Featured series 
Tag: Nicholas Christakis
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Health
Widespread trauma
Members of the Harvard community responded to the Boston Marathon attacks and offered thoughts about both the physical and mental injuries they caused.
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Health
Doctor knots
Harvard researchers have developed a method to determine the effect of social networks among doctors on cost and quality of care across the nation.
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Science & Tech
Rules of attraction
Nicholas Christakis, whose research explores how everything from obesity to smoking to happiness spreads among our social networks, is turning his attention to the past, exploring why and how we became the social animals we are.
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Campus & Community
Architecture of experience
Harvard’s distinctive House system, a baker’s dozen of smaller communities, nurtures undergrads to find their passions, and themselves.
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Science & Tech
Decision, decisions
Two of Harvard’s leading social scientists discussed the way that humans make decisions, and whether having more choices really makes us happier.
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Campus & Community
Renewing Harvard-Army ties
In a ceremony March 28 at Hilles Hall, Harvard University resumed a connection with the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) that started in 1916.
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Campus & Community
Ideas to improve the everyday
All-star Harvard faculty members at “Harvard Thinks Big” dazzled and provoked their audience in 10-minute talks Thursday that framed major questions about happiness, stem cell growth, runaway obesity, and the exploding American prison population.
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Science & Tech
With a little help from our ancient friends
The social networks of the Hadza, a group of hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, show evidence that many elements of social network structure may have been present at an early point in human history.
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Science & Tech
Nice guys can finish first
Nice guys can finish first — a new paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has found that complex social networks like those of everyday life encourage members to be friendlier and more cooperative, with the possible payoff coming in an expanded social sphere. The study said selfish behavior can lead…
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Science & Tech
Connecting with freshmen
Harvard College freshmen got their first taste Aug. 26 of the world of ideas awaiting them over the next four years in a talk by Professor Nicholas Christakis, who delivered the 2011 Opening Days Lecture, “Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives.”
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Science & Tech
Guiding discoveries to the public
Harvard’s Office of Technology Development tries to ensure that the public sees the benefits of Harvard’s research by licensing new technology to companies.
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Science & Tech
Competing for a mate can shorten lifespan
“Love stinks!” the J. Geils band told the world in 1980, and while you can certainly argue whether or not this tender and ineffable spirit of affection has a downside, working hard to find it does. It may even shorten your life. A new study by Harvard researchers shows that ratios between males and females…
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Health
Love life
A new Harvard study shows that ratios between males and females affect human longevity.
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Campus & Community
In last semester, ‘Last Lectures’
As a prelude to graduation, seniors organize a “Last Lecture” series to receive advice from favorite professors.
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Science & Tech
Posing the Big Questions
In 1900, renowned mathematician David Hilbert laid down a challenge to future generations: 23 handpicked mathematical problems, all difficult, all important, and all unsolved. Since then, countless mathematicians around the world have struggled to solve the 23 “Hilbert Problems.” To date, 10 have been fully solved, 11 are partly solved or simply cannot be solved, and two remain at large…
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Science & Tech
National Institute on Aging funds two new “Roybal Center” programs at Harvard
Harvard Medical School professor Nicholas Christakis, whose work focuses on social networks, and economics professor David Laibson, who examines how and why people make the decisions they do regarding savings and health behaviors, have been selected to receive five year Roybal Center grants, of about $1.5 million each, from the National Institute on Aging (NIA),…
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Health
Want to live well?
Harvard faculty members from a range of fields give tips on how to live healthy.
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Campus & Community
Nicholas and Erika Christakis new master, co-master of Pforzheimer
Nicholas and Erika Christakis have been appointed as master and co-master of Pforzheimer House.
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Science & Tech
The genes in your congeniality:
Can’t help being the life of the party? Maybe you were just born that way. Researchers at Harvard and the University of California, San Diego, have found that our place in a social network is influenced in part by our genes, according to new findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.…
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Science & Tech
Having happy friends can make you happy
If you’re happy and you know it, thank your friends — and their friends. And while you’re at it, their friends’ friends. But if you’re sad, hold the blame. Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the University of California, San Diego, have found that “happiness” is not the result solely of a cloistered journey filled…
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Health
Obesity is contagious
Public health officials have been working hard to account for the dramatic rise in U.S. obesity rates. Many obvious factors, such as poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle, certainly contribute to the swelling statistics. However, these and other explanations tend to focus exclusively on how individuals’ choices and behaviors affect their own weight. Now, researchers…
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Health
The ‘widow effect’ is real
In findings that highlight how health effects can reverberate through a social network, a researcher at HMS and his colleague report that the serious illness of an elderly spouse increases the risk of death of a husband or wife. In fact, a few illnesses in a spouse, such as dementia, may pose more of a…
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Campus & Community
Study says ‘widower effect’ is real
A spouse’s illness can not only be bad for your health, it can kill you, according to a new study of couples over age 65 that highlights the importance of social networks to a person’s health. The study, by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of Pennsylvania, shows that the impact of a…