Featured series 
Tag: Research
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Campus & Community
Effects of climate change vary greatly across plant families
Drawing on records dating back to the journals of Henry David Thoreau, scientists at Harvard University have found that different plant families near Walden Pond in Concord, Mass., have borne the effects of climate change in strikingly different ways. Some of the plant families hit hardest by global warming have included beloved species like lilies,…
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Nation & World
Green politics at IOP
An environmental call to action issued by Harvard President Drew Faust accelerated this year, with a pledge to reduce campus-wide greenhouse gas emissions and with an October celebration of sustainability efforts.
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Health
In survey, patients give some high, some low marks to hospitals
The quality of hospitals across the United States is inconsistent. To address this issue, the federal government and private organizations have begun to publicly report data, such as how well hospitals treat certain conditions. But until now, there has been no data on how patients themselves feel about the care they received. A new study…
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Health
Researchers gain ground in treatment options for disfiguring tumor
A team of researchers led by Harvard School of Dental Medicine (HSDM) Dean for Research Bjorn Olsen has discovered a mechanism for the rapid growth seen in infantile hemangioma, the most common childhood tumor.
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Health
New Guinea forest expands ‘observatory’
Just getting there takes hours of hot, sweaty hiking through lowland Papua New Guinea forests: three hours from the road to the base camp, then another seven to the site. That’s when the real work begins: tagging, measuring, and identifying 250,000 trees scattered over 50 hectares.
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Science & Tech
Lecture ‘Can’t you see I’m busy’ addresses ‘interruption management’
You’ve opened a Microsoft Word document and are just about to write. Feel good? No. Instead of inspiration, along comes Clippy, the annoying little pop-up man with his bobbing eyebrows and balloon full of intrusive questions. “It looks like you’re writing a letter. Would you like help?”
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Science & Tech
Solar system’s twin has two asteroid belts
Astronomers have discovered that the nearby star Epsilon Eridani has two rocky asteroid belts and an outer icy ring, making it a triple-ring system. The inner asteroid belt is a virtual twin of the belt in our solar system, while the outer asteroid belt holds 20 times more material. Moreover, the presence of these three…
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Campus & Community
Kuwait Program Research Fund accepting proposals
The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) has announced the 15th funding cycle for the Kuwait Program Research Fund, which is supported by the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS). An HKS faculty committee will consider applications for one-year grants (up to $30,000) and larger grants for more extensive proposals to support advanced research by…
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Health
Gene therapy restores vision to mice with retinal degeneration
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have used gene therapy to restore useful vision to mice with degeneration of the light-sensing retinal rods and cones, a common cause of human blindness. Their report, appearing in the Oct. 14 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describes the effects of broadly expressing a light-sensitive protein in other…
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Health
‘Death protein’ may lead to drugs that force cancer cells to self-destruct
Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified a previously undetected trigger point on a naturally occurring “death protein” that helps the body get rid of unwanted or diseased cells. They say it may be possible to exploit the newly found trigger as a target for designer drugs that would treat cancer by forcing malignant cells…
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Health
Genome Project releases data on 10 genetic pioneers
The world moved a step deeper into the DNA age Monday (Oct. 20) as 10 volunteers released their genetic and medical information on the Internet as part of a multiyear effort to make genetic data an everyday part of medical care.
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Health
Researchers identify promising gene target for neuroblastoma therapy
Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified a set of previously unknown mutations in a single gene in 8 percent of neuroblastomas, tumors of the nervous system that occur in young children and account for approximately 15 percent of all childhood cancer deaths.
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Health
NYU chemist Robert Shapiro decries RNA-first possibility
Back in the depths of time, an event almost miraculously improbable happened, creating a long, unlikely molecule. And life arose on Earth. Or, if you prefer, back in the depths of time, in a soup of small, relatively common molecules, an unknown chemical reaction occurred, sustained itself, replicated … and life arose on Earth.
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Campus & Community
Two HSPH professors honored for their scientific contributions
Two members of the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) faculty have been elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) a national resource for independent, scientifically informed analysis and recommendations on human health issues. The IOM was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences, and membership is a high honor in the health…
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Science & Tech
Controlling greenhouse gases, universities, individuals matter
From 1850 to 2000, the use of fossil fuels worldwide grew 140-fold, a practice that has gradually filled the Earth’s atmosphere with warming gases.
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Health
Cooper: Doctor-patient relations cause health disparities
In the United States, a black man can expect to die, on average, 10 years earlier than his white counterpart. For black women, that racial gap in life expectancy is five years.
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Campus & Community
Center for European Studies welcomes its fall fellows
The Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES) has announced the arrival of its 2008 fall fellows. The CES is dedicated to fostering the study of European history, politics, and society at Harvard, and selects visiting scholars that will play an active role in the intellectual life of the CES and the University. While…
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Science & Tech
Black holes are the heart of galaxies
Astronomers think that many — perhaps all — galaxies in the universe contain massive black holes at their centers. New observations with the Submillimeter Array now suggest that such colossal black holes were common even 12 billion years ago, when the universe was only 1.7 billion years old and galaxies were just beginning to form.…
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Campus & Community
Belfer Center names fellows for 2008-09
The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School recently announced the following new 2008-09 research fellows. These fellows conduct research within the Belfer Center’s International Security Program/Program on Intrastate Conflict (ICP) and Project on Managing the Atom (MTA).
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Health
Reading human history in the bones of animals
In a Siberian cave Patrick Wrinn found bones: bones of sheep and goats, bones of extinct bison and horses, of mammoths and wooly rhinoceroses. Wrinn, a doctoral student in archaeology at the University of Arizona and member of the Harvard Class of 1998, is trying to find out who — or what — put the…
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Health
Major step forward in cell reprogramming
Imagine, if you can, a day within the next decade when a physician-scientist could remove a skin cell from your arm and with a few chemicals turn that fully formed adult cell into a dish of stem cells genetically matched to you.
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Health
Study shows what smokers need to stay clean
Hospital-sponsored stop-smoking programs for inpatients that include follow-up counseling for longer than one month significantly improve patients’ ability to stay smoke-free. An analysis of clinical trials of programs offered at hospitals around the world finds that efforts featuring long-term support can increase participants’ chances of success by 65 percent.
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Health
Genetic ‘fingerprint’ shown to predict liver cancer’s return
Scientists have reached a critical milestone in the study of liver cancer that lays the groundwork for predicting the illness’s path, whether toward cure or recurrence. By analyzing the tissue in and around liver tumors, an international research team has identified a kind of genetic “fingerprint” that can help predict whether cancers will return.
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Campus & Community
Kuwait Program accepting grant proposals
The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) has announced the 15th funding cycle for the Kuwait Program Research Fund, which is supported by the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS). An HKS faculty committee will consider applications for one-year grants (up to $30,000) and larger grants for more extensive proposals to support advanced research by…
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Arts & Culture
Are boundaries between ‘the arts’ irrelevant?
What does Harpo Marx’s bicycle horn have to do with Richard Wagner’s epic opera “The Ring of the Nibelung”? Everything, if you ask Daniel Albright, Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature. Albright, who studies the intellectual history of comparative arts, is currently at work on a book about the boundaries and overlaps between different artistic media.
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Health
Study examines association between caffeine, breast cancer risk
Caffeine consumption does not appear to be associated with overall breast cancer risk, according to a report in the Oct. 13 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. However, there is a possibility of increased risk for women with benign breast disease or for tumors that are hormone-receptor negative or larger…
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Campus & Community
Weatherhead Center introduces 26 doctoral candidates for 2008-09
Twenty-six doctoral candidates will be supported by the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs for the 2008-09 year. The associates come from a multidisciplinary group of advanced-degree candidates in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences’ departments of Anthropology, Economics, Government, History, Health Policy, Middle East Studies, Social Policy, and Sociology. All of the students are…