Science & Tech
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Even Bill Gates thinks AI is a little scary
Tech pioneer visits campus with his new memoir to discuss beauty of math, dropping out of College, founding Microsoft, value of curiosity
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What prompts genetic adaptation? Ask a finch.
Groundbreaking pangenomic study suggests big DNA flip may have made small bird resistant to some diseases
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Landmark studies track source of Indo-European languages spoken by 40% of world
Researchers place Caucasus Lower Volga people, speakers of ancestor tongue, in today’s Russia about 6,500 years ago
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Researchers make leap in quantum computing
Trapping molecules for use in systems may help make ultra-high-speed experimental technology even faster
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Wish you had a better memory?
Take our research-based quiz for tips on improving recall when it matters most
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A small slice of time
An NSF project builds a special camera to shoot the night sky, light up dark matter, and map the Milky Way
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Religious private schools most segregated in U.S.
Black-white segregation is greater among private schools than among public schools, according to a research report from the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University. Although 78 percent of the private…
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RNA technology thwarts HIV
RNA interference (RNAi) is a naturally occurring phenomenon by which cells guard themselves against viruses. The process involves post-transcriptional gene silencing in which specific RNA sequences get chopped into small…
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Cooking up a story of apes and humans
For humans, cooking played a major role in the development of smaller jaws and teeth, bigger brains, smaller guts, shorter arms, and longer legs, according to Richard Wrangham, professor of…
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The next big thing in mining the genome
About 99.9 percent of the 3.1 billion base pairs in the human genome are the same from person to person. The remaining 0.1 percent of differences comprises more than 10…
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Kennedy School students help Kenyans battle AIDS
Two Kennedy School master’s students, Shanti Nayak and Nazanin Samari-Kermani, went to Kenya to help a leading anti-poverty organization investigate how best to fight AIDS. Their research, with ActionAid-Kenya, a…
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Three in five Americans would get vaccinated for smallpox
Substantial public interest in receiving a smallpox vaccination grows in part from continuing fears about a future bioterrorist attack. Nine months after the September 11th attacks, more than four in…
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South Pole telescope maps heart of Milky Way
Research results obtained by a team of astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) led by Chris Martin and Antony Stark suggest that we are headed for some celestial…
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Patents have negative impact on access to HIV/AIDS drugs in developing countries
Researchers Joan-Ramon Borrell and Jayashree Watal collected sales data for HIV/AIDS drugs in a sample of 34 low- and middle-income countries between 1995 and 1999 to assess the impact of…
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Radcliffe conference presents research on lethal school violence
Educators, policy-makers, law enforcement officials, and adolescent-development specialists came to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study on May 21, 2002, for the National Conference on Lethal School Violence. The conference…
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Pendulating “between euphoria and despair”
In his landmark 1845 essay, “Facundo, Civilización y Barbarie,” Argentinean author and statesman Domingo F. Sarmiento, the nation’s second president, sharply contrasted the forces at work on his young nation.…
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Emergency communications
As almost 60,000 federal, state and local public safety agencies plan to upgrade their communications systems in the wake of 9/11, Kennedy School of Government Assistant Professor of Public Policy…
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Race, place, and segregation
Researchers for the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, using U.S. census data from 2000, examined whether three major metropolitan areas — Boston, Chicago and San Diego — continue to…
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Culprit caught in gamma-ray burst mystery
Gamma-ray bursts have long puzzled astronomers. “The hunt for the source of gamma-ray bursts has been a detective story as challenging as any faced by the famous Lieutenant Columbo. We…
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New online approach builds community around medical cases
A new suite of Internet tools is boosting student-faculty interaction in an engrossing twist on traditional case-based teaching at Harvard Medical School. Called ICON, for “interactive case-based online network,” the…
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New approach to cervical cancer screening could save lives
When caught early through a Pap test, cervical cancer is almost 100 percent preventable, with treatment of precancers. Compared with current practice, shifting women currently getting annual conventional Pap tests…
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Americans don’t see obesity as serious health problem
Using unique survey data that they collected, researchers Taeku Lee and J. Eric Oliver presented the first examination of public attitudes towards obesity and obesity policy. They found that, contrary…
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Black, Latino children with asthma receive lesser standard of care
Led by Tracy Lieu, associate professor of ambulatory care and prevention at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Harvard Medical School, the researchers interviewed parents of children with asthma who were…
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Mexican-American women navigate school and work more successfully than men
Only 19 percent of Mexican-American men in 1990 were upwardly mobile professionally, compared to 31 percent of women, and only nine percent of men worked in professional/technical jobs, compared to…
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Bad dental health could affect military readiness
Phillip Dexter Woods is a dentist and an Army reservist. Until he graduated in June 2002, Woods was also a student in a master’s program at the Harvard School of…
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New type of matter may have been found
In orbit around Earth, a satellite called the Chandra X-ray Observatory surveys the universe for sources of X-rays. Using Chandra, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has observed…
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Physicians who are experts on managed care avoid enrolling in HMOs
Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and RAND surveyed 279 professors at 17 universities across the country who were prominent experts in managed care to find out their…
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Your community may be harmful to your health
In 1996 the Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention reported that 50 percent of all cancer risk could be eliminated though a modified diet, increased exercise, limited alcohol intake and cessation…
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School of Public Health tests new emergency management software
CAMEO (Computer-Aided Management of Emergency Operations) is a suite of software programs used by professionals such as emergency management agency specialists, firefighters, hazardous materials teams, industrial hygienists and emergency department…
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Psychology professor Mahzarin Banaji probes prejudices we won’t admit
From the classroom to the cocktail party, opinions like “men are better at math,” “Asians make the best violinists,” or “women cannot be strong corporate leaders” are unpopular. Yet, says…
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When worlds collide
Astronomers believe the a mega-merger in the galaxy known as Arp 220 triggered the formation of huge numbers of new stars, sent shock waves rumbling through intergalactic space, and could…
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American females at highest risk for murder
A female in the United States is three times more likely to be murdered than a female in Canada, five times more likely to be murdered than a female in…
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New earthquake mapping system could save lives
“The earthquake-hazard maps currently in use are based on the premise that the closer a building is to a large fault, the better designed it should be,” says Harvard earthquake…
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Binge drinking holds steady
About 44 percent of college undergraduates reported binge drinking at least once in the two weeks prior to being surveyed, according to findings in the 2001 College Alcohol Study, whose…
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Nanowire used to sense cancer marker
Professor Charles Lieber and his students have made wires whose thinness is measured in atoms instead of fractions of an inch. That allowed Lieber’s team to develop what is likely…
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Jungle ordeal leads to surprise treasure
William Saturno was hot, frustrated, low on food, low on water, and low on patience when he sought shade in a trench dug by looters at the San Bartolo archaeological…