Tag: Research

  • Health

    The good life, longer

    By synthesizing the data collected in multiple government-sponsored health surveys conducted in recent decades, researchers from the National Bureau of Economic Research, Harvard University, and the University of Massachusetts were able to measure how the quality-adjusted life expectancy of Americans has changed over time.

    4–6 minutes
  • Health

    Cancer vaccine begins Phase I clinical trials

    A cross-disciplinary team of Harvard scientists, engineers, and clinicians announced Sept. 6 that they have begun a Phase I clinical trial of an implantable vaccine to treat melanoma, the most lethal form of skin cancer.

    3–4 minutes
  • Health

    Lasering in on tumors

    In the battle against brain cancer, doctors now have a new weapon: an imaging technology that will make brain surgery dramatically more accurate by allowing surgeons to distinguish between brain tissue and tumors, and at a microscopic level.

    3–5 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Pinched minds

    The accumulation of money woes and day-to-day anxiety leaves many low-income individuals not only struggling financially, but cognitively, says Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan. In a study featured in Science, he reports that the “cognitive deficit” caused by poverty translates into as many as 10 IQ points.

    4–6 minutes
  • Health

    Skip the juice, go for whole fruit

    Harvard researchers have found that people who ate at least two servings each week of certain whole fruits — particularly blueberries, grapes, and apples — reduced their risk for type 2 diabetes by as much as 23 percent in comparison to those who ate less than one serving per month.

    3–4 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Transparent artificial muscle plays music

    Using a gel-based audio speaker, Harvard researchers have shown that electrical charges carried by ions, rather than electrons, can be put to meaningful use in fast-moving, high-voltage devices.

    4–7 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Wildfires projected to worsen with climate change

    A Harvard model predicts that by 2050, wildfire seasons will be three weeks longer, up to twice as smoky, and will burn a wider area in the western United States.

    5–7 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Atop the Amazon rainforest

    Harvard air chemistry expert Scot Martin is working with the Department of Energy, as well as several international partners, to track how pollution above the pristine Amazon rainforest is changing the climate.

    8–13 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Young scientists awarded $719,701 in grants

    This year, Harvard researchers are receiving $719,701 in funding from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, formerly known as the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression, or NARSAD.

    2–4 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Seeds of violence in climate change

    Nathan Black, the French Environmental Fellow, is studying how nations fall into civil war during the type of agricultural disruption possible with a changing climate — and what some nations might do to prevent it.

    4–6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Deepening ties to Latin America

    Harvard’s role in an increasingly connected world includes deep ties to Latin America, where faculty and students are engaged in a range of research projects and initiatives, from climate research in Brazil to disaster relief work in Chile to protecting Maya art and architecture in Honduras.

    3–4 minutes
  • Health

    Organs-on-chips evaluate therapies for lethal radiation exposure

    A team at the Wyss Institute at Harvard has received a $5.6 million grant from the FDA to use its organs-on-chips technology to test human physiological responses to radiation and evaluate drugs designed to counter those effects.

    3–5 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Seeing depth through a single lens

    Researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have developed a way for photographers and microscopists to create a 3-D image through a single lens, without moving the camera.

    4–7 minutes
  • 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