Science & Tech

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.

Psychologists at Harvard University have found that infants younger than a year old understand social dominance and use relative size to predict who will prevail when two individuals’ goals conflict.

With little more than a conventional photocopier and transparency film, anyone can build a functional microfluidic chip.

Using a new form of laser imaging device, Brooke Flammang and colleagues at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology have discovered that “the dorsal and the anal fin make a great contribution to the caudal [tail fin] wake,” and thus are additional propellers, and not just stabilizers. A cichlid swims in the particles that the laser illuminates.

Physicists and bioengineers have developed an optical instrument allowing them to control the behavior of a worm just by shining a tightly focused beam of light at individual neurons inside the organism.

Harvard researchers have discovered that Bacillus subtilis biofilm colonies exhibit an unmatched ability to repel a wide range of liquids — and even vapors. The finding holds promise for developing better ways to eliminate harmful biofilms that can clog pipes, contaminate food production and water supply systems, and lead to infections.

Undergraduates in Engineering Sciences 51: “Computer-Aided Machine Design” spent a semester learning to design gadgets in SolidWorks, building candy-flinging catapults, and mastering the use of the soldering iron. Then came the final assignment: Transform a cordless power screwdriver into a functional all-terrain vehicle.

Using digitized books as a “cultural genome,” a team of researchers from Harvard, Google, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and the American Heritage Dictionary, unveil a quantitative approach to centuries of trends.

Thanks to the digital revolution, Harvard is developing a legion of cyberspace fans in the world of social media.

Across the University, digitization is rapidly changing the nature of scholarship, opening doors to information and collaboration, and redefining research and education.

Through analyzing the locations of authors of academic papers, researchers have determined that physical proximity of collaborators, especially between the first and last author, correlates with how widely the paper is cited.

Small and midsize cities in poor countries will be among those that suffer most from climate change’s droughts, floods, landslides, and rising waters, an expert on the world’s urban poor said in a talk at Harvard’s Center for Population and Development Studies.

Engineers at Duke and Harvard universities have developed a “magnetic sponge” that after implantation into a patient can “squeeze” out drugs, cells, or other agents when passed over by a magnet.

More than 500 students in the introductory computer science course CS 50 descended on the Northwest Science Building for a music-thumping, popcorn-eating fair where students showed off their projects.

Harvard psychologists have found that the centuries-old “one-drop rule” assigning minority status to mixed-race individuals appears to live on in our modern-day perception and categorization of people like Barack Obama, Tiger Woods, and Halle Berry.

Illustrating the tenacious bond between science and cooking, students used physics, chemistry, and biology to manipulate recipes and create foods that stretch the imagination.

The art and technology of care giving — undervalued now — “cuts to the quick” of our humanity. Caring — for others, for ourselves, even for things and places — is at the core of our humanity. But how to cope with its demands in a medical setting was the subject of a two-panel conference, sponsored by the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard.

We resolve to exercise more and eat healthy, and then reach for a cupcake at the office holiday party. We pledge to put money away for retirement, but end up maxing out credit cards that charge 14 percent interest. According to Professor David Laibson, the reason for these struggles is that human beings are of two minds, one patient and one impatient.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said that strong Republican gains in November’s election do not mean there is a public mandate to roll back EPA protections.