Bit of happenstance, second look at ancient fossils leads to new insights into evolution of tardigrade, one of most indestructible life forms on planet
How did we get here? That’s not the first line in a hangover joke. It’s a question that has been asked for centuries about the origins of life on Earth. At Harvard last week, an A-list of astronomers, physicists, Earth scientists, and chemists met in the Radcliffe Gymnasium to look at this and other fundamental questions. (What is life? Are we alone in the universe?)
With the careers of a generation of young researchers threatened by five years of flat National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, Harvard President Drew Faust and leaders of six other…
When the Harvard University Science and Engineering Committee (HUSEC) gathered for its first meeting late last April, it was charged by not one, but two Harvard Presidents. Then President-designate and…
What might be Harvard’s oddest birthday party unfolded last week (Feb. 29-March 1). In a lecture hall at Maxwell Dworkin, 50 physicists gathered to share the latest research in spintronics, an emerging branch of their science concerned with the quantum spin states of electrons.
J. Craig Venter, the visionary biologist and intellectual entrepreneur who was a leading figure in the decoding of the human genome, will join Harvard University as a visiting scholar at…
In the public health field, there is an ongoing debate as to whether improvement in the overall health of the population is linked to increases or decreases in social inequities…
“This,” Joanna Aizenberg says slyly, picking up a latticed tube from her desk in Pierce Hall, “is a glass house you can throw stones at.” The tube, tapered to a close at one end and festooned with a cluster of curious white fibers at the tip, resembles an upturned dog’s tail. It is, in fact, the skeleton of a deep-sea sponge, she reveals, made entirely out of a natural glass. The tube acts as a kind of high-rise apartment building for shrimp that live symbiotically in the sponge’s tissue.
Disagreement over the public health impact of global warming emerged in a symposium Monday morning (Feb. 18) at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The colloquium, titled “Sustaining Human Health in a Changing Global Environment,” addressed what hazards can be expected as a result of rapid and continuing climate change. For additional AAAS coverage, page 9 http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/topics/harvard-aaas-news
Disagreement over the public health impact of global warming emerged in a symposium this morning at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The colloquium,…
The brain stem plays a greater role in speech perception than previously thought, according to Jackson T. Gandour, a professor of speech, language, and hearing sciences at Purdue University. “We…
Countries that do not comply with environmental treaties should be hit hard in their pocketbooks, MIT professor Lawrence Susskind said at a special lecture delivered today at the AAAS Meeting…
Shark-eating humans are putting pushing this finned species to the brink of extinction, Julia Baum today warned during a presentation at the AAAS annual meeting in Boston. A member of…
Researchers have identified a key reason why people make mistakes when they try to predict what they will like. According to the findings presented Sunday at the annual meeting of…
The public should not be asked to decide which science programs should receive public funding, says Daniel Sarewitz, director of the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes at Arizona State…
It’s getting harder and harder to blame the sun for causing the gradual increase in global temperatures that are now being seen in the climate record, scientists said today. In…
The United States must renew its resources in tracing unidentifiednuclear materials, specialists say. Michael May, a professor emeritus at Stanford University and the head ofa panel of nuclear forensic experts…
Venkatesh Narayanamurti, dean of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), who for 10 years has directed the renewal and expansion of the former division and its transition…
Religion greatly influences the American public’s views of technology, says Dietram Scheufele, a professor in the Department of Life Sciences Communications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Presenting new survey results…
Global warming is endangering marine life in Antarctic waters for the first time in millions of years, said specialists participating on a panel at the American Association for the Advancement…
The huge load of data now coming from modern computer systems is so overwhelming that new methods must be devised to allow people to visualize the world in more understandable…
It is now clear that creating a sustained, reliable, compassionate and widespread system that cares for tiny children born into troubled families is needed in this nation, said Jack P.…
Shedding new light on the great cognitive rift between humans and animals, a Harvard University scientist has synthesized four key differences in human and animal cognition into a hypothesis on…
In nearly every country in the world, there is a shortage of kidneys for transplantation. In the United States, around 73,000 people are on waiting lists to receive a kidney.…
Engineers at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have demonstrated a highly versatile, compact and portable Quantum Cascade Laser sensor for the fast detection of a large number of…
The Interactive Media Council has named the HarvardScience website “Best in Class” in both the medicine and science categories of its annual Interactive Media Awards competition. In notifying HarvardScience of…
By coaxing the HIV-1 protein to reveal a hidden portion of its protein coat, scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School have provided a newly detailed picture of…
The Linnean Society of London has awarded Edward O. Wilson, Pelegrino University Research Professor, Emeritus, one of three specially-commissioned Tercentenary Medals to honor his outstanding contribution to the world’s understanding…
Psychologists at Harvard University have developed a new method to study extrasensory perception that, they argue, can resolve the century-old debate over its existence. According to the authors, their study…
Harvard scientists have figured out how to turn cells on and off using magnets, an advance with potentially broad applications as researchers around the world work to find new ways…
Sulfur dioxide (SO2) may have played a key role in the climate and geochemistry of early Mars, geoscientists at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) suggest in…
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