Tag: Work in Progress
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Nation & World
Strong student support found for war
American college students strongly support U.S. war objectives in Afghanistan aimed against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda terrorist network, according to a survey conducted by the Institute…
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Nation & World
Anthrax expert Matthew Meselson speaks out
In 1992-93, Harvard Professor Matthew Meselson investigated the largest known outbreak of inhalation anthrax in history, which occurred in the Soviet Union in 1979. The anthrax was accidentally released from…
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Nation & World
WHO report reviews world mental health care
Since the mid-1970s, World Health Organization policies have encouraged integrating mental health services into primary care settings. But no one knows what, if anything, might be working to help those…
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Nation & World
How does the brain reinvent itself?
In order for us to use our minds for memory, for learning, and so forth, our brains must continually reinvent themselves. How do they do it? A Harvard Medical School…
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Nation & World
Anthrax toxin receptor discovered
The first point of contact between anthrax toxin that invades the body and the cells that the toxin will eventually destroy is a protein, known as a “docking” protein or…
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Nation & World
Cognition unaffected by marijuana use
Harrison Pope, a Harvard professor of psychiatry, and his colleagues at McLean Hospital, a Harvard-affiliated psychiatric facility in Belmont, Mass., investigated the long-term cognitive effects of smoking marijuana. They recruited…
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Nation & World
Drug patents not crucial in AIDS fight, researchers find
About 25 million people are infected with AIDS in Africa and just 25,000, or one in 1,000, are receiving antiretroviral drug treatment. Patents for anti-AIDS drugs have come under fire…
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Nation & World
Cardiovascular risks seen from marathon running
Researchers analyzed the blood of marathon runners less than 24 hours after they had finished a race. They found abnormally high levels of inflammatory and clotting factors of the kind…
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Nation & World
A strategy to neutralize anthrax toxin in the body
A Harvard Medical School research team has developed a strategy to neutralize anthrax toxin in the body. So far they have tried the treatment in rats. Normally, rats die within…
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Nation & World
Anthrax immunity gene found in mice
Anthrax is an often fatal disease that is caused by a bacterium. It has been considered a prime biological weapon in the arsenal of terrorists since attacks in the United…
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Nation & World
New use found for black silicon
In 1999, Harvard researchers used laser pulses to etch the surface of silicon, the most common substance used in electronic devices. By accident, they created a material that efficiently traps…
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Nation & World
Researchers identify genes that trigger depression
A substance known as CREB controls gene expression in the brain. It also appears to be active in mood disorders. A group of Harvard researchers at McLean Hospital in Belmont,…
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Nation & World
Student investigates investing in Mother Earth
Managers of “green” mutual investment funds seek to invest their clients’ money in socially responsible and environmentally friendly companies. But those managers, and individual investors, are often hampered by a…
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Nation & World
Study shows strong public interest in genetic testing for Alzheimer’s disease
A genetic test to determine a person’s chance of getting Alzheimer’s disease is still hypothetical. But scientists are getting closer and closer to being able to determine who is likely…
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Nation & World
One-tenth of medical residents feel unprepared
Findings from a study suggest that gaps exist in the preparedness of physicians to manage the full range of patients, procedures and problems they may encounter. A surprising one in…
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Nation & World
Cell death in eggs traced to smoking
A woman is born with just so many egg cells, called oocytes. When she begins ovulating, she has about 400. Even though that may seem like a lot, considering the…
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Nation & World
Common aspirin reveals mechanism of insulin resistance
In 1876, a German professor described a treatment that led to rapid improvement in two men who were suffering from what doctors now recognize as classic type 2 diabetes. In…
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Nation & World
Resistance to antibodies is reversed
It’s a frightening — and increasingly common — problem. A patient seeks treatment for a particular ailment in a hospital and develops an entirely different disease: a bacterial infection that…
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Nation & World
Medicaid coverage for anti-AIDS drugs would be cost effective
It’s long been said that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” A new study from the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis applies the principle to treating…
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Nation & World
Sorting good eggs from bad ones
An oocyte is an immature egg cell in the ovaries. Before a woman is born, her ovaries will contain about five million eggs. At birth, about three million of those…
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Nation & World
Researchers discover new type of cancer
A team led by a Harvard researcher has identified a new type of cancer that primarily affects young girls. Sara Vargas, an instructor in pathology at Harvard Medical School and…
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Nation & World
Harvard scientists identify chromosome location of genes associated with long life
Scientists have long thought of aging as a complex process affected by perhaps a thousand genes. So a recent discovery by Harvard scientists that a gene or genes located on…
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Nation & World
Nutrition book author Willett rebuilds USDA food pyramid
For more than 20 years researchers at Harvard and elsewhere have been looking at the long-term health effects of eating certain types of foods. These researchers now have a good…
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Nation & World
U.S. stepped aside during Rwandan genocide
Samantha Power, executive director of the John F. Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, conducted a three-year-long investigation into what the United States government knew, didn’t know, and…
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Nation & World
Study shows obesity can increase risk of pancreatic cancer
Each year almost 30,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. About the same number of people are killed by it. Pancreatic cancer is the fifth-leading cause…
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Nation & World
Drug hits new molecular target in mice
When doctors diagnose and plan treatment for breast cancers they look for various indicators of how aggressive they are and what treatments will work best. Two-thirds of breast tumors are…
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Nation & World
Harvard undergraduate discovers novel atomic cluster
Eighteen-year-old Kevin Chan, a member of the Harvard College Class of 2004, used a supercomputer to discover a novel arrangement of atoms that had been missed by other scientists studying…
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Nation & World
Why antimatter matters so much
In 1995, experimenters made nine or 10 atoms of antihydrogen at the Center for European Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland. Since then, researchers have sought a method for making more…
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Nation & World
Study suggests pacemaker and defibrillator recalls on the rise
As more heart patients receive pacemakers and implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) generators, more recalls are being issued for the devices, according to a study led by a Harvard Medical School instructor…