Tag: FAS

  • Health

    Something doesn’t smell right

    Harvard scientists say they’re closer to unraveling one of the most basic questions in neuroscience — how the brain encodes likes and dislikes — with the discovery of the first receptors in any species evolved to detect cadaverine and putrescine, two of the chemical byproducts responsible for the distinctive — and to most creatures repulsive…

  • Health

    Fin to limb

    New research brings scientists closer to unraveling one of the longest-standing questions in evolutionary biology — whether limbs, particularly hind limbs, evolved before or after early vertebrates left the oceans for life on land.

  • Science & Tech

    Explaining the Higgs

    A Q&A with science Professor Lisa Randall, author of a new book explaining the significance of the Higgs boson, and why its discovery matters.

  • Science & Tech

    Rethinking the roots of altruism

    In a new study, Harvard researchers find that inclusive fitness — for decades a standard tool in understanding how altruism evolved — often leads to incorrect conclusions.

  • Campus & Community

    New horizons for HarvardX

    HarvardX, the University-wide initiative supporting faculty experimentation in teaching and learning through technology, will launch 14 new and returning online offerings through the winter and spring.

  • Science & Tech

    Measuring electrons

    In making the most precise measurements ever of the shape of electrons, Harvard and Yale scientists have raised serious doubts about several popular theories of what lies beyond the Higgs boson.

  • Campus & Community

    ‘Levolution’: Life amid renewal

    A gathering of the Leverett clan, amid House renewal, includes students living elsewhere temporarily.

  • Science & Tech

    Battery offers renewable energy breakthrough

    A team of Harvard scientists and engineers has demonstrated a new type of battery that could fundamentally transform the way electricity is stored on the grid, making power from renewable energy sources such as wind and sun far more economical and reliable.

  • Campus & Community

    Duo wins ‘Worlds’ debate competition

    Josh Zoffer ’14 and Ben Sprung-Keyser ’15 have won the 34th edition of the World Universities Debating Championship.

  • Science & Tech

    Following the weather

    From the violence of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot to Earth’s own extreme weather, Ziff Environmental Fellow Pedram Hassanzadeh is investigating atmospheric vortices, those swirling air masses that make the weather go — and sometimes make it stop.

  • Health

    Your gut’s what you eat, too

    A new Harvard study shows that, in as little as a day, diet can alter the population of microbes in the gut – particularly those that tolerate bile – as well as the types of genes expressed by gut bacteria.

  • Campus & Community

    The gains from diversity

    A diverse and inclusive workplace is good for business, said Eddie Pate, vice president of diversity and inclusion at Avanade Inc., in a dialogue session involving the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

  • Campus & Community

    A map for that

    Visual and Environmental Studies students visited the Harvard Map Collection to see the spoils of a scavenger hunt for the longest map, the smallest map, and other cartographic treasures.

  • Nation & World

    ‘Our spirit is waterproof’

    News of recovery efforts left the headlines in the month after Typhoon Haiyan devastated parts of the Philippines. But Harvard College students continue to raise awareness and funds for relief. So far, they have raised $12,000 and hope to continue as the most devastated parts of the Philippines begin the slow, long process of rebuilding.

  • Campus & Community

    Midyear graduates recognized

    Harvard College recognized 111 students who graduated midyear, outside the traditional Commencement cycle.

  • Science & Tech

    Muting the Mozart effect

    Though it has been embraced by everyone from advocates for arts education to parents hoping to encourage their kids to stick with piano lessons, two new studies conducted by Harvard researchers show no effect of music training on the cognitive abilities of young children.

  • Arts & Culture

    Happily ever after, sometimes

    A Scholars at Risk panel investigates the universal uses of narrative and the hard-wired human need for storytelling.

  • Science & Tech

    Can iPads help students learn science? Yes

    A new study by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics shows that students grasp the unimaginable emptiness of space more effectively when they use iPads to explore 3-D simulations of the universe, compared with traditional classroom instruction.

  • Nation & World

    Mandela’s legacy

    Harvard South Africa specialists discuss the legacy of Nelson Mandela and the future of the country he changed.

  • Campus & Community

    How it really happened

    Professor Annette Gordon-Reed was at the Ed Portal to talk about her scholarship on the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings.

  • Arts & Culture

    The power of trans

    “Trans Arts” was a two-hour panel Wednesday of poets, critics, and performers who in some cases identify with the gender opposite from the bodies into which they were born.

  • Campus & Community

    Liu named Marshall Scholar

    Brandon Liu has been named one of 36 students nationwide to receive a Marshall Scholarship, which will allow him to study for two years at a university in the United Kingdom.

  • Health

    Polly want a vocabulary?

    Irene Pepperberg, best known for her work with an African grey parrot named Alex — whose intelligence was estimated as equal to that of a 6-year-old child — recently relocated her lab to Harvard, where she continues to explore the origins of intelligence by working with birds.

    grey parrot
  • Campus & Community

    New lifestyles for Stone Hall

    Since students moved back into Quincy House’s Stone Hall in August, after 15 months of construction, they have explored and utilized the new academic, social, and study spaces in creative ways.

  • Arts & Culture

    Classroom magic

    A.R.T. Artistic Director Diane Paulus and Shakespeare scholar Marjorie Garber collaborated on a fall freshman seminar titled “Theater and Magic.”

  • Science & Tech

    Airmail, to your door

    Harvard engineering Professor Robert Wood lends his perspective to Amazon’s proposal to start a flying drone delivery service within a few years. His verdict is that FAA regulations and liability concerns will likely be bigger hurdles than the technology.

  • Health

    ‘A once-in-human-history opportunity’

    A new report chaired by Harvard economist and University Professor Lawrence Summers says that eliminating health disparities between rich and poor nations is not only possible by 2035, it’s cost-effective. The study also sets out the steps to achieve it.

  • Arts & Culture

    Persian inspiration

    Farrin Abbas Zadeh, a visiting fellow in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, has mounted an art show called “A Window to Heaven: Motifs of Nature in Life and Dream.”

  • Science & Tech

    Probing how the past behaved

    Harvard faculty and graduate students lectured, organized, and moderated in big ways throughout a four-day annual meeting in Boston of the History of Science Society.

  • Campus & Community

    Serving, thanks, and giving

    The annual “Giving Thanks” open house was an opportunity for members of the Harvard community to write notes of gratitude to fellow staff members and provide support for community programs.