Science & Tech

All Science & Tech

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Scientists predict calmer weather ahead

    When the Sun is more active, it has bad effects on our planet. For instance, energy from solar eruptions changes the orbits of satellites, causing them to spiral back to…

  • Mustard shows backbone in its own defense

    Over the past few years, accumulated evidence from many scientists suggests that plants, animals, and insects share common elements in their innate skirmishes with potential pathogens. In the Feb. 28,…

  • Even stars use sunscreen!

    Mira variable stars are named after the red giant star Mira (omicron Ceti) in the constellation Cetus the Whale. Variable stars brighten, then dim, then brighten again. While astronomers have…

  • Pollen production — and allergies — may rise significantly over next 50 years

    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…

  • State of U.S. public health drinking water reliable

    “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…

  • Direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs grows rapidly

    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…

  • Physicians warn of nuclear terrorist threat

    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…

  • Genetic computation tells man from microbe

    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,…

  • Physicians vs. the Internet

    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…

  • SPH professor finds Taliban inmates dying, in need of care

    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…

  • Chandra scores a double bonus with a distant quasar

    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…

  • Powerful mutagen found in Massachusetts water

    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…

  • Study examines data withholding in academic genetics

    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…

  • New, far-out planet is discovered

    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…

  • Human genome sequence yields new tool for microbe-hunting

    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…

  • Tuning the system: Program buffers health care collisions

    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.…

  • Minority patients face barriers to optimum end-of-life care

    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…

  • Submillimeter array opens one of astronomy’s last frontiers

    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…

  • Structure in dust around Vega may be signature of planet

    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…

  • Chandra finds ghosts of eruption in galaxy cluster

    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…

  • Which side are you on?

    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…

  • User fees have unintended effect of decreasing health care access for poor

    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…

  • Economic growth in Colombia: A reversal of “fortune”?

    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?…

  • Grants vs . investment subsidies

    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?…

  • Indivisible territory and ethnic war

    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…

  • Diagnosis by database shows promise

    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…

  • Looking toward the end

    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…

  • Scientists using gene chips identify unique form of leukemia

    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…