Tag: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

  • Nation & World

    Tracking rapidly changing patterns of suicidal thought

    Smartphones enabled researchers to capture shifts multiple times a day, gathering data that could help guide more effective prevention.

    4 minutes
    Lead author Daniel Coppersmith (left) and co-author Professor Matthew Nock.
  • Nation & World

    Turns out developing a taste for carbs wasn’t a bad thing

    Findings on Neanderthal oral microbiomes offer new clues on evolution, health.

    5 minutes
    Gorilla skulls.
  • Nation & World

    How we handle stress at 45 linked to prenatal exposure

    Men and women whose mothers experienced stressful events during pregnancy regulate stress differently in the brain 45 years later, results of a long-term study demonstrate.

    3 minutes
    Woman showing signs of stress.
  • Nation & World

    Know why conversations either seem too short or too long?

    Conversations don’t end when people want them to because few people know how to end them politely, a Harvard study finds.

    5 minutes
    Illustration of someone talking
  • Nation & World

    From YouTube to your school

    In a new paper, Harvard researchers show for the first time that research-based online STEM demonstrations not only can teach students more, but can be just as effective as classroom teaching.

    4 minutes
    Live demonstration.
  • Nation & World

    Lessons in learning

    Study shows students in ‘active learning’ classrooms learn more than they think

    6 minutes
    two students looking at notebook together
  • Nation & World

    Untangling the connection

    Harvard Medical School researchers have found that impaired insulin signaling in the brain negatively affects cognition, mood, and metabolism, all components of Alzheimer’s disease.

    4 minutes
    Amyloid plaques on axons of neurons affected by Alzheimer's
  • Nation & World

    Changing temperatures boost U.S. corn yield — for now

    Increased production of corn in the U.S. has been credited largely to advances in farming technology, but new research shows that changing temperatures play a significant role in crop yield.

    3 minutes
    Cornfield and cloud
  • Nation & World

    Problem-solving techniques take on new twist

    When solving problems, both groups in which members never interacted and groups whose members constantly interacted provided expected results. The surprising outcome came from groups whose members collaborated intermittently.

    4 minutes
    Wikimedia_Group
  • Nation & World

    The Amazon as engine of diverse life

    Researchers believe that many of the plants and animals that call Latin America home may have their roots in the Amazon region.

    4 minutes
    Alexandre Antonelli
  • Nation & World

    Keeping the genetic code clean

    Researchers have taken the first step toward removing unwanted cells by converting the CRISPR/Cas9 genome-engineering system into a genome-surveillance tool that removes newly occurring disease-associated mutations.

    5 minutes
    CRISPR-Cas9
  • Nation & World

    Role of gut bacteria in averting Type 1 diabetes

    Study finds guardian gene that protects against Type 1 diabetes and other autoimmune diseases exerts its pancreas-shielding effects by altering the gut microbiota.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    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.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Mitigating the risk of geoengineering

    To halt the rise of global temperatures, Harvard researchers are looking at solar geoengineering, which would inject light-reflecting sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere to cool the planet.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Human-gut-on-a-chip model offers hope for IBD sufferers

    In a new study, the Wyss Institute’s human-gut-on-a-chip technology is used to co-culture gut microbiome and human intestinal cells, which could spur innovation of novel therapies for inflammatory bowel diseases.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    How the brain builds new thoughts

    A new study suggests that two adjacent brain regions allow humans to use a sort of conceptual algebra to construct thoughts.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    How termites ventilate

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

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    When flames attack

    Harvard researchers were able to predict when test flames in the lab were likely to switch from slow- to fast-moving fires, which could open the way to making similar predictions for forest fires.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Magnetic attraction

    Harvard scientists have developed a system for using magnetic levitation technology to manipulate nonmagnetic materials, potentially enabling manufacturing with materials that are too fragile for traditional methods.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A face is not a fish

    A new study from Dartmouth and Harvard researchers looks at the mechanisms behind facial recognition.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Fin to limb

    New research brings scientists closer to unraveling one of the longest-standing questions in evolutionary biology — whether limbs, particularly hind limbs, evolved before or after early vertebrates left the oceans for life on land.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Malaria in 3-D

    Using an imaging technique known as high-speed holographic microscopy, Laurence Wilson, a fellow at Harvard’s Rowland Institute, worked with colleagues to produce detailed 3-D images of malaria sperm — the cells that reproduce inside infected mosquitoes — that shed new light on how the cells move.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The teaching launch

    A new study found that middle school teachers can have a real impact not only on students’ short-term educations, but on whether they attend college and on the size of their future paychecks.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The look of music

    A new study by Chia-Jung Tsay, a musician and Harvard Ph.D., examines the power of visual information in evaluating classical music.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Pitcher plants provide tipping point

    New research out of the Harvard Forest offers insight on exactly when the tipping point occurs that can disrupt the intricate web of life in a lake.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Online learning: It’s different

    By interspersing online lectures with short tests, student mind-wandering decreased by half, note-taking tripled, and overall retention of the material improved, said Daniel Schacter, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Psychology, and Karl Szpunar, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    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.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Watching teeth grow

    For more than two decades, scientists have relied on studies linking tooth development in juvenile primates with their weaning as a rough proxy for understanding similar landmarks in the evolution of early humans. New research from Harvard, however, challenges that thinking by showing that tooth development and weaning aren’t as closely related as previously thought.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Catch and release

    Researchers designed a chip that uses a 3-D DNA network made up of long DNA strands with repetitive sequences that — like the jellyfish tentacles — can detect, bind, and capture certain molecules.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Noncancerous cells carry weight

    In recent years Harvard investigators have discovered that breast tumors are influenced by more than just the cancer cells within them.

    5 minutes