Tag: Research

  • Science & Tech

    New coating creates ‘superglass’

    A new transparent, bioinspired coating makes ordinary glass tough, self-cleaning, and incredibly slippery. It could be used to create durable, scratch-resistant lenses for eyeglasses, self-cleaning windows, improved solar panels, and new medical diagnostic devices.

    4–5 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Postdoc wins Runyon Fellowship

    Michael A. Cianfrocco, a postdoctoral fellow in molecular and cellular biology, has been named a fellow by the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.

    1–2 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Right down the middle, explained

    The ability to throw an object with great speed and accuracy is a uniquely human adaptation, one that Harvard researchers say played a key role in our evolution.

    6–9 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Map to renewable energy?

    Researchers hoping to make the next breakthrough in renewable energy now have plenty of new avenues to explore — Harvard researchers this week released a database of more than 2 million molecules that might be useful in the construction of organic solar cells for the production of renewable energy.

    4–6 minutes
  • Health

    Following the swarm

    Australian scientist Stephen Simpson’s locust research has led to insights on human nutrition.

    3–4 minutes
  • Health

    Developing cancer drugs

    Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers have identified in the most aggressive forms of cancer a gene known to regulate embryonic stem cell self-renewal, beginning a creative search for a drug that can block its activity.

    3–5 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Looking at chimp’s future, seeing man’s

    The fate of chimpanzees in Africa is largely in the hands of increasing numbers of poor, rural dwellers crowding the primates’ forest homes. That is why an educational project begun near Uganda’s Kibale National Forest focuses on 14 schools teaching almost 10,000 children, researchers say.

    4–6 minutes
  • 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.

    4–5 minutes
  • Health

    Multitasking against obesity

    Specialists examines the country’s obesity problem from several angles at an HMS-MGH forum.

    3–4 minutes
  • Health

    Mouthful of clues

    Harvard researchers have demonstrated that the levels of barium in teeth correspond with breast-feeding. Importantly, they said, the barium levels can remain in fossils that are thousands of years old. This provides new opportunities to study breast-feeding behavior among Neanderthals and early humans.

    4–5 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Asia Center supports summer travel for 65 students

    The Harvard University Asia Center was established in 1997 to reflect Harvard’s deep commitment to Asia and the growing connections among Asian nations. An important aspect of the center’s mission…

    1–2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Changing the Foundations of Science: Harvard Stem Cell Institute | One Harvard

    In the nine years since its founding, The Harvard Stem Cell Institute has become the world leader in stem cell biology.

    1–2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    One Harvard

    One Harvard is a compilation of stories that illustrate the powerful outcomes that result from multi-School collaborations across the University.

    1–2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Homework | From My House to Our Harvard

    At Harvard, homework assignments can save lives. From My House to Our Harvard | 2012 FAS Film

    1–2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Light along a jagged border

    Harvard researchers have combined new technology with old to better understand conditions in the war-torn border region between Sudan and South Sudan.

    3–4 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    New investigators named

    Adam Cohen, professor of chemistry and chemical biology and of physics, and Hopi Hoekstra, professor of organismic and evolutionary biology and molecular and cellular biology, are among the 27 scientists nationwide to be appointed as investigators by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

    3–5 minutes
  • Health

    Using clay to grow bone

    Researchers from Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) are the first to report that synthetic silicate nanoplatelets (also known as layered clay) can induce stem cells to become bone cells without the need of additional bone-inducing factors.

    1–2 minutes
  • Health

    ‘Brainbow,’ version 2.0

    Led by Joshua Sanes and Jeff Lichtman, a group of Harvard researchers has made a host of technical improvements in the “Brainbow” imaging technique.

    2–4 minutes
  • Health

    Mourning that vexes the future

    In a new paper, Professor of Psychology Richard McNally and graduate student Don Robinaugh say that while people suffering from complicated grief — a syndrome marked by intense, debilitating emotional distress and yearning for a lost loved one — had difficulty envisioning specific events in their future, those problems disappeared when they were asked to…

    4–6 minutes
  • Health

    Making old hearts younger

    Two Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers have identified a protein in the blood of mice and humans that may prove to be the first effective treatment for the form of age-related heart failure that affects millions of Americans, a study says.

    5–8 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    The nearness of you

    In research described earlier this year in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Elinor Amit, a College Fellow in psychology, along with two collaborators, Cheryl Wakslak and Yaacov Trope, showed that people increasingly prefer to communicate verbally (versus visually) with people who are distant (versus close) — socially, geographically, or temporally.

    3–5 minutes
  • Health

    Lower health care costs may last

    A slowdown in the growth of U.S. health care costs could mean a savings of as much as $770 billion on Medicare spending over the next decade, Harvard economists say.

    3–5 minutes
  • Health

    The motivation to move

    Using an unusual decision-making study, Harvard researchers exploring the question of motivation found that rats will perform a task faster or slower depending on the size of the benefit they receive, suggesting they maintain a long-term estimate of whether it’s worthwhile for them to invest the energy.

    3–5 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Water worlds surface

    Astronomers have found a planetary system orbiting the star Kepler-62. This five-planet system has two worlds in the habitable zone — the distance from their star at which they receive enough light and warmth for liquid water to theoretically exist on their surfaces.

    2–4 minutes
  • Health

    Big boost in drug discovery

    Using a new, stem cell-based, drug-screening technology that could reinvent and greatly reduce the cost of developing pharmaceuticals, researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute have found a compound that is more effective in protecting the neurons killed in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis than are two drugs that failed in human clinical trials.

    4–6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Where the research takes you

    Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology, and Howard Gardner, John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, met to interview each other about their research, influences, and interests.

    3–4 minutes
  • Health

    Coelacanth genome surfaces

    An international team of researchers has decoded the genome of a creature whose evolutionary history is both enigmatic and illuminating: the African coelacanth

    5–7 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Warmth across 600 years

    Harvard researchers are adding nuance to our understanding of how modern and historical temperatures compare.

    2–4 minutes
  • Health

    Not as evolved as we think

    Lest you think you’re at the top of the evolutionary heap, looking down your highly evolved nose at the earth’s lesser creatures, Marlene Zuk has a message for you: When it comes to evolution, there is no high or low, no better or worse.

    3–5 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Stars align at astronomy reunion

    Harvard astronomers past and present gathered in Cambridge Friday (April 5) for the first-ever reunion of the Harvard Astronomy Department.

    3–4 minutes