Science & Tech

Just how much should we allow “human nature” to guide our politics — and our everyday decision making? Columnist David Brooks and a trio of Harvard analysts debated new findings on the unconscious mind during a panel discussion.

Harvard physicists have expanded the possibilities for quantum engineering of novel materials such as high-temperature superconductors by coaxing ultracold atoms trapped in an optical lattice — a light crystal — to self-organize into a magnet, according to an article in the journal Nature.

Professor Michael McCormick has been working with tree-ring experts, bringing the perspective of long-ago writings to understanding environmental conditions.

Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, says the world should stop waiting for governments to solve the global warming problem. He called on academics to band together to find workable solutions.

Scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and SiEnergy Systems LLC have demonstrated the first macro-scale thin-film solid-oxide fuel cell. This is the first time a research group has overcome the structural challenges of scaling up the technology to a practical size with a proportionally higher power output.

Two Harvard undergraduates have developed a website called Newsle that tracks news of Facebook and Linked In contacts.

SEAS research has revealed that differential growth and ruffling at the edges of each petal — not in the midrib, as commonly suggested — provide the force behind the lily’s bloom. The work contradicts earlier theories regarding the growth within the flower bud.

Within hours of the massive earthquake that struck Japan on March 11, Harvard’s Center for Geographic Analysis had launched a web-based data clearinghouse, the Japan Sendai Earthquake Data Portal, to provide a site where disaster responders can find needed information.

Student entrepreneurs at Harvard have won $50,000 in grants to support further development of innovative ventures in the Harvard College Innovation Challenge.

Graduate student Alice A. Chen received the prestigious $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize on Wednesday (March 9) for her innovative applications of microtechnology to study human health and disease.

Scientists can finally look at circuits in the brain in all of their complexity. How the mind works is one of the greatest mysteries in nature, and this research presents a new and powerful way for us to explore that mystery.

Three technology proposals from the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have been selected for presentation at the University Research and Entrepreneurship Symposium (URES).

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) today (March 9) named Leslie G. Valiant the winner of the 2010 ACM A.M. Turing Award for his fundamental contributions to the development of computational learning theory and to the broader theory of computer science.

A new research paper by Harvard geophysicists Brendan Meade and Jack Love-less says that the earth sciences principle of plate tectonics is applicable on a continental scale.

Only 39 percent of the nearly 10,000 North American plant species threatened with extinction are being maintained in collections, according to the first comprehensive listing of the threatened plant species in Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

Fueling America’s war effort is an expensive proposition, costing not only money but lives, since supply convoys are routinely attacked. The constraints imposed by an energy-hungry military prompted the Defense Department to investigate conservation techniques.

A new history of science course on the environment moves past the fictions of an unspoiled earlier time of discovery and settlement.

Professor Gu-Yeon Wei explores energy-efficient computing devices that are fast but draw minimal power.

Harvard graduate student Wonyoung Kim has developed and demonstrated a new device with the potential to reduce the power usage of modern processing chips.

Michael Brenner, Glover Professor of Applied Mathematics and Applied Physics at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, has been awarded the George Ledlie Prize by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

On February 15, 2001, a decade ago, the first draft sequence and analysis of the human genome—the blue print for a human being—was published in the journal Nature. On the tenth anniversary of that transformative moment, Harvard hosted an interdisciplinary, multi-institutional forum on the genome project’s origins, promise, and significance to society.

Two insiders view the BP oil spill as a failure of management — but also as an incident that revealed deep regulatory and safety failures.

Harvard-led research has found that migrating tissue flows very much like colloidal glass. The research advances scientists’ understanding of wound healing, cancer metastasis, and embryonic development.

To mark the 10th anniversary of the publication of the Human Genome Map, Harvard President Drew Faust will host a panel discussion on the project next week (Feb. 22) in Sanders Theatre.

Engineers and scientists collaborating at Harvard University and the MITRE Corp. have developed and demonstrated the world’s first programmable nanoprocessor.

Research by physicists from Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Princeton, and Brandeis shows that clay vesicles provide an ideal container for the compartmentalization of complex organic molecules. The discovery opens the possibility that primitive cells may have formed inside inorganic clay microcompartments.

Bruce Sohn, president of the power company First Solar, says that reducing the cost of solar energy is on the horizon, but solar power has to grow dramatically if it is to replace fossil fuels.

Five recent graduates of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences talked to current students about life beyond Harvard in the first of a series of engineering-themed career events hosted by the FAS Office of Career Services.

Harvard’s Office of Technology Development tries to ensure that the public sees the benefits of Harvard’s research by licensing new technology to companies.

From oddities like breathable chocolate to history-making devices with profound societal effects, like the heart pacemaker, Harvard’s combination of questing minds, restless spirits, and intellectual seekers fosters creativity and innovation that’s finding an outlet in new inventions and companies.