Tag: Science

  • Nation & World

    Magnetism on the moon

    A team of researchers from Harvard, MIT, and the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris have proposed a surprisingly simple explanation for magnetic anomalies that have baffled scientists since the mid-1960s, suggesting they are remnants of a massive asteroid. As described in a paper published in Science, the researchers believe an asteroid slammed into…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Ronold W. P. King

    At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on December 6, 2011, the Minute honoring the life and service of the late Ronold W. P. King, Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics, Emeritus, was placed upon the records. Professor King, a dedicated teacher and scholar, was an expert on linear antennas.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Michael Tinkham

    At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on December 6, 2011, the Minute honoring the life and service of the late Michael Tinkham, Rumford Professor of Physics and Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics in the Physics Department and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Emeritus, was placed upon the records.…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Eight from Harvard headed Down Under

    The Harvard Club of Australia Foundation has announced fellowship awards to eight accomplished Harvard researchers intending collaborative scientific research in Australia during 2012, and to two Australian researchers headed to Harvard.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Sending DNA robot to do the job

    Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have developed a robotic device made from DNA that could potentially seek out specific cell targets within a complex mixture of cell types and deliver important molecular instructions, such as telling cancer cells to self-destruct or programming immune responses.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Immersed in the body politic

    Susan Greenhalgh, a new professor in Harvard’s anthropology department, studies China’s controversial one-child policy, finding lessons for American health policymakers, too.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Secrets of ancient Chinese remedy revealed

    For roughly 2,000 years, Chinese herbalists have treated malaria using a root extract, commonly known as chang shan, from a type of hydrangea that grows in Tibet and Nepal. More recent studies suggest that halofuginone, a compound derived from this extract’s bioactive ingredient, could be used to treat many autoimmune disorders as well. Now, researchers…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The ‘diversity problem’ in science

    Opportunities for women and people of color to pursue careers in science have improved in recent years, but still lag behind those of white men, Harvard College Dean Evelynn M. Hammonds told a crowd at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in her keynote address at the Institute Diversity Summit.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    NAS honors four faculty

    Michael J. Hopkins, Jonathan B. Losos, Andrew H. Knoll, and Jason P. Mitchell have been honored by the National Academy of Sciences for their extraordinary scientific achievements.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    India sees gains from gender quota

    A new research paper co-authored by Harvard Kennedy School Professor Rohini Pande finds that the system designating female leaders for selected village councils in India has resulted in substantive gains for girls in those villages — both in terms of aspirations and educational outcomes.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Dealing with data

    A computer program developed by brothers David and Yakir Reshef, together with Professors Michael Mitzenmacher and Pardis Sabeti, enables researchers to scour massive data sets for meaningful relationships that might otherwise have been missed.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Donald Ingber wins 2011 Holst Medal

    Donald Ingber, the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and founding director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, has been awarded the 2011 Holst Medal.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Why some TB cells resist antibiotics

    A new study led by Harvard School of Public Health researchers provides a novel explanation as to why some tuberculosis cells are inherently more difficult to treat with antibiotics.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Of helixes, neurons, and chemicals

    Science writer Carl Zimmer talked about the surprising number of science-oriented tattoos gotten by scientists, who wear their love of science proudly, and his related book, “Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed,” during a lecture at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Sinking ice and hovering foams

    The annual Science & Cooking Fair shows off students’ final projects from the undergraduate General Education course “Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to the Science of Soft Matter.”

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Three GSAS among winners of HHMI fellowships

    Three Graduate School of Arts and Sciences students — Nataly Moran Cabili, Mehmet Fisek, and Le Cong — are among the 48 winners in a new fellowship competition from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Worming out of listening

    A freshman seminar helps students to understand Darwin by reading his works and re-creating 10 experiments — including one showing that the wiggly creatures just don’t hear.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Harvard Catalyst collaborative funding opportunity

    Harvard Catalyst, The Harvard Clinical and Translational Research Center has presented unique funding opportunities for faculty, staff, and students.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Relief for stem cell transplant patients

    In a study that seems to pivot on a paradox, scientists at Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have used an immune system stimulant as an immune system suppressor to treat a common, often debilitating side effect of donor stem cell transplantation in cancer patients. The effect, in some cases, was profound.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Rebuilding the brain’s circuitry

    Harvard scientists have rebuilt genetically diseased circuitry in a section of the mouse hypothalamus, an area controlling obesity and energy balance, demonstrating that complex and intricately wired circuitry of the brain long considered incapable of cellular repair can be rewired with the right type of neuronal “replacement parts.”

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Wyss Institute hosts competition

    The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering hosted an inaugural biomolecular design competition on Nov. 5.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Tracing biological pathways

    A new chemical process developed by a team of Harvard researchers may increase the utility of positron emission tomography (PET) in creating real-time 3-D images of chemical processes occurring inside the human body.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Survival strategy of cancer cells

    A new study led by a scientific team at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School has uncovered another key mechanism that cancer cells use as part of their survival strategy — and once again it seems that they are using an enzyme called PKM2 to their advantage.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Halloween — it’s a scream!

    The Harvard Allston Education Portal’s Halloween “Treat and Greet” melded education with costumed fun.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Sharing the fun of research

    Scholar, friends develop guidebook to help younger students understand, succeed in science.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Lee Davenport, radar physicist, 95

    Lee L. Davenport, a pioneering radar physicist who has been credited for helping to bring an end to World War II, died on Sept. 30, of cancer in Greenwich, Conn.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Award-winning teaching

    Professor of Astronomy David Charbonneau and Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Molecular and Cellular Biology Hopi Hoekstra have been named as the recipients of the inaugural Fannie Cox Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Eight researchers win PECASE awards

    President Barack Obama named 94 researchers as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, including eight from Harvard.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    He blended it with science

    Harvard professor and current Radcliffe fellow Michael Brenner explores the evolution of his wildly popular cooking course.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    New approach to traumatic brain injuries

    Bioengineers at Harvard have, for the first time, explained how the blast of an exploding bomb can translate into subtly disastrous injuries in the nerve cells and blood vessels of the brain.

    6 minutes