Featured series 
Tag: Research
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Campus & Community
Radcliffe Institute 2009-10 fellows include artists, scientists
The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University has announced the women and men selected to be Radcliffe Fellows in 2009-10. These creative artists, humanists, scientists, and social scientists were chosen for their superior scholarship, research, or artistic endeavors, as well as the potential of their projects to yield long-term impact. While at Radcliffe,…
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Health
Chemical leaches from plastic drinking bottles into people
A new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers found that participants who drank for a week from polycarbonate bottles, the popular, hard-plastic drinking bottles and baby bottles, showed a two-thirds increase in their urine of the chemical bisphenol A (BPA).
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Health
Acid-suppressive medicines increase pneumonia risk for hospital patients
Ever since a class of drugs called proton pump inhibitors was introduced to the market in the late 1980s, the use of these acid-suppressive medications for heartburn, acid reflux, and other gastrointestinal symptoms has grown tremendously. The widespread use has extended to the inpatient hospital setting, where patients are often routinely given the medications as…
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Health
Biology department evolves at FAS
Earlier this month, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) made official what scientists worldwide have known for years: Harvard is a hotbed of research and teaching in the field of human evolutionary biology — the study of why we’re the way we are.
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Campus & Community
2009 Humboldt Research Award given to Donald Rubin
Donald Rubin, Ph.D. ’70, John L. Loeb Professor of Statistics, has been honored by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Bonn, Germany, with the 2009 Humboldt Research Award. The award will permit Rubin to travel to Germany to collaborate with colleagues, primarily at Universität Bamberg. As one of the most prestigious awards in Germany for…
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Health
‘Super-recognizers’ are the ones who really will never forget a face
Some people say they never forget a face, a claim now bolstered by psychologists at Harvard University who’ve discovered a group they call “super-recognizers”: those who can easily recognize someone they met in passing, even many years later.
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Health
Patients expect computers to play major role in health care
As President Obama calls for streamlining heath care by fully converting to electronic medical records, and as Congress prepares to debate issues of patient privacy, one question has largely gone unasked: What do patients want?
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Science & Tech
Kepler starts search for other Earths
As NASA’s Kepler space telescope this week begins scanning the Milky Way for planets that might harbor life, scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) are keeping their fingers crossed and waiting for the data to start flowing.
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Science & Tech
Spiral swimmers may be new workhorses
Harvard researchers have created a new type of microscopic swimmer: a magnetized spiral that corkscrews through liquids and is able to deliver chemicals and push loads larger than itself.
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Science & Tech
Embryo’s heartbeat drives blood stem cell formation
Biologists have long wondered why the embryonic heart begins beating so early, before the tissues actually need to be infused with blood. Two groups of Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers from Children’s Hospital Boston (Children’s) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) — presenting multiple lines of evidence from zebrafish, mice, and mouse embryonic stem…
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Campus & Community
Jain and Vafa honored by NAS
Rakesh K. Jain, the A. Werk Cook Professor of Radiation Oncology for Tumor Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital and a member of the affiliated faculty of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, and Cumrun Vafa, the Donner Professor of Science in the Department of Physics, have been recently elected into the National Academy…
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Science & Tech
Molecular secrets in atomic nuclei
For Navin Khaneja, spinning nuclei are like atomic spies. With a little coaxing, they will tell the secrets of the molecules in which they sit.
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Science & Tech
Vocal mimicking, sense of rhythm tied
Researchers at Harvard University have found that humans aren’t the only ones who can groove to a beat — some other species can dance, too. The capability was previously believed to be specific to humans. The research team found that only species that can mimic sound seem to be able to keep a beat, implying…
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Health
Lack of sleep is easier on older adults than others
In a recent sleep study testing alertness and performance in sleep-deprived adults, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) determined that healthy older adults handle sleep deprivation better than younger adults. The findings appeared online on May 3, in an advance online edition of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
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Health
Lessons from past explored to expedite future research
People, knowledge, communication, and capitalism were front and center last week as authorities on innovation sought to shed light on ways to speed up the development of new medical treatments from discoveries in the lab.
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Nation & World
‘Paging God: Religion in the Halls of Medicine’
What happens when a Buddhist monk visiting the United States is hospitalized, terminally ill with liver cancer? Does religion interfere with his medical care? What about his Buddhist brethren, unable to join him bedside? Who will provide the appropriate services and ceremonies? Well, says Wendy Cadge, that’s where hospital chaplains come in.
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Campus & Community
Faust at UMass Boston: Local research universities power region
The unique collection of research universities, biotech and pharmaceutical firms, and science and engineering startups linked by the MBTA Red Line is an economic powerhouse that is going to pull Massachusetts through the current financial crisis and help drive the nation toward recovery, Harvard President Drew Faust told those attending the opening of a new…
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Nation & World
Looking horror in the face
Imani was just 15 when soldiers from the rebel group Interahamwe found her on the road in a remote region in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
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Health
Raising happy — and moral — children
A teenager tells her parents she is considering quitting her soccer team. Worried that her daughter is unhappy, her mother wants to let her skip practice. Her father argues that soccer is important on her college résumé. While both parents are concerned about their child, they neglect another question entirely: How would her leaving affect…
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Science & Tech
Jefferson Lab Harvard’s newest historic site
The American Physical Society (APS) designated Jefferson Physical Laboratory a historical site in a special ceremony on Monday (April 27).
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Nation & World
Research funding
RESEARCH FUNDING: Douglas A. Melton, Harvard College Professor, Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences, investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute
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Nation & World
Education reform
EDUCATION REFORM: Kathleen McCartney, Gerald S. Lesser Professorship in Early Childhood Development, dean, Harvard Graduate School of Education
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Health
Scholars discuss ‘medicalization’ of formerly normal characteristics
Not long ago, a majority of Americans described themselves as “shy,” a condition of reticence or caution that for ages just seemed natural.
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Health
HMS Dean’s Symposium on Clinical and Translational Research set
Harvard Medical School (HMS) will host a two-day Dean’s Symposium on Clinical and Translational Research on April 30 and May 1. Students, trainees, and faculty who are engaged in, or are interested in, clinical and translational research will convene for the first event of this kind.
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Science & Tech
Cyclones spurt water into the stratosphere, feeding global warming
Scientists at Harvard University have found that tropical cyclones readily inject ice far into the stratosphere, possibly feeding global warming.
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Health
Harvard nutritionists take aim at sugary drinks
Comparing the nation’s obesity epidemic to a house on fire, Harvard nutrition experts took aim at sugar-sweetened beverages Monday (April 20), recommending the creation of a new, low-sugar alternative and urging adults and children alike to quench their thirsts the natural way — with water.
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Nation & World
Harvard Kennedy School professors named 2009 Carnegie Scholars
Associate Professor Asim Ijaz Khwaja and Assistant Professor Tarek Masoud of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government (HKS) have been named 2009 Carnegie Scholars by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The honorees were selected for their compelling ideas and commitment to enriching the quality of the public dialogue on Islam.
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Health
Breast cancer danger rising in developing countries
Women in developing nations, once thought to have a small chance of contracting breast cancer, are increasingly getting the disease as lifestyles incorporate risk factors common in industrialized nations, panelists at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) said Tuesday (April 14).
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Campus & Community
HMS’s Harlow receives award from melanoma foundation
The Melanoma Research Foundation (MRF) awarded its Established Investigator Grant to Edward E. Harlow, the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor of Cancer Research and Teaching at Harvard Medical School (HMS), on Feb. 24.
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Nation & World
Despite years of study, schools’ success matter of contention
There wasn’t an empty seat in Askwith Hall Wednesday night (April 1) as students, educators, and researchers crowded in to hear “Informing the Debate: A Panel Discussion on Boston’s Charter, Pilot, and Traditional Schools,” sponsored by the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), the Rappaport Institute, and the Center for Education Policy Research.