Featured series 
Tag: Faculty of Arts and Sciences
-
Science & Tech
Atmosphere detected on distant world orbiting another star
One-hundred-and-fifty light years away from Earth, in the constellation Pegasus, is a star known as HD 209458. Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, a research team was able to detect the atmosphere of a planet orbiting the star. This marks the first time that scientists were able to observe the atmosphere of a planet outside our…
-
Health
No innocent bystanders
When cancer cells begin to do their destructive work, they have accomplices — normal cells that help nourish the cancerous ones. As Jack Lawler, Harvard Medical School associate professor of pathology at Beth Israel Deaconess, puts it, there are no innocent bystanders in the process. “Previous research focused on the genetics of the cancer cell,”…
-
Science & Tech
Anthrax expert Matthew Meselson speaks out
In 1992-93, Harvard Professor Matthew Meselson investigated the largest known outbreak of inhalation anthrax in history, which occurred in the Soviet Union in 1979. The anthrax was accidentally released from a Russian military facility. Meselson and his co-researchers documented the deaths of 66 people, and found 11 who survived. In the wake of cases of…
-
Science & Tech
Atmospheric chemists fly high and low for novel carbon dioxide measurements
Political leaders throughout the world have taken notice of the increasing levels of carbon in the atmosphere and have begun negotiations on how to mitigate “greenhouse” gases through accords such as the Kyoto Protocol. One major problem with the Kyoto Protocol, which the United States rejected, was how to monitor compliance. Currently there is no…
-
Health
A strategy to neutralize anthrax toxin in the body
A Harvard Medical School research team has developed a strategy to neutralize anthrax toxin in the body. So far they have tried the treatment in rats. Normally, rats die within hours after being injected with anthrax toxin. But when the toxin was followed minutes later with an injection of an inhibiting agent known as a…
-
Science & Tech
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 lack of information about a company’s effect on the environment. While an index such as the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory contains a lot…
-
Science & Tech
Astronomers take the measure of dark matter in the universe
Astronomers believe that most of the matter in the universe is invisible to us — so called “dark matter.” The nature of this dark matter is not known, but most astronomers think that it is in the form of an as-yet-unknown type of elementary particle that contributes to gravity through its mass but otherwise interacts…
-
Science & Tech
Young pulsar reveals clues to supernova
Using the Chandra X-ray Observatory to learn more about pulsars, A team led by Stephen Murray of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., studied 3C58, the remains of a supernova observed on Earth in 1181 AD in the constellation Cassiopeia. 3C58 is one of the youngest known pulsars, and behaves quite differently from…
-
Health
One-tenth of medical residents feel unprepared
Findings from a study suggest that gaps exist in the preparedness of physicians to manage the full range of patients, procedures and problems they may encounter. A surprising one in 10 of medical residents said they felt unprepared to deal with such tasks as the treatment of HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, nursing home patients, management of…
-
Health
Nutrition book author Willett rebuilds USDA food pyramid
For more than 20 years researchers at Harvard and elsewhere have been looking at the long-term health effects of eating certain types of foods. These researchers now have a good idea what’s good for you and what’s not, and in what quantities. However, that information is not reflected in the “food pyramid” produced by the…
-
Science & Tech
Why antimatter matters so much
In 1995, experimenters made nine or 10 atoms of antihydrogen at the Center for European Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland. Since then, researchers have sought a method for making more antimatter, which would allow them to test fundamental theories of the universe. A team led by Gerald Gabrielse, Harvard professor of physics, is close to…
-
Science & Tech
In Dayton, parents’ satisfaction increased by moving children to private schools
Parents in Dayton, Ohio, reported increased satisfaction after they moved their children to private schools. A private scholarship program sponsored by Parents Advancing Choice in Education (PACE), a non-profit organization in Dayton, helps low-income families afford private education.
-
Science & Tech
Stellar apocalypse yields first evidence of water-bearing worlds beyond our solar system
The first evidence that planetary systems beyond our own contain water, a molecule that is an essential ingredient for known forms of life, was discovered recently by using the Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS), a small radio observatory that NASA launched into space in December 1998. The discovery was reported in an article published in…
-
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…
-
Science & Tech
New way to ‘see’ DNA
Research by Harvard scientists was driven by the need to make extremely small holes that mimic the pores in human cells through which different molecules must pass to keep the cells alive and healthy. “My colleagues and I first had the idea of sequencing genes by forcing DNA molecules through minute openings,” explains David Branton,…
-
Science & Tech
Astronomers detect dust disks around very young brown dwarfs in the Orion Nebula
The results of recent observations by an international team of astronomers suggest that brown dwarfs share a common origin with stars. Brown dwarfs are more similar in nature to stars than to planets and, like stars, have the potential to form with accompanying systems of planets. The observation by the researchers of dusty protoplanetary disks…
-
Science & Tech
Chandra sees wealth of black holes in star-forming galaxies
Three independent teams of research scientists, including one from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to find what they suspect are groups of mid-mass black holes in starburst galaxies. In a starburst galaxy, stars form and explode at an unusually high rate. The discovery could help explain the relationship among mid-mass…
-
Science & Tech
A quasar’s identity may simply be in eye of beholder
A quasar is a super-massive black hole; quasars are among the most energetic objects in the Universe. Most quasars are extremely bright in optical light, but about 10 percent of them appear hidden by clouds of gas and dust. Are these 10 percent different from the rest of the quasars? Astronomers have debated whether these…
-
Science & Tech
Students tackle Harvard Square parking problems
A group of students who studied parking problems in Harvard Square issued wide-ranging recommendations, including installing wireless access-control gates at the more than 50 lots across the University, increasing parking fees in Cambridge coupled with increased enforcement of permits, establishing satellite parking lots and shuttles to encourage people to park there, and installing robotic –…
-
Science & Tech
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 melody, harmony, and rhythm – has been almost completely lost to us. Almost, but not quite. A number of clues remain, and one scholar believes…
-
Science & Tech
Chandra pinpoints edge of accretion disk around black hole
An object known as XTE J1118+480 is a black hole roughly seven times the mass of our Sun. XTE J1118+480 is locked in a close binary orbit with a Sun-like star. Recent observations by a team of scientists led by a researcher from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics show an “accretion disk” around the black…
-
Science & Tech
Is E.T. flashing us?
Harvard recently broke ground for a new telescope to look for extraterrestrial beacons. This instrument will be capable of covering a million times more celestial space than the present instrument the University uses for its alien search. “A high-intensity pulsed laser, teamed with a moderate sized telescope, forms an efficient interstellar beacon,” says Physics Professor…
-
Science & Tech
Ancient Chinese script rewrites history
“This is like the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” says Tu Weiming, director of the Harvard Yenching Institute, who has played a key role in the preservation of ancient texts that cast new light on early Confucianism. The texts were discovered in 1993 near a river in Guodian, China, not far from a farmhouse…
-
Science & Tech
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 History of Science at Harvard. Though many of Rosenberg’s works are well known, he is perhaps best known for his 1962 book, “The Cholera Years:…
-
Health
Using statistics to understand genes
Professor Jun Liu studies repetitive patterns in the DNA that lies between genes. This material contains instructions for regulating the expression of genes, and it is involved in whether the proteins produced by genes will become part of a brain or a big toe. These on/off switches can be found by doing difficult, time-consuming experiments…
-
Science & Tech
Internet will enhance, not replace, current educational models
In January 2001, Harvard information technology experts outlined a future in which the Internet, computers, and other technologies will enhance rather than replace the current educational experience. What that means for students is experiencing, among other things, virtual trading on a virtual stock floor — so they can hear the noise and feel the pressure…
-
Health
No link between hepatitis B vaccine and risk of multiple sclerosis
The French government in 1998 decided to temporarily suspend hepatitis B vaccine programs in schools after several cases of multiple sclerosis were reported a few weeks after the vaccine had been administered in 1995 and 1997 as part of a mass immunization program. Multiple sclerosis is a chronic degenerative disease of the central nervous system.…
-
Science & Tech
Dark night sky tells us about structure and formation of solar system
The darkness of the night sky is one of astronomy’s great puzzles. An infinite universe uniformly filled with stars and galaxies should produce an infinitely bright night sky, Johannes Kepler concluded 400 years ago. So why is the sky dark? It has to do with the finite size of the Milky Way Galaxy and the…
-
Science & Tech
Harvard researchers stop, restart, light
Albert Einstein theorized that light cannot travel faster than 186,282 miles per second. But he never said it couldn’t go slower. Lene Hau, a physics professor in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, says Einstein would “probably be stunned” at the results of her recent experiments. Working in her laboratory at the…
-
Science & Tech
Soft news and critical journalism eroding audiences
A rise in soft news and critical journalism “may now be hastening the decline in news audiences” and “weakening the foundation of democracy by diminishing the public’s information about public affairs and its interest in politics,” according to a Harvard study. The study, conducted by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public…