Featured series 
Tag: A Life in Science
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Nation & World
Blocking the road to extinction
A widely cited estimate is that at current rates of deforestation, orangutans will be extinct in the wild in 20 years. But Assistant Professor of Anthropology Cheryl Knott, who heads…
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Nation & World
War stories of a soldier/scientist
Kevin Kit Parker’s 9 mm pistol lay on the table next to the laptop as he typed. He was stripped to the waist in the 130-degree heat, sweating and writing while he waited for a flight home from Afghanistan.
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Nation & World
Surveying students to understand school reform
Since the fall of 2001, Pedro Noguera, who is the Judith K. Dimon Professor in Communities and Schools at the Graduate School of Education, and a team of research assistants…
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Nation & World
Professor honored for ongoing environmental research
Harvard Professor Jack Spengler and MIT professor Mario Molina shared the $250,000 Heinz award, which recognized the independent bodies of work by Spengler and Molina, although coincidentally the researchers are…
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Nation & World
Matthew Shair imitates, improves on nature
Matthew Shair and his students work in “protein trafficking.” Genes in living cells carry instructions for making proteins essential to life. These proteins have to get from place to place…
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Nation & World
Where do you want your building?
Humans are changing location more frequently and in greater numbers than ever before in history. But at the same time, the electronic revolution is allowing them to remain in contact…
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Nation & World
Prying the lid off the FDA
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…
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Nation & World
Missy Holbrook investigates the world of plants
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…
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Nation & World
Harvard science historian publishes results of unprecedented 30-year census of Copernican masterpiece
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,…
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Nation & World
Researcher wins Nobel Prize for work in X-ray astronomy
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.…
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Nation & World
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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Nation & World
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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Nation & World
Imagination important for children’s cognitive development
Paul Harris, a professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, says there are two very different ways to define imagination. “You can either see it as disappearing or waning during…
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Nation & World
Student investigates investing in Mother Earth
Managers of “green” mutual investment funds seek to invest their clients’ money in socially responsible and environmentally friendly companies. But those managers, and individual investors, are often hampered by a…
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Nation & World
Bringing back the ancient muses
The epic verse of Homer, the love poems of Sappho, the tragedies of Sophocles, and the comedies of Aristophanes – all were accompanied by music. Yet that music – its…
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Nation & World
Charles Rosenberg looks at changing perceptions of illness
In Charles Rosenberg’s eyes, epidemics tell us a great deal about American society. Rosenberg, considered by many to be the nation’s pre-eminent medical historian, was recently named Professor of the…
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Nation & World
Professor’s survey method opens ‘windows of consciousness’
Bringing together theories and tools from disciplines ranging from psychology to neuroscience, the Mind of the Market Laboratory at Harvard Business School attempts to define and qualify consumers’ and managers’…
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Nation & World
Researcher Sunney Xie interested in molecule as an individual
Sunney Xie is one of the world’s leading researchers in molecular imaging and in single-molecule reactions. Xie’s has devised a way to use laser beams to see collections of protein…
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Nation & World
‘Ultracold’ trap unveils secrets of matter in the universe
Physics Professor John Doyle traps the tiny particles that make up the universe and then studies them, looking for what they can tell him about the most basic rules of…
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Nation & World
What killed the dinosaurs?
Charles Marshall’s childhood passion led him to a career in paleontology, trying to understand the interplay between inheritance, environment, and catastrophe in directing evolution. Marshall’s work attracted media attention in…
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Nation & World
Diving into the gene pool
Maryellen Ruvolo, professor of anthropology, specializes in the analysis of human and primate family trees using DNA data, a subfield of molecular evolution. She is probably best known for her…
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Nation & World
Charles Schaff brings knack for finding fossils to field — and Harvard
Charles Schaff ‘s official job description isn’t “fossil hunter.” He is a curatorial associate at the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Schaff, however, makes regular trips to look for fossils in…