Science & Tech

All Science & Tech

  • A gentle grip on gelatinous creatures

    To study jellyfish and other fragile marine life without damaging them, researchers developed ultra-soft underwater grippers that catch and release jellyfish without harm.

    Soft robotic grippers for jellyfish
  • Exposing how pancreatic cancer does its dirty work

    New research has found that pancreatic cancer actively destroys nearby blood vessels and replaces them with cancerous cells, blocking chemotherapy from reaching tumors. This insight could lead to new treatments that act by preventing cancer’s colonization of blood vessels.

    Pancreatic cancer cell
  • How a zebrafish model may hold a key to biology

    Martin Haesemeyer set out to build an artificial neural network that worked differently than fish’s brains, but what he got was a system that almost perfectly mimicked the zebrafish — and that could be a powerful tool for understanding biology.

    Researchers looking at zebrafish
  • Want to avoid climate-related disasters? Try moving

    For decades, the response to flooding and hurricanes was a vow to rebuild. A.R. Siders believes the time has come to consider managed retreat, or the practice of moving communities away from disaster-prone areas to safer lands.

    Storm surge hitting houses along coast.
  • Clever crows

    A new paper, co-authored by Dakota McCoy, a graduate student working in the lab of George Putnam Professor of Biology David Haig, suggests that, after using tools, crows were more optimistic.

    Crow with tool
  • Prospects clouded for finding life on the largest class of planets

    Led by Laura Kreidberg, a Clay Fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, a new study shows that LHS 3844b, a terrestrial exoplanet orbiting a small sun 48.6 light-years away, has no detectable atmosphere

    planet is depicted as being largely covered with dark basalt plains.
  • How the moon came to be

    A fourth-year graduate student in the lab of Professor of Geochemistry Stein Jacobsen, Yaray Ku is working on a project aimed at understanding how the moon formed, and to do it, she’s working with actual lunar samples.

    Yaya Ku researches the moon
  • Astronomy Lab sees the light — and wants everyone else to, too

    Accessibility devices at the lab use sound to allow the visually impaired to envision the stars

    Astronomy lab manager showing braille in the astronomy lab
  • Uncovering how cells become organs

    Tiny sensors are embedded into stretchable, integrated mesh that grows with the developing tissue, allowing scientists to track how cells grow into organs.

    Contraction of cyborg human cardiac organoid
  • A red oak live tweets climate change

    Tree in Harvard Forest outfitted with sensors, cameras, and other digital equipment sends out on-the-ground coverage.

    Tree branches with blue birds
  • Predicting the strength of earthquakes

    Scientists will be able to predict earthquake magnitudes earlier thanks to new research by Marine Denolle, assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard.

    Professor and students looking at earthquake chart.
  • Mercury levels in fish are on the rise

    A new study concludes that while the regulation of mercury emissions have successfully reduced methylmercury levels in fish, spiking temperatures are driving those levels back up and will play a major role in the methylmercury levels of marine life in the future.

    Fish swimming in ocean
  • Giving teachers a DNA refresher

    Mansi Srivastava’s lab worked with middle school teachers in an education workshop on DNA and evolution.

    teachers participating in a workshop
  • The Mesoamerican attraction to magnetism

    Led by Assistant Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences Roger Fu, a team of researchers has shown that the makers of ancient Mesoamerican statues found in Guatemala intentionally carved the figures to place the magnetic areas over the navel or right temple — suggesting not only that they were familiar with the concept of magnetism, but had some way of detecting the magnetic anomalies.

  • Electrifying insights into how bodies form

    A researcher is reviving the study of bioelectricity to learn how cells communicate with each other to form tissues and organs, and how harnessing those signals could one day lead to truly regenerative medicine, in which amputees could simply regrow limbs.

    Mike Levin
  • Visual forensics that can detect fake text

    Researchers at the SEAS and IBM Research developed a better way to help people detect AI-generated text.

    Typewriter with word fake typed out
  • Using body heat to speed healing

    To speeding up wound healing, researchers have developed active adhesive dressings based on heat-responsive hydrogels that are mechanically active, stretchy, tough, highly adhesive, and antimicrobial.

    Hand with tough gel adhesive bandage
  • A new spin on an old question

    Understanding how DNA and proteins interact — or fail to — could help answer fundamental biological questions about human health and disease.

    A rendering of a DNA propeller
  • A way to make Mars habitable

    Researchers from Harvard University, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, and the University of Edinburgh suggest that regions of the Martian surface could be made habitable with a material — silica aerogel — that would mimic Earth’s atmospheric greenhouse effect.

    Robin Wordsworth
  • Harvard reflects on Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong’s moon walk

    A trio of Harvard astronomers reflect on the impact of Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon, then and now.

    Earthrise viewed from lunar orbit.
  • Beneath the surface

    New study debunks long-held theory that dolphins had ridged skin, which helped them swim faster.

    Dolphins swimming
  • Solving a statistical nightmare

    Researchers have discovered why the North Atlantic and Northeast Pacific appeared to warm twice as much as the global average, while the Northwest Pacific cooled over several decades.

    Image of ocean
  • Are we alone in the universe?

    Harvard astronomer Laura Kreidberg studies the atmospheres of extrasolar planets to search for signs of life.

    Center for Astrophysics astronomer Laura Kreidberg framed by a metal structure
  • Plague genomes show extent, diversity of massive Roman-era pandemic

    New research from an interdisciplinary team of researchers shows an early plague pandemic reached post-Roman Britain and had unexpected genetic diversity.

    Michael McCormick standing with a tree
  • A product idea with legs

    Dakota McCoy, in collaboration with David Haig, led a group of researchers at Harvard studying the black spider and its ultrablack coat with microlenses that could lead to innovations in solar panels and sunglasses glare.

    Peacock spider.
  • Spreading seeds of life

    Scientists at the Institute for Theory and Computation have made a comprehensive calculation suggesting that panspermia could happen, and have found that as many as 10 trillion asteroid-sized objects might exist that carry life.

    Idan Ginsburg at Harvard College Observatory.
  • Soft robots for all

    The first soft ring oscillator gets plushy robots to roll, undulate, sort, meter liquids, and swallow.

    Hand holding oscillators
  • Polarizing apposite

    A portable, miniature camera that can image polarization in a single shot has potential applications in machine vision, autonomous vehicles, security, atmospheric chemistry, and more.

    Polorization graphic illustration
  • So you think he can dance?

    Snowball the dancing cockatoo is the subject of a study by Radcliffe fellow and Tufts neuroscientist Ani Patel, who suggests the bird’s ability to move in time to music is connected to the way humans groove to a beat.

  • Single letter speaks volumes

    Scientists have used an optimized version of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing system to prevent hearing loss in so-called Beethoven mice, which carry a genetic mutation that causes profound hearing loss in humans and mice alike.