Featured series 
Tag: Martin Nowak
-
Science & Tech
A COVID cure worse than the disease?
Some worry a treatment that kills SARS-CoV-2 by helping it mutate could spawn a super virus. New research weighs in on its “evolutionary safety.”
-
Science & Tech
Correcting a lack of cooperation
While some social networks have been shown to intrinsically lead to cooperation, others been shown to not only lead to a breakdown in cooperation, but produce outright spite.
-
Health
Study signals a limit to cancer’s complexity
New findings on cancer driver mutations creates hope for targeted therapy. “It appears there is a limit to cancer’s complexity,” says one of the study’s researchers, Martin Nowak of Harvard University.
-
Arts & Culture
Dancing with the future
A multimedia production incorporates dance, music, and spoken word to explore how humans might cooperate with future generations to try to solve problems like climate change. “Dancing with the Future” will premiere at Farkas Hall on Sept. 25.
-
Science & Tech
Game-changing game changes
Games that can change based on players’ actions help Harvard’s Martin Nowak and his fellow researchers to understand the evolution of cooperation.
-
Science & Tech
Choosing partners or rivals
A new study shows that in repeated interactions winning strategies involve either partners or rivals, but only partnership allows for cooperation.
-
Science & Tech
Where cooperation thrives
Harvard scientists helped develop an algorithm for predicting whether a social structure is likely to favor cooperation.
-
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.
-
Science & Tech
A fuller picture of cancer
A research team led by Martin Nowak has developed a model that captures both the shape and speed of tumor growth.
-
Science & Tech
Playing the ‘envelope game’
Harvard researchers have developed a first-of-its-kind model, dubbed the “envelope game,” that can help researchers to understand not only why humans evolved to be cooperative but why people evolved to cooperate in a principled way.
-
Science & Tech
Tomorrow isn’t such a long time
A study by Harvard researchers and colleagues tested ways to encourage decisions mindful of future generations.
-
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.
-
Health
New plan of attack in cancer fight
Harvard Professor Martin Nowak and Ivana Bozic, a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics, show that, under certain conditions, using two drugs in a “targeted therapy” — a treatment approach designed to interrupt cancer’s ability to grow and spread — could effectively cure nearly all cancers.
-
Science & Tech
Reputation as a lever
Using enrollment in a California blackout prevention program as an experimental test bed, a team of researchers showed that although financial incentives boosted participation slightly, making participation in the program observable produced a threefold increase in sign-ups.
-
Science & Tech
When fairness prevails
Using computer simulations designed to play a simple economic “game,” researchers at Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics showed that uncertainty is a key ingredient behind fairness. Their work is described in a Jan. 21 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
-
Health
Rapid acts of kindness
In a series of experiments, Harvard researchers found that people who make quick decisions act less selfishly than those who deliberate.
-
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.
-
Health
The positives of playing favorites
As described in a paper in Scientific Reports, a study led by Feng Fu, a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, found that in-group favoritism — the tendency of people to help other members of the same group — is critical in establishing high-level cooperation that ultimately benefits the whole.
-
Health
Survival of the selfless
In a talk sponsored by the Harvard Museum of Natural History, biologist E.O. Wilson said that competition among groups of humans is a likely explanation for the rise of altruistic behavior in individuals.
-
Nation & World
A plan for better banking
A team of researchers at Harvard and in London has created a model of bank failure aimed at helping economies avoid crashes. Their work highlights a fundamental dilemma for regulators: Improving the safety of individual banks may make the financial system as a whole more dangerous.
