Tag: Research

  • Campus & Community

    Herchel Smith Research Fellows to begin this summer

    The Herchel Smith Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship provides financial support to Harvard undergraduates engaged in scientific research at established research centers and laboratories in the United States or abroad.

    5–8 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Committee on African Studies awards grants

    The Harvard Committee on African Studies has awarded nine research grants to Harvard students for travel to sub-Saharan Africa during the summer of 2008.

    1–2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Newsmakers

    DEPT.OF SLAVIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES AWARDS PRIZES HUMBOLDT FOUNDATION ELECTS VISITING PROFESSOR KOBAYASHI GILDER LEHRMAN SCHOLAR NAMED ACKERMAN PRESENTS ADDRESS AT ITALIAN CONFERENCE CHA’S KEEFE RECEIVES LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD GOMES TO FETE ORDINATION ANNIVERSARY

    3–5 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Weatherhead awards doctoral candidates with research grants

    The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs has selected 11 Harvard doctoral candidates to receive pre- and mid-dissertation grants to conduct research on a project related to the core research interests of the center. In addition and for the first time in 2008, the center is awarding four foreign language grants to doctoral students to assist…

    2–3 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Yivo institute honors Summers

    The YIVO Institute for Jewish research honored Charles W. Eliot University Professor Lawrence H. Summers on May 13 at its 83rd annual benefit dinner. The ceremony was held at the Center for Jewish History in New York City.

    1–2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Kieffer awarded International Reading Fellowship

    Michael Kieffer, an advanced doctoral student in language and literacy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is the recipient of the International Reading Association’s (IRA) Jeanne S. Chall Research Fellowship.

    1–2 minutes
  • Health

    Prostate cancer treatments are contrasted

    Jim Hu and colleagues at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) assessed surgical utilization and complications, lengths of hospital stay, and cancer outcomes in more than 2,700 men who underwent prostate cancer surgery.

    1–2 minutes
  • Health

    Undergrads volunteer for Nalgene bottle BPA study

    For a while last month, whenever Scott Elfenbein ’11 was thirsty he’d take a pull or two from a Nalgene bottle. But Elfenbein was quaffing from Nalgene for science, not for convenience. He was one of about 80 Harvard College students who volunteered for a two-week April study intended to track levels of bisphenol A…

    5–7 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    THURJ provides forum for students

    Spanning topics as diverse as cancerous tumors and the overfishing of grouper in the Turks and Caicos Islands, a new journal aims to highlight the serious scientific research regularly undertaken by Harvard undergraduates.

    3–5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Candidates emphasize hot-button issues

    D. Sunshine Hillygus, Frederick S. Danziger Associate Professor of Government in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, and Todd G. Shields, professor of political science at the University of Arkansas, extensively studied campaign strategy during the 2004 general election, work that may illuminate strategy in the current presidential race.

    3–4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Joint Center for Housing sees mortgage turmoil hitting rental market

    The current mortgage turmoil reaches deep into rental markets. New research on rental housing market dynamics from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies finds that the current housing debacle not only adds to the number of households competing for low-cost rentals but also threatens renters living in foreclosed properties with sudden eviction.

    3–4 minutes
  • Health

    TB talks honor outgoing HSPH dean

    Tuberculosis specialists came from universities around the country to discuss the state of the disease at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and to honor Harvard School of Public Health Dean Barry R. Bloom, who has announced that he will be stepping down.

    5–8 minutes
  • Health

    Researchers report successful new laser treatment for vocal-cord cancer

    An innovative laser treatment for early vocal-cord cancer, developed at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), successfully restores patients’ voices without radiotherapy or traditional surgery, which can permanently damage vocal quality.

    2–3 minutes
  • Health

    Research reveals workings of anti-HIV drugs

    Using ingenious molecular espionage, scientists have found how a single key enzyme, seemingly the Swiss Army knife in HIV’s toolbox, differentiates and dynamically binds both DNA and RNA as part of the virus’s fierce attack on host cells. The work is described this week (May 7) in the journal Nature.

    4–6 minutes
  • Health

    Risk of death reduced within years of quitting smoking

    Women who quit smoking significantly reduce their risk of death from coronary heart disease within five years and have about a 20 percent lower risk of death from smoking-related cancers within that time period, according to a study in the May 7 issue of JAMA.

    2–4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Rothschild explores economics’ human side

    Blackmail and attempted murder are not typically studied as part of economic history. However, a credit crisis among 18th century French silk and brandy merchants led to just such dramatic incidents, the accounts of which piqued the interest of Emma Rothschild, a historian of economic life, empires, and Atlantic connections.

    5–7 minutes
  • Health

    SEAS initiative supported by up to $20 million in BASF funding

    The official opening of the BASF Advanced Research Initiative at Harvard was celebrated with an inaugural two-day symposium (April 29-30) on biofilms.

    2–3 minutes
  • Health

    Hormone therapy linked to increased risk of stroke

    Postmenopausal women taking hormone therapy appear to have an increased risk of stroke regardless of when they started treatment, according to a report in the April 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

    2–3 minutes
  • Health

    Recent study: Better to be fit and thin than fit and fat

    The risk of heart disease in women associated with being overweight or obese is reduced but not eliminated by higher levels of physical activity, according to a report in the April 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

    2–3 minutes
  • Health

    Molecular analysis of T. rex protein shows shared avian ancestry

    Putting more meat on the theory that dinosaurs’ closest living relatives are modern-day birds, molecular analysis of a shred of 68 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex protein — along with that of 21 modern species — confirms that dinosaurs share common ancestry with chickens, ostriches, and to a lesser extent, alligators.

    3–4 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    AAPT to honor mazur for contributions to teaching

    The American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) has named Balkanski Professor of Physics and Applied Physics Eric Mazur its Robert A. Millikan Medal recipient.

    1–2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    HDS names new associates for 2008-09

    The Women’s Studies in Religion Program at the Harvard Divinity School recently announced its selection of five scholars as 2008-09 research associates and visiting faculty.

    3–4 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Humanities: From deconstruction to digitization

    Malcolm Hyman, a research associate at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, addressed a group of 20 listeners at the Barker Center about the theoretical challenges ahead for humanities computing — a fast-growing corner of scholarship in the classics, modern literature, and the arts that looks to computer science for…

    4–6 minutes
  • Health

    Exercise changes structure of heart

    Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators, in collaboration with Harvard University Health Services, have found that 90 days of vigorous athletic training produces significant changes in cardiac structure and function, and that the type of change varies with the type of exercise performed.

    2–4 minutes
  • Health

    First targeted therapy for melanoma brings hope

    In a demonstration that even some of the most hard-to-treat tumors may one day succumb to therapies aimed at molecular “weak points,” researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute report the first instance in which metastatic melanoma has been driven into remission by a targeted therapy.

    3–4 minutes
  • Health

    Life expectancy worsening or stagnating

    One of the major aims of the U.S. health system is improving the health of all people, particularly those segments of the population at greater risk of health disparities. In fact, overall life expectancy in the United States increased more than seven years for men and more than six years for women between 1960 and…

    1–2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    20 faculty members named to 2008 class of AAAS fellows

    The American Academy of Arts & Sciences (AAAS), one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and independent policy research centers, today (April 28) announced the election of 20 Harvard University faculty members and affiliates to its new class of members.

    3–4 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Social Science Research Council gives grant to Harvard centers

    The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) has awarded $52,289 to three Harvard centers: the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, and the Harvard Asia Center.

    1–2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Money spent on others can buy happiness

    New research by one Harvard scholar implies that happiness can be found by spending money on others. Michael Norton, assistant professor of business administration in the marketing unit at the Harvard Business School (HBS), conducted a series of studies with his colleagues Elizabeth Dunn and Lara Aknin at the University of British Columbia (UBC).

    3–5 minutes
  • Health

    Nobel Prize winner discusses judgment and intuition

    “Most of the time,” said noted psychologist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman to a packed house of students, scholars, and faculty at the Yenching Auditorium (April 15), “we run at very low effort.” It was a sobering claim for the heady academic set, but according to Kahneman, no one is immune from the diagnosis. Even…

    3–5 minutes