Tag: Harvard

  • Health

    Making eight legs look like six

    Using high-speed cameras, Harvard researchers have shown that ant-mimicking jumping spiders don’t walk on six legs in an attempt to appear more ant-like, but instead walk with all eight and take tiny, 100-millisecond pauses to lift their front legs to make them resemble ant antennae.

    4–6 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Voting-roll vulnerability

    Online attackers may be able to purchase enough personal information to alter voter registration information in as many as 35 states and the District of Columbia, a new study says.

    5–8 minutes
    Professor of Government and Technology in Residence, Department of Government Latanya Sweeney
  • Campus & Community

    Making friends, building dreams

    Young refugees living in Dorchester learned English at a summer camp taught by Harvard students. Morning classes were followed by afternoon field trips to places such as the Boston Children’s Museum and harbor islands.

    2–4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Where Washington actually works

    On Capitol Hill, the everyday business of government rolls along, aided by many Harvard-trained officials.

    14–21 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Designed for living, learning

    The sunny, modular home architect Richard Rogers designed for his parents in the 1960s now serves as an urban studies lab for the Graduate School of Design.

    3–5 minutes
  • Health

    New insight on height, arthritis

    New findings point to a surprising link between a genetic variant that favors shortness and an increased risk of osteoarthritis.

    4–6 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Last survivors on Earth

    A testament to the resiliency of life, the microscopic tardigrade can survive any cosmic calamity, according to an Oxford-Harvard study.

    3–4 minutes
  • Health

    Probing protein diversity

    A team of researchers has found that the stability plays a key role in the evolution of different protein structures.

    3–4 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    The Harvard in Thoreau

    As the bicentennial nears for the birth of Henry David Thoreau, it’s clear that Harvard College influenced the churlish naturalist far more than he would have admitted, author says.

    7–10 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Inequality’s influence

    A new study has found that, following momentary exposure to inequality, support for a “millionaire’s tax” dropped by more than 50 percent.

    3–5 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    How the brain handles tools

    A new study shows that, despite having no experience using tools with their hands, the brains of people born without hands represent tools and hands much the same as seen in the brains of people born with hands.

    3–4 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Harvard appoints Muslim chaplain

    Khalil Abdur-Rashid, an adjunct professor of Islamic studies at Southern Methodist University and co-founder of the Islamic Seminary of America, has been appointed Harvard’s Muslim chaplain.

    2–3 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    With Faust as template, thoughts on the next president

    Harvard Corporation member explains where the search for Drew Faust’s successor will focus, and how it will work.

    7–10 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Drew Faust to step down as Harvard president

    Drew Faust, who became Harvard’s 28th president in 2007, has announced that she will step down on June 30, 2018.

    24–35 minutes
    Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust
  • Science & Tech

    From drinking straws to robots

    Inspired by arthropod insects and spiders, scientists George Whitesides and Alex Nemiroski have created a type of semi-soft robot capable of walking, using drinking straws, and inflatable tubing. The team was even able to create a robotic water strider capable of pushing itself along the water’s surface.

    5–7 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Midwest summer storms threaten ozone, study warns

    Summer storms in the central U.S. create the same chemical reactions damaging ozone in the Arctic, warns a Harvard study calling for a closer look at the region’s UV radiation risk.

    2–3 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Figuring out superconductors

    A team of physicists has taken a crucial step toward understanding superconductors by creating a quantum antiferromagnet from an ultracold gas of hundreds of lithium atoms.

    4–6 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Sanes receives Gruber Neuroscience Prize

    Joshua R. Sanes, the Jeff C. Tarr Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and founding director of the Center for Brain Science, has been named recipient of the 2017 Gruber Neuroscience Prize.

    3–5 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Support that matters

    The annual Celebration of Scholarships dinner brought together students who benefit from financial aid and donors who support the program.

    5–7 minutes
  • Health

    The power of picturing thoughts

    A new Harvard study shows that people create visual images to accompany their inner speech even when they are prompted to use verbal thinking, suggesting that visual thinking is deeply ingrained in the human brain.

    4–6 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    5 awarded Harvard College Professorships

    The five faculty members named Harvard College Professors this month all share a talent for making their respective subjects come alive in the classroom.

    4–6 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Biden named Class Day speaker

    Joe Biden, recent vice president and six-term U.S. senator, will deliver the annual Class Day address to the graduating Class of 2017 at Harvard.

    2–3 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    A transformative trip

    A required course for classics concentrators at Harvard, “Regional Study of Sicily” student writer Matthew DeShaw says it is “unlike any other class I have taken.”

    3–5 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    ‘Innovative’ teaching is recognized

    Professors Elena Kramer and Martin Nowak have been named the recipients of the 2016 Fannie Cox Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching.

    2–3 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Harvard launches data science initiative

    Harvard launches sweeping data science initiative, and names Francesca Dominici and David Parkes as co-directors.

    4–5 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    FAS staff acknowledged for their contributions

    The dozens of FAS staff who gathered in University Hall on March 9 were honored as Dean’s Distinction award winners, with 59 recipients receiving a total of 61 awards.

    5–7 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Why sing to baby? If you don’t, you’ll starve

    A new study suggests that infant-directed song evolved as a way for parents to signal to children that their needs were being met, while leaving time for other tasks, like food foraging or caring for other offspring.

    5–8 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Making math more Lego-like

    A trio of Harvard researchers has developed a new 3-D pictorial language for mathematics with potential as a tool across a wide spectrum, from pure math to physics.

    3–5 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    A mother’s influence

    Researchers have shown, for the first time, that chimpanzees learn certain grooming behaviors from their mothers. Once learned, chimps continued to perform the behavior long after the deaths of their mothers.

    4–6 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Understanding Harvard’s ties to slavery

    During a Q&A in advance of a conference on slavery at American universities, Harvard President Drew Faust explains the expanding effort in Cambridge to document the painful realities of the past.

    8–12 minutes