Science & Tech

Scientists at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have discovered a way to build self-assembling cages made of DNA. The cages are the largest stand-alone DNA structures made to date, and one day may be able to deliver drugs or house tiny bioreactors or photonic devices inside the human body.

MIT Professor Rosalind Picard and a team of researchers at the MIT Media Lab have created a wristband that can gauge a person’s emotional response to stimuli or situations by tapping skin conductance, an indicator of the state of the sympathetic nervous system, which controls the body’s flight-or-fight response by ramping up responses like heart rate and blood pressure.

Director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication Anthony Leiserowitz spoke at a Harvard Kennedy School seminar called “Climate Change in the American Mind.”

Nobel laureate Michael Spence offered some growth projections for China in a talk at the Science Center.

The World Wide Web turns 25 this week, so the Gazette sat down with Scott Bradner, a senior technology consultant with the University who has been involved with the Internet since the early days. Bradner says government regulation is the greatest threat looming over the Net, and its spread around the world via smartphones its greatest promise.

A team of Harvard researchers has demonstrated that the bacterium Rhodopseudomonas palustris can use natural conductivity to pull electrons from minerals located remotely in soil and sediment while remaining at the surface, where it absorbs the sunlight needed to produce energy.

Female academics are less likely to collaborate across rank, a Harvard study found.

A symposium on data visualization brought together experts from campus and beyond to show how technology in the arts, sciences, and humanities is helping people think in new ways.

New Harvard research points to a sharper method for evaluating basketball players.

In the Instructional Physics/SEAS Instrument Lab, a machine shop tucked in the basement of Lyman Laboratory, students learn to use a range of equipment — everything from lathes to laser cutters to 3-D printers.

Led by Professor David Liu, a team of researchers has developed a technique to continuously evolve biomolecules that uses negative selection — the ability to drive evolution away from certain traits — to create molecules with dramatically altered properties.

Four experts, including Nobel Prize winner Robert Wilson, came together for a CfA program titled “50 Years After the Discovery of the Big Bang.”

A team of students from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, just back from Japan, took home first prize in an international competition for solutions to sustainable recovery in a region of Japan devastated by a triple disaster in 2011.

A new study has uncovered a previously unseen phenomenon — that curved surfaces can dramatically alter the shape of crystals as they form.

The ongoing debate over climate change is a political one, not a scientific one, panelists at the Harvard Kennedy School said.

Inspired by termites’ resilience and collective intelligence, a team of computer scientists and engineers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University has created an autonomous robotic construction crew. The system needs no supervisor, just simple robots that cooperate.

Young women studying computer science were introduced to a group of potential role models as part of a weekend conference at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. The event, organized by Harvard Women in Computer Science, drew some of the most successful women in the field.

With the approach of Valentine’s Day, Harvard experts discuss expectations and students reveal their plans.

Shiri Cohen’s tips for surviving Valentine’s Day after a breakup.

A new research paper from Harvard Business School says food shoppers who bring their own bags are more likely than those who use disposables to buy healthy organic goods, but also treats like ice cream and chips.

Harvard’s Wyss Institute has found a new DNA-based, super-resolution microscopy method that could simultaneously spot dozens of distinct types of biomolecules. This could potentially lead to new ways to diagnose disease, track its prognosis, or monitor the effectiveness of therapies at a cellular level.

Originally scheduled to operate on the Red Planet’s surface for 90 Martian days, the rover Opportunity has now logged more than 3,500 days, traveled nearly 39 kilometers, and collected a trove of data that scientists have used to study the planet’s early history, particularly any past traces of water.

Robert Langer of MIT shared his hopes for bioengineering in a talk at Radcliffe.

Harvard symposium embraces the goals and challenges of collecting and processing massive amounts of information on key complex issues.

Master’s degree students in architecture present thesis topics in a traditional daylong January event that draws critical crossfire and praise.

A group of students from Harvard and Brazil toured the Deer Island sewage-treatment plant as part of a two-week program to investigate how cities adapt to seas rising due to climate change.

At the 3,700-acre Harvard Forest, three wood-fired boilers are providing scientists with a new tool to expand their understanding of climate change, while generating sustainable energy as well.

A Q&A with science Professor Lisa Randall, author of a new book explaining the significance of the Higgs boson, and why its discovery matters.

In a new study, Harvard researchers find that inclusive fitness — for decades a standard tool in understanding how altruism evolved — often leads to incorrect conclusions.

In making the most precise measurements ever of the shape of electrons, Harvard and Yale scientists have raised serious doubts about several popular theories of what lies beyond the Higgs boson.