Tag: In the Field
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Nation & World
Early onset of perimenopause linked to economic hardship
Perimenopause is the period leading up to menopause. The World Health Organization defines perimenopause as the phase during which hormonal, biological, and clinical changes begin. Studies have shown that up…
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Nation & World
Undergraduates observe Rwandan attempts at justice
The Rwandan genocide memorial was a tiny one-room church, pervaded still by a penetrating stench. On a table in the church was a pile of human skulls and femurs, a…
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Nation & World
Ban on coal burning in Dublin cleans the air, reduces death rates
In the 1980s, Dublin’s air quality suffered as people switched from oil to cheaper and more available coal for home and water heating. On Sept. 1, 1990, the Irish government…
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Nation & World
Putting bacteria to work
A nautical group of bacteria known as Prochlorococcus removes carbon dioxide from air and fixes it into the carbon content of their own tiny bodies. The more carbon dioxide they…
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Nation & World
Website saves wet books
Wondering what to do if you discover a bunch of old books are floating in backed-up sewer water or if a parchment manuscript gets soaked by an automatic sprinkler? The…
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Nation & World
When problem-solving is a problem
If an ill-timed delivery left them short of linens, nurses observed by Harvard Business School doctoral student Anita Tucker found a way to borrow from another unit. Such initiative taking…
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Nation & World
From cradle to grave
Astronomers have been using the Chandra X-ray Observatory and radio telescopes to observe two opposing jets of high-energy particles emitted following an outburst, first detected in 1998 by NASA’s Rossi…
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Nation & World
Earth’s new center
The outer core is liquid, the inner core is solid. That’s the way Earth has been depicted in textbooks for the past 66 years. But the work of Adam Dziewonski,…
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Nation & World
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,…
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Nation & World
Harvard researchers complete genomic sequence of deadly malaria parasite
Malaria is the world’s most serious parasitic tropical disease and kills more people than any communicable disease except for tuberculosis. There is more human malaria in Africa today than at…
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Nation & World
Report documents health effect of biodiversity
A new report catalogues the connections between biodiversity and human health. The interim executive summary was presented at the United Nations in late October 2002, following the U.N. World Summit…
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Nation & World
Students develop system to fight TB
A new system developed by Harvard undergraduates delivers anti-tuberculosis drugs through an inhaler, increasing the likelihood that patients will take them over longer periods, and reducing the side effects of…
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Nation & World
Heinz Center report presents environmental indicators
Statistics and reports on environmental damage and progress routinely come from dozens — if not hundreds — of nonprofit, government, and other agencies. Often the information disagrees with previously published…
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Nation & World
HIV-1 positive mothers taking vitamin A increase risk of transmitting HIV to newborns
In many regions of Africa, between 15 and 30 percent of women attending prenatal care clinics are HIV-1 positive. And 20 to 45 percent of children born to HIV-1 positive…
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Nation & World
Pregnancy and delivery deadly for many Afghan women
Lynn Amowitz, a researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital an a medical instructor at Harvard Medical School, found that women in the Herat province of Afghanistan receive some of the…
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Nation & World
Battling toxic molds
Molds are found in all kinds of environments. Estimates of the number of kinds of molds range from tens of thousands to more than 300,000, with more than 1,000 species…
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Nation & World
Maternal history influences risk of asthma in children exposed to cats
Recent studies have gathered evidence that cat exposure during infancy can be protective against asthma. Research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital confirmed these findings in all but one situation: when…
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Nation & World
Harvard Law School researchers track China’s Web filtering policies
“We’re hoping to make clear what’s blocked and what’s not—something only previously understood piecemeal,” said Professor Jonathan Zittrain, faculty co-director of the Berkman Center. “With the right data, we can…
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Nation & World
Beyond the Beltway: Focusing on Hometown Security
“Beyond the Beltway: Focusing on Hometown Security,” prepared by participants in the Kennedy School’s Executive Session on Domestic Preparedness, calls upon federal officials to place greater emphasis upon local emergency…
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Nation & World
Discovering what lives in your mouth
Your mouth is a great place for micropests to dwell. Glistening white plateaus, dark crevices, and slimy surfaces boast steamy temperatures of 95 degrees Fahrenheit. The microbes bathe in a…
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Nation & World
Reserved children more likely to be violent than their outgoing peers
Kurt Fischer from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Brandeis’ Malcolm Watson tracked 440 children and adolescents over seven years to determine what causes children to become aggressive and…
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Nation & World
X-ray arcs tell tale of giant eruption
Scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) report that two arc-like structures of multimillion-degree gas in the galaxy Centaurus A appear to be part of a ring 25,000 light…
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Nation & World
What students know best
A research project called Pathways for Student Success has taken a unique approach to finding ways to help high school students achieve at a high rate. Rather than focusing on…
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Nation & World
Maternal bone lead levels pose toxic prenatal risk
Although much attention has been paid to public health efforts to reduce lead exposure in children between the ages of six months and five years, when environmental lead exposures (such…
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Nation & World
Neither Rome nor universe built in a day
Theoretical astrophysicists Stuart B. Wyithe and Abraham Loeb at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have explained a paradox that has troubled scientists for years. Observations seem to show that…
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Nation & World
Religious private schools most segregated in U.S.
Black-white segregation is greater among private schools than among public schools, according to a research report from the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University. Although 78 percent of the private…
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Nation & World
Kennedy School students help Kenyans battle AIDS
Two Kennedy School master’s students, Shanti Nayak and Nazanin Samari-Kermani, went to Kenya to help a leading anti-poverty organization investigate how best to fight AIDS. Their research, with ActionAid-Kenya, a…
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Nation & World
South Pole telescope maps heart of Milky Way
Research results obtained by a team of astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) led by Chris Martin and Antony Stark suggest that we are headed for some celestial…
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Nation & World
Race, place, and segregation
Researchers for the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, using U.S. census data from 2000, examined whether three major metropolitan areas — Boston, Chicago and San Diego — continue to…