Health

A robust new technique for screening drugs’ effects on zebrafish behavior is pointing Harvard scientists toward unexpected compounds and pathways that may govern sleep and wakefulness in humans. Among their…

Although the exact function of sleep remains unknown, sleep is clearly necessary for optimal cognitive performance, learning, and memory.

A group of Harvard scholars and visiting health care experts offers a pessimistic view of health care reform at a Harvard Medical School symposium.

Study uses quantum computing to make calculations, in a breakthrough that could change myriad fields, including cryptography and materials science.

Normal 0 0 1 701 4001 33 8 4913 11.1282 0 0 0 Ask people who suffer from migraine headaches what they do when they’re having attacks, and you’re likely…

The pressures of human evolution could explain the apparent rise of disorders such as autoimmune diseases and autism, researchers say. Some adaptations may even help such ailments persist.

Researchers devise method to pinpoint key genetic variations under positive natural selection that may impact human health.

Fossils may provide tantalizing clues to human history, but they also lack some vital information, such as revealing which pieces of human DNA have been favored by evolution because they…

Harvard researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have found that relatively young men with longstanding HIV infection and minimal cardiac risk factors had significantly more coronary atherosclerotic plaques — some…

Scientists come up with method to track neurons as they interact with each other.

Harvard researchers report having discovered a family of naturally occurring antiviral agents in human cells, a finding that may lead to better ways to prevent and treat influenza and other…

Harvard scientists have used light and genetic trickery to trace out neurons’ ability to excite or inhibit one another, literally shedding new light on the question of how neurons interact…

Harvard faculty members from a range of fields give tips on how to live healthy.

Harvard School of Public Health Dean Julio Frenk delivered the Barmes Global Health Lecture Dec. 15 at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, saying that new challenges and opportunities face the global health community amidst a changing health care landscape.

John Rinn, a researcher at Harvard Medical School, the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and the Broad Institute, overcame a rocky start in life through a passion for biology and discovered a new category of RNAs.

As it celebrates its 150th anniversary, the Museum of Comparative Zoology is acknowledging its past and looking to its future as a source of zoological knowledge.

If obesity trends continue, the negative effect on the health of the U.S. population will overtake the benefits gained from declining smoking rates, according to a study by Harvard and…

Jaime Sepulveda, former Mexican health official and a current director at the Gates Foundation, outlined plans to improve health for the poorest residents of Mesoamerica.

What, exactly, distinguishes humans from apes? It’s certainly more than just our genes, renowned anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. Hrdy, who received her A.B. in 1969 and Ph.D. in 1975 for work in Harvard’s Department of Anthropology, returned to speak on “Mothers and Others: The Origin of Emotionally Modern Humans.”

A cancer vaccine carried into the body on a carefully engineered, fingernail-sized implant is the first to successfully eliminate tumors in mammals, scientists report this week (Nov. 25) in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

A cancer vaccine carried into the body on a carefully engineered, fingernail-sized implant is the first to successfully eliminate tumors in mammals, a team of Harvard bioengineers and biologists report…

Yasuko Nagasaka is among 81 recipients awarded a Shore Fellowship. Such grants can be used for “mini-sabbaticals” by junior faculty who do not yet have independent funding.

Normal 0 0 1 819 4673 38 9 5738 11.1282 0 0 0 Scientists have devised an innovative way to disarm a key protein considered to be “undruggable,” meaning that…

A consortium of Harvard and five other leading research universities and the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) have endorsed a far-reaching “Statement of Principles and Strategies for the Equitable…

Three-day symposium opens, focusing attention on the rise of breast cancer in developing nations, even as resources are scarce to contain it.

Breaking up may actually not be hard to do, say scientists who’ve found a population of butterflies that may be on its way to a split into two distinct species.

Colonies of army ants, whose long columns and marauding habits are the stuff of natural-history legend, are usually antagonistic to each other, attacking soldiers from rival colonies in border disputes that keep the colonies separate. But new work by a researcher at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology and colleagues at the University of Copenhagen shows that in some cases the colonies can be cooperative instead of combative.

Normal 0 0 1 415 2369 19 4 2909 11.1282 0 0 0 Colonies of army ants, whose long columns and marauding habits are the stuff of natural-history legend, are…

Julio Frenk, dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, touts global progress on women’s health issues, though more challenges lie ahead.

Biologists have shown that independent but similar molecular changes turned a harmless digestive enzyme into a toxin in two unrelated species — a shrew and a lizard, giving each a venomous bite