Science & Tech
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Journey to a key front in climate-change fight
Amazon immersion fosters partnerships, offers students, researchers hard look at threats to economic security, environment of rainforest as Earth warms
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A birder’s biggest enemy in rainforest: complacency
Senior integrative biology concentrator spots 121 species during research, teaching intensive in Amazon
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Redefining the good life
Climate activist urges people to counter a culture run on fear and fossil fuel
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Blue, green, gold: Why eyes of wild cats vary in color
Study traces iris diversity to gray-eyed ancestor
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An idea with legs
Research suggests the scuttling sea robin may serve as evolutionary model for trait development, including in humans
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How well do you know your dog?
Take our quiz based on new Netflix documentary featuring Harvard researcher
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X-ray arcs tell tale of giant eruption
Scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) report that two arc-like structures of multimillion-degree gas in the galaxy Centaurus A appear to be part of a ring 25,000 light…
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What students know best
A research project called Pathways for Student Success has taken a unique approach to finding ways to help high school students achieve at a high rate. Rather than focusing on…
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Building difference, breaking it down
Mica Pollock, an assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, taught and did dissertation research in a California high school where she observed students “bending” racial categories. “What…
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Researchers link firearms, suicide rate
The Harvard Injury Control Research Center (HICRC) at the Harvard School of Public Health has investigated suicide and its relationship to firearms, revealing important statistical information about the problem. To…
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Neither Rome nor universe built in a day
Theoretical astrophysicists Stuart B. Wyithe and Abraham Loeb at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have explained a paradox that has troubled scientists for years. Observations seem to show that…
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Structuring 21st century government for homeland defense
A report by Kennedy School of Government lecturer Elaine C. Kamarck, “Applying 21st Century Government to the Challenge of Homeland Security,” offers some specific recommendations: — Create a National Terrorism…
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Study shows maintaining homeownership gains is key to strong economy
A June 2002 report by The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University documents the strong demographic foundation of current and projected future housing market activity. According to the…
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Religious private schools most segregated in U.S.
Black-white segregation is greater among private schools than among public schools, according to a research report from the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University. Although 78 percent of the private…
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RNA technology thwarts HIV
RNA interference (RNAi) is a naturally occurring phenomenon by which cells guard themselves against viruses. The process involves post-transcriptional gene silencing in which specific RNA sequences get chopped into small…
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Cooking up a story of apes and humans
For humans, cooking played a major role in the development of smaller jaws and teeth, bigger brains, smaller guts, shorter arms, and longer legs, according to Richard Wrangham, professor of…
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The next big thing in mining the genome
About 99.9 percent of the 3.1 billion base pairs in the human genome are the same from person to person. The remaining 0.1 percent of differences comprises more than 10…
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Kennedy School students help Kenyans battle AIDS
Two Kennedy School master’s students, Shanti Nayak and Nazanin Samari-Kermani, went to Kenya to help a leading anti-poverty organization investigate how best to fight AIDS. Their research, with ActionAid-Kenya, a…
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Three in five Americans would get vaccinated for smallpox
Substantial public interest in receiving a smallpox vaccination grows in part from continuing fears about a future bioterrorist attack. Nine months after the September 11th attacks, more than four in…
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South Pole telescope maps heart of Milky Way
Research results obtained by a team of astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) led by Chris Martin and Antony Stark suggest that we are headed for some celestial…
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Patents have negative impact on access to HIV/AIDS drugs in developing countries
Researchers Joan-Ramon Borrell and Jayashree Watal collected sales data for HIV/AIDS drugs in a sample of 34 low- and middle-income countries between 1995 and 1999 to assess the impact of…
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Radcliffe conference presents research on lethal school violence
Educators, policy-makers, law enforcement officials, and adolescent-development specialists came to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study on May 21, 2002, for the National Conference on Lethal School Violence. The conference…
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Pendulating “between euphoria and despair”
In his landmark 1845 essay, “Facundo, Civilización y Barbarie,” Argentinean author and statesman Domingo F. Sarmiento, the nation’s second president, sharply contrasted the forces at work on his young nation.…
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Emergency communications
As almost 60,000 federal, state and local public safety agencies plan to upgrade their communications systems in the wake of 9/11, Kennedy School of Government Assistant Professor of Public Policy…
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Race, place, and segregation
Researchers for the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, using U.S. census data from 2000, examined whether three major metropolitan areas — Boston, Chicago and San Diego — continue to…
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Culprit caught in gamma-ray burst mystery
Gamma-ray bursts have long puzzled astronomers. “The hunt for the source of gamma-ray bursts has been a detective story as challenging as any faced by the famous Lieutenant Columbo. We…
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New online approach builds community around medical cases
A new suite of Internet tools is boosting student-faculty interaction in an engrossing twist on traditional case-based teaching at Harvard Medical School. Called ICON, for “interactive case-based online network,” the…
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New approach to cervical cancer screening could save lives
When caught early through a Pap test, cervical cancer is almost 100 percent preventable, with treatment of precancers. Compared with current practice, shifting women currently getting annual conventional Pap tests…
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Americans don’t see obesity as serious health problem
Using unique survey data that they collected, researchers Taeku Lee and J. Eric Oliver presented the first examination of public attitudes towards obesity and obesity policy. They found that, contrary…
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Black, Latino children with asthma receive lesser standard of care
Led by Tracy Lieu, associate professor of ambulatory care and prevention at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Harvard Medical School, the researchers interviewed parents of children with asthma who were…
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Mexican-American women navigate school and work more successfully than men
Only 19 percent of Mexican-American men in 1990 were upwardly mobile professionally, compared to 31 percent of women, and only nine percent of men worked in professional/technical jobs, compared to…
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Bad dental health could affect military readiness
Phillip Dexter Woods is a dentist and an Army reservist. Until he graduated in June 2002, Woods was also a student in a master’s program at the Harvard School of…
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New type of matter may have been found
In orbit around Earth, a satellite called the Chandra X-ray Observatory surveys the universe for sources of X-rays. Using Chandra, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has observed…
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Physicians who are experts on managed care avoid enrolling in HMOs
Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and RAND surveyed 279 professors at 17 universities across the country who were prominent experts in managed care to find out their…
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Your community may be harmful to your health
In 1996 the Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention reported that 50 percent of all cancer risk could be eliminated though a modified diet, increased exercise, limited alcohol intake and cessation…
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School of Public Health tests new emergency management software
CAMEO (Computer-Aided Management of Emergency Operations) is a suite of software programs used by professionals such as emergency management agency specialists, firefighters, hazardous materials teams, industrial hygienists and emergency department…