Featured series 
Tag: Research
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Health
Stem Cell Summit draws 500 participants
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick Wed-nesday (Oct. 3) called on those attending the second day of a Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI)-sponsored Stem Cell Summit to support his proposed $1 billion life sciences initiative “so we can get partnering with you.”
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Campus & Community
Chili pepper cocktail points to wide-awake surgery
Imagine an epidural or a shot of Novocain that doesn’t paralyze your legs or make you numb yet totally blocks your pain. This type of pain management is now within reach. As a result, childbirth, surgery, and trips to the dentist might be less traumatic in the future, thanks to researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital…
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Health
Research links panic and heart attack in older women
New research has linked panic attacks in older women with an increased risk of heart attack, stroke, and death from all causes, adding panic attacks to the growing list of mental and emotional conditions with potentially deadly physical effects.
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Campus & Community
American Indians bless search for Harvard roots
With a ceremonial blessing and a cautionary reminder of native peoples’ historic oppression, a group of American Indian leaders joined an assemblage of experienced and budding archaeologists Wednesday (Sept. 26) to begin the search for Harvard’s Indian College roots.
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Campus & Community
Weatherhead Center names 2007-08 associates
The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs is supporting 24 doctoral candidates as Graduate Student Associates for 2007-08. The associates represent a multidisciplinary group of advanced-degree candidates from Harvard’s departments of Anthropology, Government, History, Religion, and Sociology; the Kennedy School’s Public Policy Program; and the Law School’s S.J.D. program. All of the students are working on…
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Campus & Community
Weatherhead Center selects a dozen new international fellows
The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WCFIA) recently announced its 2007-08 class of fellows.
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Health
Children forgotten part of AIDS picture
The forgotten faces of the AIDS epidemic belong to children: infected, neglected, and orphaned by a disease that ravages not only their bodies, but also their families and communities, according to a gathering of international AIDS experts Monday (Sept. 24).
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Health
Harvard researchers find longevity, restricted diet link
Researchers believe they’ve found the cellular link between extremely restricted diets and dramatically lengthened lifespan and hope to use the knowledge to develop new treatments for age-related diseases.
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Campus & Community
Harvard christens School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
An afternoon of reflection, promise, and a bit of humor marked the official launch of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences on Thursday (Sept. 20), the first new Harvard school since the John F. Kennedy School of Government was created 71 years ago as the Graduate School of Public Administration.
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Health
Losos’ lizards give evolutionary clues in island experiments
Tiny islets in the Bahamas have proven useful laboratories to illustrate natural selection’s effects on island lizards, which saw their legs lengthen, then shorten as ground-dwelling predators drove them into the trees.
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Science & Tech
‘Hot’ ice could lead to medical device
Harvard physicists have shown that specially treated diamond coatings can keep water frozen at body temperature, a finding that may have applications in future medical implants.
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Science & Tech
CfA reveals Magellanic Clouds are first-time visitors
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) are two of the Milky Way’s closest neighboring galaxies. A stunning sight in the southern hemisphere, they were named after the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who explored those waters in the 16th century. For hundreds of years, these galaxies were considered satellites of the Milky…
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Health
Scientists synthesize memory in yeast cells
Harvard Medical School (HMS) researchers have successfully synthesized a DNA-based memory loop in yeast cells, an experiment that marks a significant step forward in the emerging field of synthetic biology.
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Health
State’s health care plan assessed
An architect of Massachusetts’ year-old experiment with universal health coverage said Monday (Sept. 17) that because of the experiment 170,000 people have insurance today who otherwise would not, but that the problem may be bigger than initially thought.
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Arts & Culture
Pair of music professors to collaborate on improvisation project
Headed by University of Guelph English professor Ajay Heble, the international “Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice” project recently secured a $2.5 million grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Harvard affiliates Ingrid Monson, Quincy Jones Professor of African-American Music, and Jason Stanyek, visiting associate professor of music, are among the project’s…
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Arts & Culture
Ulrich explains that well-behaved women should make history
Most bumper sticker slogans do not originate in academic publications. However, in the 1970s, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich penned in a scholarly article about the funeral sermons of Christian women that “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” The phrase subsequently gained wide popularity, appearing on T-shirts, coffee mugs, and other items — and it’s now the title…
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Arts & Culture
Study abroad program sings
This summer, five Harvard College students exchanged dorm life for West African village life to investigate the role of music and dance in Malian culture. As participants in Harvard’s summer study-abroad program “Music and Dance in Mali — Ethnography in Practice,” the students had the opportunity to live among and learn from some of the…
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Campus & Community
China Fund issues first round of funding
Three research proposals were recently selected to receive primary funding from the Harvard China Fund. Launched in July 2006, the fund supports China-related activities University-wide and University activities in China.
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Campus & Community
HCA announces its 2007 Australia-Harvard Fellowships
The Harvard Club of Australia (HCA) recently announced four winners of its 2007 Australia-Harvard Fellowships. The recipients are associate professor of ambulatory care and prevention Matthew W. Gillman of Harvard Medical School; Avi Loeb, professor of astronomy, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Michael N. Starnbach, associate professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at Harvard Medical School;…
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Health
Humanitarian aid professionals strategize
The public and private agencies that respond to war and disasters sometimes respond disastrously — and it’s time to do something about it. That was the basic message of a three-day Humanitarian Health Conference at Harvard Sept. 6-8, which drew more than 120 emergency physicians, epidemiologists, and professional aid workers from 68 organizations.
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Campus & Community
‘We are all teachers and we are all learners’
The threat of thunderstorms on Sunday (Sept. 9) persuaded planners of the Opening Exercises for the Class of 2011 to move the event from the tree-shaded lawns of Tercentenary Theatre to the varnished vaults of Sanders. The venerable auditorium, Harvard’s largest indoor venue, was filled to capacity by the crowd of freshmen and their parents.
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Arts & Culture
Center for the Technical Study of Modern Art announces landmark gift
The Center for the Technical Study of Modern Art (CTSMA), a leading research center of the Harvard University Art Museums, has announced a major gift of Barnett Newman’s studio materials and related ephemera through the generosity of The Barnett and Annalee Newman Foundation.
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Health
Stem cells make new heart valves
Researchers have coaxed adult stem cells into forming artificial heart valves that could one day mean fewer surgeries for children suffering from heart defects.
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Campus & Community
Mathematician Taylor wins Shaw Prize
Herchel Smith Professor of Mathematics Richard Taylor has been awarded the Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences for work that unified the diverse fields of prime numbers and symmetry. Taylor shares…
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Science & Tech
Biohybrid of elastic film and muscle cells packs a punch
In an innovative marriage of living cells and a synthetic substrate, bioengineers at Harvard University have found that a rubberlike, elastic film coated with a single layer of cardiac muscle cells can semi-autonomously engage in lifelike gripping, pumping, walking, and swimming.
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Campus & Community
First class of Ruffolo Fellows introduced at Kennedy School ceremony
A ceremony was held Sept. 21 at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) announcing the establishment of the Giorgio Ruffolo Fellowships in Sustainability Science and introducing the first Ruffolo Fellows to the Harvard community.
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Health
Primates expect others to act rationally
When trying to understand someone’s intentions, nonhuman primates expect others to act rationally by performing the most appropriate action allowed by the environment, according to a new study by researchers…
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Arts & Culture
New research challenges previous knowledge about the origins of urbanization
Ancient cities arose not by decree from a centralized political power, as was previously widely believed, but as the outgrowth of decisions made by smaller groups or individuals, according to a new study from researchers at Harvard University, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Edinburgh.
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Health
Scientists have something to chew on
In a groundbreaking study, two Harvard scientists have for the first time extracted human DNA from ancient artifacts. The work potentially opens up a new universe of sources for ancient genetic material, which is used to map human migrations in prehistoric times.
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Science & Tech
Creating a computer currency
Computer scientists are using the latest version of peer-to-peer video sharing software to explore a next-generation electronic commerce model that uses bandwidth as a global currency.