Tag: Research

  • Campus & Community

    Pilot program offers grants to defray child care costs

    The Research Enabling Grants program (REG) — a pilot program administered through the Office of Faculty Development and Diversity — offers tenure-track faculty and benefits-eligible postdoctoral fellows financial support to enable research that would otherwise suffer due to significant child care or adult dependent care obligations.

    1–2 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    Fieldwork, community service key in study abroad

    Long lines at the airport customs desk? Blame those Harvard undergraduates — in the 2006-07 academic year alone, 1,458 students had an international experience of some kind. While summer travel has historically been the most popular option, increasing numbers of undergraduates are choosing to spend a full semester abroad.

    9–13 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    HSPH offers scholarship opportunity

    The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) recently announced a new scholarship opportunity for students and scholars from Southeast and East-Central Europe.

    1–2 minutes
  • Health

    ‘Attentional collapse’ causes an inability to imagine future satisfaction

    Researchers have identified a key reason why people make mistakes when they try to predict what they will like. When predicting how much they will enjoy a future experience, people tend to compare it to its alternatives — that is, to the experiences they had before, might have later, or could be having in the…

    3–4 minutes
  • Health

    From adult to embryonic stem cell

    Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have taken a major step toward eventually being able to reprogram adult cells to an embryonic stem cell-like state without the use of viruses or cancer-causing genes.

    3–4 minutes
  • Health

    Homing in on features of ‘humaniqueness’

    Shedding new light on the cognitive rift between humans and animals, a Harvard University scientist has synthesized four key differences in human and animal cognition into a hypothesis on what exactly differentiates human and animal thought.

    2–3 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Center for European Studies welcomes its new 2008 spring fellows

    The Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES) has announced the arrival of its 2008 spring fellows.

    1–2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Local superintendents, Faust share ideas

    Harvard President Drew Faust met with public school superintendents and professional associates from Boston area schools on Feb. 8 to share ideas about, among other things, educational leadership, teaching and learning, and preparing students from preschool through college and beyond.

    1–2 minutes
  • Health

    Newly identified gene variants associated with prostate cancer risk

    Three studies presenting newly identified genetic variants that are associated with increased susceptibility to prostate cancer were published recently (Feb. 10) on the advance online site of Nature Genetics. The 10 gene variants double the number of known variants associated with risk of the disease and are the result of genomewide association studies.

    1–2 minutes
  • Health

    Anxiety linked to overestimation of breast cancer risks

    Elevated levels of anxiety may cause women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), the most common form of noninvasive breast cancer, to overestimate their risk of recurrence or dying from breast cancer, suggests a study led by researchers at Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

    1–2 minutes
  • Health

    Infants are able to recognize quantity

    By looking at infant brain activity, researchers have found that babies as young as 3 months old are sensitive to differences in numerical quantity. Additionally, the scientists were able to see that babies process information about objects and numbers in different, dissociated parts of the brain, which is also the case in older children and…

    2–4 minutes
  • Health

    BWH-led tuberculosis research project receives $14M NIH grant

    Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Partners In Health (PIH) have received a grant of $14 million over five years from the National Institutes of Health to study multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB). The goal of the project is…

    2–3 minutes
  • Health

    How brain cells make good connections

    Harvard neuroscientist Venkatesh N. Murthy has a sunny second-floor office on Divinity Avenue, where he is a professor in Harvard’s Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. In one corner is a set of weights and a soccer ball — both untouched in over a year, he said, because of an intensely busy schedule.

    5–8 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Harvard to collect, disseminate scholarly articles for faculty

    In a move to disseminate faculty research and scholarship more broadly, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) voted Tuesday (Feb. 12) to give the University a worldwide license to make each faculty member’s scholarly articles available and to exercise the copyright in the articles, provided that the articles are not sold for a profit.

    2–4 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    In brief

    Bok Center offering half time postdoc fellowship, HSPH symposium to tackle thorny international health issues, Grants, fellowships available to HMS members, HSPH announces new scholarship opportunity, Docent-led tour at Semitic Museum upcoming, HMS center honors trio for global environmental efforts, Center for Wellness and Health announces spring bounty

    4–7 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Korea Institute receives grant for development of programs

    The Northeast Asian History Foundation (NEAHF) in Seoul, Korea, has awarded a grant of $1 million over a five-year period to the Early Korea Project at the Korea Institute, Harvard University.

    2–3 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Lester Kissel Grants available to undergrads

    Harvard College students are eligible to apply for a Lester Kissel Grant in Practical Ethics to support research and writing that makes contributions to the understanding of practical ethics. A number of grants, each up to $3,000, will be awarded on a competitive basis for projects to be conducted during the summer of 2008. The…

    1–2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    IOP announces spring resident fellowships

    Harvard University’s Institute of Politics (IOP), located at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, has announced the selection of an experienced group of individuals for resident fellowships this spring. Resident fellows interact with students, participate in the intellectual life of the community, and pursue individual studies or projects throughout an academic semester.

    1–2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Shorenstein Center names visiting faculty, fellows for spring

    The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, located at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, recently announced its spring fellows.

    1–2 minutes
  • Health

    Cancer stem cells can be targeted for destruction

    It’s increasingly believed among scientists that nearly every cancer contains small populations of highly dangerous cells — cancer stem cells — that can initiate a cancer, drive its progression, and create endless copies of themselves. On the theory that targeting these cells might be an effective therapeutic strategy, researchers around the world have begun isolating…

    1–2 minutes
  • Health

    Research in brief

    Major differences in protocols used to determine brain death; Harvard researchers achieve stem cell milestone; Consortium links chromosome abnormality to autism disorders; Blocking HIV infection; Oral osteoporosis meds appear to reduce the risk of jaw degradation; Six new genetic variants linked to heart-disease risk factor; Gene variation may elevate risk of liver tumor in some…

    8–11 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Chemistry Department creates Fieser Fellowship

    Harvard University’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology (CCB) has announced the creation of the Mary Fieser Postdoctoral Fellowships Program to promote the recruitment, development, and mentorship of women and underrepresented groups in areas across the chemical sciences.

    3–4 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation awards fellowships

    The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation has named three Harvard affiliates among its 17 new fellows. The recipients of this prestigious, three-year award are outstanding postdoctoral scientists conducting basic and translational cancer research in the laboratories of leading senior investigators across the country.

    1–2 minutes
  • Health

    Drug helps certain brain tumor patients live longer

    People who receive high doses of the chemotherapy drug methotrexate to treat a certain type of brain tumor appear to live longer than people receiving other treatments, according to research published in the Jan. 29 issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

    1–2 minutes
  • Health

    Chimpanzees have ‘top guns’ on hunts

    While hunting among chimpanzees is a group effort, key males known as “impact hunters” are highly influential within the group. They are more likely to initiate a hunt, and hunts rarely occur in their absence, according to a new study. The findings, which appear in the current issue of Animal Behaviour, shed light on how…

    3–4 minutes
  • Health

    Suicide risk factors consistent globally

    Risk factors for suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts are consistent across countries, and include having a mental disorder and being female, younger, less educated, and unmarried. So says new research from Harvard University and World Health Organization (WHO) World Mental Health Survey Initiative. The study examined both the prevalence and the risk factors for suicide…

    3–5 minutes
  • Health

    ‘Where do I come from?’

    Harvard graduates often return to the University to let their professors know what they’ve been up to since they finished their degree.

    4–6 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Australia-Harvard Fellowships named

    A biologist, a geologist, and a statistician are among the winners of the 2008 Australia-Harvard Fellowship, the Harvard Club of Australia Foundation has announced. Diversities of career stage and profession characterize this year’s list of seven new fellows.

    1–2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Cancer research pioneer Judah Folkman dies suddenly at 74

    Cancer research pioneer Judah Folkman, the Andrus Professor of Pediatric Surgery and professor of cell biology at Harvard Medical School (HMS), died on Jan. 14 of a heart attack. Folkman, who was also the director of the Vascular Biology Program at Children’s Hospital Boston, was 74.

    3–4 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    ‘The diverse ways history can be written’

    Relocating to a foreign city for a new job can be stressful in the most congenial circumstances. Trying to depart your home country in the middle of a Communist coup? As Serhii Plokhii, Hrushevs’kyi Professor of Ukrainian History in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, can tell you — that’s downright complicated.

    5–8 minutes