Tag: Research

  • Science & Tech

    Out of disaster, a new design

    A team of students from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, just back from Japan, took home first prize in an international competition for solutions to sustainable recovery in a region of Japan devastated by a triple disaster in 2011.

  • Arts & Culture

    Bernard Berenson, recalled

    Harvard’s Villa I Tatti, a treasure of Italian Renaissance scholarship since 1961, has launched an oral history site on its origins with Bernard Berenson, Class of 1887, and its transition from villa to a center for scholars.

  • Science & Tech

    Robots to the rescue

    Inspired by termites’ resilience and collective intelligence, a team of computer scientists and engineers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University has created an autonomous robotic construction crew. The system needs no supervisor, just simple robots that cooperate.

  • Science & Tech

    A decidedly mixed bag

    A new research paper from Harvard Business School says food shoppers who bring their own bags are more likely than those who use disposables to buy healthy organic goods, but also treats like ice cream and chips.

  • Health

    At the Arboretum, an unquiet winter

    Despite the dormant appearance of the trees, the Arnold Arboretum isn’t waiting for spring, as pruning, mowing, research, and planning continue to move ahead at full speed.

  • Health

    Neanderthals’ DNA legacy linked to modern ailments

    Remnants of Neanderthal DNA in modern humans are associated with genes affecting type 2 diabetes, Crohn’s disease, lupus, biliary cirrhosis, and smoking behavior. They also concentrate in genes that influence skin and hair characteristics. At the same time, Neanderthal DNA is conspicuously low in regions of the X chromosome and testes-specific genes.

  • Health

    Researchers create embryonic stem cells without embryo

    Researchers have created embryonic stem cells without an embryo. This discovery of a novel reprogramming method of adult cells, without introducing external genetic material, could dramatically shift stem cell research.

  • Health

    In search of nature’s camouflage

    Cuttlefish, the “chameleon of the sea,” may offer researchers a model for bio-inspired human camouflage and color-changing products, some of which could be invaluable in wartime.

  • Science & Tech

    Architectural fever dreams

    Master’s degree students in architecture present thesis topics in a traditional daylong January event that draws critical crossfire and praise.

  • Health

    Vitamin D could slow MS progression

    For patients in the early stages of multiple sclerosis (MS), low levels of vitamin D were found to strongly predict disease severity and hasten its progression, according to a new study led by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) investigators in collaboration with Bayer HealthCare.

  • Health

    ‘Beige’ cells key to healthy fat

    “Beige fat” cells found in healthy subcutaneous fat in mice play a critical role in protecting the body against the disease risks of obesity, report Harvard researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who say their study findings may have implications for therapy of obesity-related illness in humans.

  • Health

    Bio-inspired glue keeps hearts securely sealed

    The waterproof, light-activated glue developed by researchers at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital Boston and their colleagues at MIT can successfully secure biodegradable patches to seal holes in a beating heart.

  • Science & Tech

    Battery offers renewable energy breakthrough

    A team of Harvard scientists and engineers has demonstrated a new type of battery that could fundamentally transform the way electricity is stored on the grid, making power from renewable energy sources such as wind and sun far more economical and reliable.

  • Health

    Color-coded labels, healthier food

    Using color-coded labels to mark healthier foods and then displaying them more prominently appears to have prompted customers to make more healthful long-term dining choices in their large hospital cafeteria, according to a report from Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital

  • Health

    Fighting disease on a global scale

    The idea that the wave of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer breaking over the world is largely the result of wealth and inactivity is not only wrong, it’s counterproductive, says a Harvard research fellow who recently founded a nonprofit organization to fight disease.

  • Health

    Ludwig Cancer Research awards HMS $90M

    Ludwig Cancer Research, on behalf of its founder, Daniel K. Ludwig, has given Harvard Medical School $90 million to spur innovative scientific inquiry and discovery. According to the Ludwig announcement, this new financial support is among the largest private gifts ever for cancer research.

  • Science & Tech

    Following the weather

    From the violence of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot to Earth’s own extreme weather, Ziff Environmental Fellow Pedram Hassanzadeh is investigating atmospheric vortices, those swirling air masses that make the weather go — and sometimes make it stop.

  • Health

    Saving tortoises by a hair

    Five species of giant, long-lived Galapagos tortoises are thought to have gone extinct, but recent DNA analysis shows that some may survive on other islands in the archipelago, according to work by Michael Russello, Harvard Hrdy Fellow in Conservation Biology.

  • Science & Tech

    Can iPads help students learn science? Yes

    A new study by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics shows that students grasp the unimaginable emptiness of space more effectively when they use iPads to explore 3-D simulations of the universe, compared with traditional classroom instruction.

  • Science & Tech

    Probing how the past behaved

    Harvard faculty and graduate students lectured, organized, and moderated in big ways throughout a four-day annual meeting in Boston of the History of Science Society.

  • Science & Tech

    U.S. methane emissions exceed government estimates

    Emissions of methane from fossil fuel extraction and refining activities in the United States are nearly five times higher than previous estimates, according to researchers at Harvard University and seven other institutions.

  • Science & Tech

    ‘Deep pragmatism’ as a moral engine

    Professor Joshua Greene talks about his new book, “Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them.” What makes an issue like abortion or Israeli-Palestinian relations seem insurmountable, he said, can be chalked up, in part, to brain wiring.

  • Nation & World

    Core objectives

    Harvard Graduate School of Education Professor Paul Reville talks about the new national standards for K-12 education, known as the Common Core State Standards, and the recent controversy surrounding their implementation.

  • Health

    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.

  • Health

    Broad launches next decade with $100M gift

    American philanthropists and entrepreneurs Eli and Edythe Broad announced on Thursday they are investing an additional $100 million into the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT to launch a new decade of transformative work to harness recent biomedical discoveries to benefit patients.

  • Arts & Culture

    Haunted by the siege

    A Davis Center photo exhibit — wrenching and frank — brings back the 872-day Siege of Leningrad through the eyes of women who survived it.

  • Arts & Culture

    Change is on the runway

    A Harvard conference will emphasize the rising influence of landscape architects in airport design and decommissioning.

  • Health

    Three days, three wild finds

    Tim Laman, an associate of Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology and an award-winning wildlife photographer, was part of a two-man team that helicoptered into a remote Australian rainforest earlier this year, coming out with three new species: two lizards and a frog.

  • Health

    Stages of bloom

    Harvard researchers have solved the nearly 200-year-old mystery of how Rafflesia, the largest flowering plants in the world, develop.

  • Health

    Online, on site, in the field

    Harvard School of Public Health Dean Julio Frenk outlined a new vision for public health education Friday (Nov. 1), outlining courses that blend online, in-person, and in-the-field experiences and that take different forms throughout a professional’s life.