Featured series 
Tag: Science
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Nation & World
‘Learned exchange’ goal of HCA fellowship
Now in its third year of operation, the Australia-Harvard Fellowship supports innovative researchers who may be planning collaborative work with Australian research organizations. Sponsored by the Harvard Club of Australia (HCA) Foundation, the fellowship aims to support learned exchange between the University and Australia.
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Nation & World
University’s ‘what-if’ planning for bird flu in sync with new CDC guidelines
Recently released U.S. government guidelines for combating a potential avian flu pandemic closely resemble response strategies that have been under development by Harvard planners since October 2005. Both the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines – available online at http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/community/community_mitigation.pdf – and Harvard’s ongoing “what-if” planning say that the best protection against a flu pandemic…
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Nation & World
Symposium: ‘Will brain imaging be lie detector test of the future?’
For almost a century, one of the staples of crime stories has been the wires, cuffs, and jiggling recording needle of the polygraph machine. In its time, the “lie detector” was hailed as a way to measure the telltale physiological signs of deception, including hard breathing, high blood pressure, and excess perspiration. But in truth,…
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Nation & World
Orangutan research yields conservation dividends
The population of the orangutan, one of humankind’s closest animal relatives, has declined with human expansion. The orangutan population declined by 97 percent in the 20th century and over 90 percent of their rainforest habitat has been destroyed. The factors contributing to that decline – illegal logging, conversion of forestland to agriculture, and hunting to…
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Nation & World
World’s largest oil firm chief touts research to make fossil fuels ‘cleaner’
The head of the world’s largest oil company said that renewable sources can’t meet the world’s growing energy needs so research dollars should be aimed at both developing renewable sources and at making fossil fuels cleaner.
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Nation & World
Current U.S. renewable energy goal too low, says head of national lab
The head of the U.S. government’s renewable energy lab said Monday (Feb. 5) that the federal government is doing “embarrassingly few things” to foster renewable energy, leaving leadership to the states at a time of opportunity to change the nation’s energy future.
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Nation & World
Arctic hit by global warming first
Scientists from the eight nations bordering the Arctic recently enlisted representatives of the region’s native peoples to help assess climate change there. What they found put a human face on a debate often involving distant projections and abstract numbers. Less snow, less sea ice, freezing rain in winter, and the appearance of mosquitoes and robins,…
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Nation & World
Poor fall behind in birth control
Modern contraception has come a long way in the past 20 years, what with diaphragms, hormones, implants, intrauterine devices, condoms, spermicides, and sterilization. But the boom in birth control has been a bust for the poorest women in the world.
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Nation & World
Light and matter united
Lene Hau has already shaken scientists’ beliefs about the nature of things. Albert Einstein and just about every other physicist insisted that light travels 186,000 miles a second in free space, and that it can’t be speeded-up or slowed down. But in 1998, Hau, for the first time in history, slowed light to 38 miles…
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Nation & World
Kuwait Program accepting grant proposals
The Kennedy School of Government (KSG) has announced the 12th funding cycle for the Kuwait Program Research Fund. With the support of the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences, a Kennedy School faculty committee will consider applications for one-year grants (up to $30,000) and larger grants for more extensive proposals to support advanced research…
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Nation & World
Former Arboretum director Ashton wins Japan Prize
Peter Shaw Ashton, the Charles Bullard Professor of Forestry Emeritus and former director of the Arnold Arboretum, has won the prestigious Japan Prize for his “significant contributions towards solving the conflict between human beings and the tropical forest ecosystem.”
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Nation & World
DARPA funds new initiative at Harvard
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently announced its funding of a new multi-institution research initiative in nano- and micro-electro-mechanical systems (NEMS/MEMS) in affiliation with Harvard’s programs in engineering and applied sciences. The three-year program has more than $2 million in total funding from DARPA and industry partners.
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Nation & World
Gingerich awarded Janssen Prize
Owen Gingerich, professor of astronomy and of the history of science emeritus, has been awarded the 2006 Janssen Prize by the Société Astronomique de France (French Astronomical Society).
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Nation & World
Two from Harvard win science medals
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will honor 18 individuals, including two Harvard researchers, for their fundamental contributions to human knowledge. Harvard’s award recipients are Randy Lee Buckner, professor of psychology, and Richard M. Losick, Maria Moors Cabot Professor of Biology.
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Nation & World
Marathon running can damage a heart
Running 26.2 miles is not for the faint of heart. Abnormalities in heart structure and function were found in men and women who ran the Boston Marathon in 2004 and 2005 by Harvard Medical School researchers.
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Nation & World
Big brains better for birds
As you might guess, big-brained birds survive better in the wild than those less cerebral for their size. Scientists guessed that too, but they had to prove it to themselves.
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Nation & World
Mystery muscles make mightier mice
Scientists have muscled in on a genetic switch that allows mice to run longer and faster. Humans possess the same switch, so the discovery might open new paths to treating muscle-wasting diseases and building better bodies.
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Nation & World
World’s largest flower evolved from family of much tinier blooms
The plant with the world’s largest flower – typically a full meter across, with a bud the size of a basketball – evolved from a family of plants whose blossoms are nearly all tiny, botanists write this week in the journal Science. Their genetic analysis of rafflesia reveals that it is closely related to a…
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Nation & World
Sengupta wins $4.1 million ‘Era of Hope’ award for breast cancer advances
An assistant professor of medicine at Harvard has won a $4.1 million “Era of Hope” scholar award from the U.S. Defense Department’s Breast Cancer Research Program in support of his cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research aimed at fighting breast and other types of cancer.
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Nation & World
Harvard creates new, University-wide committee to guide interdisciplinary efforts in science
The Harvard Corporation has authorized the establishment of a new, University-wide standing committee on science and engineering to guide the University into a new era of collaborative, cross-disciplinary science initiatives. The Corporation also created a $50 million fund to provide initial support for the committee’s work, pending the submission of a budget by the committee.
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Nation & World
New myeloma drug proves more potent, less toxic than thalidomide
A designer drug significantly less toxic than thalidomide has shown impressive activity in prolonging survival of patients with advanced multiple myeloma, report researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. A multicenter Phase II study of lenalidomide, an altered version of thalidomide, found a response rate of 25 percent among patients with myeloma that had recurred despite multiple…
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Nation & World
Prostate treatment has risks
A treatment mainstay for prostate cancer puts men at increased risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease, according to a large observational study published in the Sept. 20 Journal of Clinical Oncology. “Men with prostate cancer have high five-year survival rates, but they also have higher rates of noncancer mortality than healthy men,” says study author…
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Nation & World
DEAS welcomes Harvard astronaut back to Earth
International Space Station designers thought of everything concerning astronaut comfort while sleeping. There are sleeping bags, straps to hold astronauts against the wall, and, according to NASA astronaut Stephanie Wilson, there’s even a strap to hold their heads to the pillow against the weightlessness of space. Wilson, who graduated from Harvard in 1988, returned to…
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Nation & World
Bloxham named FAS divisional dean
Geophysicist Jeremy Bloxham has been named dean for the physical sciences in Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), Dean Jeremy R. Knowles announced Aug. 10.
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Nation & World
Jim Kim, former HIV director at WHO, to head HSPH center
Jim Yong Kim, a former director of the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS unit, has been appointed director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). He will become François-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of Health and Human Rights at the School.
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Nation & World
HSCI/MGH researchers identify gene product involved in stem cell aging and death
A multi-institutional team of Harvard researchers may have advanced our understanding of physiological aging with a new study in which they greatly reduced the impact of aging on blood stem cells. A report on their findings appears in the latest edition of the journal Nature along with similar but independent findings from research teams at…
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Nation & World
Interns continue to work overly long shifts, study finds
That intern working on you at the hospital may be so sleep-deprived his or her performance is no better than that of a drunk. That’s one conclusion of a national study by investigators at the Harvard Medical School.
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Nation & World
Newsmakers
Harvard University graduate students Satoru Takahashi and Gernot Wagner were recently selected by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as two of 50 outstanding research participants to attend the second Lindau Meeting in Economic Sciences. The meeting, held in Lindau, Germany, Aug. 16-19, welcomed winners of the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in memory…
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Nation & World
Government reps visit campus, learn from researchers
As a part of the Office of Government, Community and Public Affairs program to introduce individuals involved in federal funding activities to Harvard researchers, a delegation from the National Science Foundation and the House Appropriations Committee spent this past Monday (Aug. 21) on campus.