves because they can’t borrow money. What is the proper form of intervention?…
Monica Duffy Toft is assistant professor of public policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and assistant director of the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard’s…
A relatively new approach to researching cancer involves looking at the actions of thousands of genes in cancer tumors. This technique just recently became possible because, using new applications of…
Among astronomers there is almost a consensus that universal expansion will go on forever, with galaxies and clusters of galaxies moving away from each other so fast that gravity cannot…
Currently, physicians diagnose and treat a rare form of cancer that strikes infants as a particularly aggressive form of the more common acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The cancer may respond to…
The Harvard Center for Risk Analysis (HCRA), part of the Harvard School of Public Health, performed an analysis for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to determine what the effects would…
One-hundred-and-fifty light years away from Earth, in the constellation Pegasus, is a star known as HD 209458. Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, a research team was able to detect the…
According to a study that appeared in the Nov. 24, 2001, issue of The Lancet, nearly one quarter of cancer patients who participate in clinical trials do not realize that…
In the wake of biological terror attacks perpetrated by unknown persons sending anthrax-laced letters through the U.S. mail, the Harvard School of Public Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation…
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