Tag: L Mahadevan

  • Nation & World

    Termites shape and are shaped by their mounds

    Researchers investigate how centimeter-sized termites, without architects, engineers or foremen, can build complex, long-standing, meter-sized structures all over the world.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Bringing biology and mathematics together

    The National Science Foundation and the Simons Foundation have awarded a grant to Harvard scientists to create a research center aimed at bringing biologists and mathematicians together to answer some of the central questions about living systems.

    9 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Applied mathematicians in Namibia

    What can termites teach us about designing green buildings? As it turns out, a lot.

    1 minute
    Termite mound
  • Nation & World

    Mimicking birdsongs

    After discovering that the complexity inherent in birdsongs results from a controllable instability in the organ used to create them, researchers at the Harvard Paulson School have developed a mimicking device.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Why weeping willows bend and poison ivy doesn’t

    A mathematical framework can explain how a plant stem’s “sense of self” contributes to its growth upward or downward.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    How termites ventilate

    Research led by a Harvard professor describes in detail how termite mounds are ventilated.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Keys to a split-second slime attack

    Researchers from the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and from universities in Chile, Costa Rica, and Brazil have been studying the secret power of the velvet worm.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    All goes swimmingly

    Using simple hydrodynamics, a team of Harvard researchers was able to show that a handful of principles govern how virtually every animal — from the tiniest fish to birds to the largest whales — propel themselves through the water.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    When cooperation counts

    A new study conducted by Harvard scientists shows that in deer mice, a species known to be highly promiscuous, sperm clump together to swim in a more linear fashion, increasing their chances of fertilization.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Advancing science and technology

    The National Science Foundation is awarding grants to create three new science and technology centers this year, with two of them based in Cambridge. The two multi-institutional grants total $45 million over five years.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Clues in the cucumber’s climb

    Harvard researchers, captivated by a strange coiling behavior in the grasping tendrils of the cucumber plant, have characterized a new type of spring that is soft when pulled gently and stiff when pulled strongly.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Pollock: Artist and physicist?

    A quantitative analysis of the streams, drips, and coils of artist Jackson Pollock by a Harvard mathematician and others reveals that he had to be slow and deliberate to exploit fluid dynamics as he did.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    How the lily blooms

    SEAS research has revealed that differential growth and ruffling at the edges of each petal — not in the midrib, as commonly suggested — provide the force behind the lily’s bloom. The work contradicts earlier theories regarding the growth within the flower bud.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Harvard prof receives IIT-M distinguished alumnus award

    “Why do you read Shakespeare? And you don’t learn plumbing and electrical work because they are useful in daily life, do you?” responds Harvard University professor L Mahadevan when he’s asked about the relevance of mathematics in daily life.

    1 minute