Featured series 
Tag: Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
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Campus & Community
Study: Predatory dinosaurs had birdlike pulmonary system
What could the fierce dinosaur Tyrannosaurus rex and a modern songbird such as the sparrow possibly have in common? Their pulmonary systems may have been more similar than scientists previously thought, according to new research from Harvard University and Ohio University. Though some scientists have proposed that predatory dinosaurs had lungs similar to crocodiles and…
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Campus & Community
Scientists show how fish save energy by swimming in schools
Researchers at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have provided new insights into the hydrodynamic benefits fish reap by swimming in schools. “The annual upstream voyage of fish to spawn has long been viewed as one of the classic struggles of the natural world, but our work suggests that this journey may not…
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Science & Tech
Australian shale tells tale of layered seas
Harvard researchers have found important clues about the Earth’s environment 1.5 billion years ago. Their results present quite a different picture from present times, in which oceans have oxygen-rich waters from top to bottom and are capable of supporting large animal life even in their depths. The findings are important not just for what they…
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Science & Tech
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 Professor Missy Holbrook. “They do it very quietly, with no moving parts, but you’d be hard-pressed yourself to get that much water out of the…
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Science & Tech
Beetle mania
Grain weevils alone cost the global economy about $35 billion, or a third of the world’s grain crop, every year. Various other beetle species damage dozens of crops including bamboo, palm trees, bananas, grasses, sugarcane, pines, and irises. “My research is about the evolution of interactions of various sorts,” Professor Brian D. Farrell says, “including…
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Science & Tech
Daddy longlegs have a global reach
Huge numbers of arachnid and insect species remain unknown. Arachnologists like Gonzalo Giribet, toiling in relative obscurity, routinely identify new species – and their work is far from over. Giribet, assistant professor of biology and assistant curator of invertebrates in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, has about 50 new species of daddy longlegs in his…
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Health
Deadliest form of malaria is younger than previously believed
Malaria kills more people than any other communicable disease except for tuberculosis. It is the world’s most serious parasitic tropical disease, resulting in 1 million to 3 million deaths annually. The most lethal form of malaria, Plasmodium falciparum, accounts for the majority of infections, 200 million to 300 million annually. Now researchers from the Harvard-Oxford…
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Health
New gene found in fruit flies could impact human medicine
In one type of fruit fly, Drosophilia melanogaster, but not in others, researchers found a gene that carries instructions for making a motor that gives this species’ sperm extra horsepower. The researchers were not looking specifically for such a gene but came across it serendipitously during a general investigation of motor proteins. Various creatures boast…
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Health
Understanding how fish swim
The pattern is hard to see at first because the movement seems to happen in the blink of an eye.