Featured series 
Tag: Harvard
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Science & Tech
Stages of superconductivity
Harvard physicists say they have unlocked the chemical secret that controls the “fool’s gold” of superconductivity, a “pseudogap” phase that mimics, but doesn’t have all the advantageous properties of, superconductivity.
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Science & Tech
Helping hunt for the Higgs
For decades, it has been the holy grail of particle physics, an elusive subatomic particle that offered the tantalizing possibility of explaining how much of the universe works. Billions of dollars have been spent in the search for it. Thousands of researchers — including dozens from Harvard — have conducted trillions of experiments as part…
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Health
Transforming cancer treatment
Professor Martin Nowak is one of several co-authors of a paper, published in Nature on June 28,that outlines a new approach to cancer treatment that could make many cancers manageable, if not curable, by overcoming resistance to certain drug treatments.
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Health
The growing brain
As reported on June 7 in the journal Neuron, a team of researchers led by Professor Jeff Lichtman has found that just days before birth mice undergo an explosion of neuromuscular branching. At birth, the research showed, some muscle fibers are contacted by as many as 10 nerve cells. Within days, however, all but one…
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Health
Climbing out of hiding
For decades, scientists have been stymied in their attempts to better understand proboscis anole, a small lizard whose defining feature is a horn on its nose, because it appeared to be all but extinct — until now.
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Health
The problem of pre-existing mutations
In a critical step that may lead to more-effective HIV treatments, Harvard scientists have found that, in a small number of HIV patients, pre-existing mutations in the virus can cause it to develop resistance to the drugs used to slow the progression of the disease.
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Health
Tracing the brain’s connections
A team of researchers is using a genetically modified version of the rabies virus to create the first comprehensive list of inputs that connect directly to dopamine neurons in two regions of the brain.
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Health
‘Stealing’ life’s building blocks
Researchers have found that a parasitic flower takes large portions of its genetic code from its host, and that some genes borrowed by the flowers may even be functional. The surprising finding suggests that the process may convey some evolutionary advantage to the flowers.
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Health
Probing the sparrow’s beastly past
A new study led by Harvard scientists shows that birds are, essentially, living dinosaurs, with skulls that are remarkably similar to those of their juvenile ancestors.
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Science & Tech
Straight to the source
As described in an April 23 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), graduate students Eric Morrow and Carling Hay demonstrate the use of a statistical tool called a Kalman smoother to identify “sea level fingerprints” — telltale variations in sea level rise — in a synthetic data set. Using those…
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Campus & Community
Commencements, from 1642 onward
In its earliest years, the struggling College was chronically short of money and sometimes even graduates.
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Science & Tech
New tool to battle illegal trade in animals
Harvard’s Center for Geographic Analysis will work with United Nations University on a system that will allow users to track and map wildlife crime, and how it is related to a host of socioeconomic factors.
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Arts & Culture
Illuminating an unseen history
In his new book, “Revolt: An Archaeological History of Pueblo Resistance and Revitalization in 17th Century New Mexico,” Assistant Professor of Anthropology Matthew Liebmann offers a first-of-its-kind look at how the Pueblo people lived during their brief independence from Spain.
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Health
Turing was right
Researchers at Harvard have shown that Nodal and Lefty — two proteins linked to the regulation of asymmetry in vertebrates and the development of precursor cells for internal organs — fit a mathematical model first described by Alan Turing six decades ago.
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Science & Tech
Illuminating carbon’s climate effects
Harvard researchers compiled ice and sedimentary core samples collected from dozens of locations around the world, and found evidence that while changes in Earth’s orbit may have touched off a warming trend, increases in CO2 played a far more important role in pushing the planet out of the ice age.
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Science & Tech
You, revealed
“X-Rays of the Soul: Rorschach and the Projective Test,” at Harvard’s Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, tells the story of the projective test movement and portrays the heady confidence that science could be used to extract and access the most human parts of human beings.
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Campus & Community
Harvard student Kelsey Beck is Miss Boston 2012
Kelsey Beck ’14, was recently named Miss Boston and will be competing for the Miss Massachusetts title in late June.
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Science & Tech
New frontier in archaeology
Jason Ur, the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, worked with Bjoern Menze of MIT to develop a system that identified ancient settlements based on a series of factors — including soil discolorations and the distinctive mounding that results from the collapse of mud-brick settlements.
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Science & Tech
A vision of computing’s future
In 1978, while a student at Harvard Business School, Dan Bricklin conceived of VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet program for personal computers. The result helped to spark a digital revolution in business and made desktop computers a must-have item in many offices.
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Health
A therapist at your fingertips
In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers at Harvard are exploring the use of gamelike programs on smartphones to treat anxiety disorders.
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Science & Tech
Magnetism on the moon
A team of researchers from Harvard, MIT, and the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris have proposed a surprisingly simple explanation for magnetic anomalies that have baffled scientists since the mid-1960s, suggesting they are remnants of a massive asteroid. As described in a paper published in Science, the researchers believe an asteroid slammed into…
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Arts & Culture
Lady Gaga visits Harvard
Harvard students braved the snow to welcome Lady Gaga to campus.
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Campus & Community
Barbara Lindsay Norton, 20-year staffer, dies
Barbara Lindsay Norton, a longtime Harvard employee, died on Feb. 17 in North Andover, Mass., after illness.
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Campus & Community
GSAS Dean Allan Brandt to step down
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dean Allan M. Brandt, who pioneered a new approach to curricular development with the launch of the Graduate Seminars in General Education, announced Feb. 15 that he will step down as GSAS dean this spring owing to health considerations. He plans to return to the faculty when his…
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Campus & Community
No time to waste
Harvard recycles, reuses, or composts more than half its waste, but a recent audit shows that there is room to further reduce the more than 6,300 tons sent to landfills each year, according to Rob Gogan, associate manager of recycling services in Harvard’s University Operations Services.
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Nation & World
Choice management
In a paper published last year, Harvard professors David Laibson and Brigitte Madrian argued that employers should design investment menus for their employees that facilitate good choices, “rather than assuming that giving people every option under the sun will lead to the right decision.” The report, co-authored with James Choi of Yale, was recently honored…
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Science & Tech
Alien worlds, just like home
Harvard astronomers, working as part of NASA’s Kepler mission, have detected the first Earth-sized planets orbiting a distant star, a milestone in the hunt for alien worlds that brings scientists one step closer to their ultimate goal of finding a twin Earth.
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Campus & Community
Harvard grad and HMS student are Rhodes Scholars
Matthews Mmopi, a recent Harvard graduate from South Africa, and David Obert, a second-year Harvard Medical School (HMS) student, have been selected as 2012 Rhodes Scholars, and will join the University’s four U.S. Rhodes winners at the University of Oxford next fall.
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Science & Tech
Soft-bots
Harvard Professor George Whitesides and his research team have developed an array of “soft” robots based on natural forms, including squids and starfish, that may one day be used to aid disaster recovery efforts by squeezing into the rubble left by an earthquake to locate survivors, or as a way to free up a surgeon’s…
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Campus & Community
McAuley named Marshall Scholar
Harvard senior James McAuley was recently named a Marshall Scholar, a prestigious award that will allow him to study for two years at a university of his choice in the United Kingdom, likely Oxford.
