Featured series 
Tag: Animals
-
Nation & World
In the gut microbiome, at least, it’s nurture, not nature
Environmental factors such as diet make major impacts in the gut microbiome, a new study shows.
-
Nation & World
New faculty: Martin Surbeck
A new member of the faculty of the Department of Human and Evolutionary Biology, Martin Surbeck runs one of the few bonobo research sites in the world.
-
Nation & World
The evolution of flightless birds
Based on an analysis of the genomes of more than a dozen flightless birds, including an extinct moa, a team led by Harvard researchers found that while different species show wide variety in the protein-coding portions of their genomes, they appear to turn to the same regulatory pathways when evolving flight loss.
-
Nation & World
Day of the golden jackal
The surprising success story of the golden jackal in Europe holds lessons about nature’s resilience and about how nature might respond to the evolutionary pressure exerted by humans as we change the natural landscape. The Gazette spoke with doctoral student Nathan Ranc for insight.
-
Nation & World
Beware the deeper water
For the past decade, scientist Greg Skomal and a team of researchers have been tagging and studying great white sharks off the Massachusetts coast. He hopes his work tracking the sharks’ movement, biology, and behavior will help shed light on the giant predators, help protection efforts, and perhaps reduce their encounters with humans.
-
Nation & World
Critical collections
Harvard researchers contribute to the preservation of museum specimens, marking the collections’ importance in a special journal released Nov. 19.
-
Nation & World
Autism as a facet of experience, not a limit
Temple Grandin, a professor of animal science at Colorado State, brought her experience as an advocate for autistics to a talk at the Ed School.
-
Nation & World
Rock sleuths
In one of the largest studies of its kind, Harvard researchers have found that carbon records from the mid-Neoproterozoic era can be “read” as a faithful snapshot of the surface carbon cycle between 717 million and 635 million years ago, a finding that directly challenges a decades-long belief of most scientists.
-
Nation & World
All creatures great and small
Viewing all life as interconnected, Australian equine specialist Mark Schembri will use his degree from the Harvard School of Public Health to help humans and animals live healthier.
-
Nation & World
Wild Harvard
Nature watchers around campus, open to the hard-to-see creatures nearby, deliver a message of attention and affection.
-
Nation & World
E.O. Wilson to lecture, co-host conservation benefit dinner
E.O. Wilson will host a lecture and dinner with biologist Daniel H. Janzen on Oct. 1 to benefit Area de Conservación Guanacaste, 163,000 hectares of tropical treasure in northwestern Costa Rica.
-
Nation & World
More than just meat
Vegan Carol J. Adams speaks about meat eating as more than violence against animals, saying that it’s also often an expression of violence against women.
-
Nation & World
Hey squash, time for your close-up
Bruce Smith, of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, discusses the rise of agriculture in a talk at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.
-
Nation & World
Around the Schools: Faculty of Arts and Sciences
What’s small, four-legged, and leaves dusty paw prints on telescope mirrors? That’s what astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian’s Whipple Observatory in southern Arizona were trying to find out.
-
Nation & World
Trading energy for safety, bees extend legs to stay stable in wind
New research shows some bees brace themselves against wind and turbulence by extending their sturdy hind legs while flying. But this approach comes at a steep cost, increasing aerodynamic drag and the power required for flight by roughly 30 percent, and cutting into the bees’ flight performance.
-
Nation & World
Evolution explored from all angles
From humanity’s close relationship to chimpanzees to the missing link between land and sea creatures, the Harvard Museum of Natural History (HMNH) has capped off a year celebrating Darwin and “On the Origin of Species” with a new exhibit that puts evolution front and center.
-
Nation & World
Vocal mimicking, sense of rhythm tied
Researchers at Harvard University have found that humans aren’t the only ones who can groove to a beat — some other species can dance, too. The capability was previously believed to be specific to humans. The research team found that only species that can mimic sound seem to be able to keep a beat, implying…
-
Nation & World
Climate change an ‘opportunity’ as well as a threat
Conservation pioneer Russell A. Mittermeier started this year’s Roger Tory Peterson Memorial Lecture (April 5) with a quiz. In front of several hundred listeners at Harvard’s Science Center he turned on a small recorder.
-
Nation & World
Unleashed pets barred from Yard
Effective April 1, unleashed pets will no longer be allowed in Harvard Yard. All pets, with the exception of service animals, must be on a leash at all times.
-
Nation & World
Unleashed pets barred from Yard
Effective April 1, unleashed pets will no longer be allowed in Harvard Yard. All pets, with the exception of service animals, must be on a leash at all times. This policy is designed to ensure the safety of residents, staff, and visitors. This policy will be strictly enforced in the Yard by the Harvard University…
-
Nation & World
Modeling the forest … and the trees
When building computer models of the ecosystems that cover the earth’s surface, it is tempting to incorporate sweeping generalizations in your calculations.
-
Nation & World
Humanity may hold key for next Earth evolution
Human degradation of the environment has the potential to stall an ongoing process of planetary evolution, and even rewind the evolutionary clock to leave the planet habitable only by the bacteria that dominated billions of years of Earth’s history, Harvard geochemist Charles Langmuir said Thursday (Nov. 13).
-
Nation & World
Wildlife Conservation Society chief outlines scenarios
From the complex social structure of elephant herds to the understanding that gorillas are susceptible to deadly “human” diseases to the impacts of climate change, conservationists are struggling to balance a suite of challenges unknown in past generations.
-
Nation & World
Global ‘chump change’ could provide biodiversity protection
Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson said the Earth’s major biological hot spots could be conserved for roughly $50 billion— an amount he termed “chump change” in a world of trillion-dollar financial bailouts.
-
Nation & World
Cabot Science Library catches migration in exhibit case
Roadkill may seem an odd inspiration for a library exhibition, but when a colleague mentioned an article about the rising number of migratory animals killed on roads and highways, Cabot Science Reference Librarian Reed Lowrie knew he’d stumbled onto his next exhibit.
-
Nation & World
Reading human history in the bones of animals
In a Siberian cave Patrick Wrinn found bones: bones of sheep and goats, bones of extinct bison and horses, of mammoths and wooly rhinoceroses. Wrinn, a doctoral student in archaeology at the University of Arizona and member of the Harvard Class of 1998, is trying to find out who — or what — put the…
-
Nation & World
Arctic ice is thinning steadily
There was a polar bear sighting at Harvard last week. At Pforzheimer House on Thursday (Oct. 2), global warming expert James J. McCarthy delivered a crisp summary of how fast ice is melting in the Arctic — and why we should care. The audience of 80 took in his companion slide show, including images of…
-
Nation & World
The pine beetle’s tale: Destructive insect has pharmaceutical potential
Researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, have discovered how beetles and bacteria form a symbiotic and mutualistic relationship — one that ultimately results in the destruction of pine forests. In addition, they’ve identified the specific molecule that drives this whole phenomenon.
-
Nation & World
Translating the color code
From snail shells to bird feathers to the changing skin of a chameleon, nature uses colors in ways that range from the electric blue of a poison dart frog’s warning to the invisible ultraviolet patterns of flowers that call bees to pollinate. The development, use, and perception of color is the subject of a new…
-
Nation & World
And quiet flows the Don at Pusey
The Harvard Map Collection presents its fall exhibition, “From the Amazon to the Volga: The Cartographic Representation of Rivers,” which opened Wednesday (Sept. 24). For centuries, cartographers have wrestled with the difficulties of depicting rivers, and in the process they have devised many ingenious ways of answering the challenge — from streambed profiles to bird’s-eye…