Research
Childhood Obesity Prevention Should Start Early
Childhood obesity prevention programs, often targeted at children ages 8 and older, should begin efforts to curb obesity at infancy or even earlier, according to researchers at the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute.
A Golden Levitating Act
Hamsa Sridhar ’12 works with levitating gold on a regular basis—but the work is neither magical nor costly.
New Lab Device Improves Experiment Speed
A group including several Harvard researchers has developed a new microfluidic screening device that can run biochemical experiments on a much smaller, faster, and more cost-effective scale.
Sophomore conducts research levitating micro-particles.
Hamsa Sridhar ‘12 is conducting research at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences that seeks to levitate gold-coated micro-particles. The research made the front cover of the journal Nature.
Study Links Gene with Aggressive Prostate Cancer
A team of Harvard researchers recently identified a gene that may play a direct role in developing aggressive prostate cancer—a discovery they said could lead to a more accurate technique to test for the disease.
Professor Rethinks Origins of Religion
A new study finds that religion may have evolved as a by-product of non-religious, cognitive processes.
Jack Szostak
HMS Professor and Nobel Prize Laureate Jack Szostak spoke about his research on telomeres and telomerase at MGH yesterday.
Looking at Time and Teeth
Children examine models of teeth and skulls at the Harvard Museum of Natural History after listening to archaeologist Tanya Smith's talk on how studying teeth can lead to insights in human development.
Findings on HIV Mutations May Provide Leads in Drug Research
Scientists at Harvard and the University of California, San Diego have discovered that mutations in the HIV virus work together to induce drug resistance—a finding that may offer new leads in HIV drug research and therapy.
Harvard Researchers Use Innovative Method to Follow Genetic Footprint
A team of Harvard researchers have recently developed a novel way to pinpoint, with greater accuracy than ever before, genetic mutations that drive evolution—and the new method of examining natural selection’s footprint may have tremendous implications for biomedicine and studies of human evolutionary history.
More Than Just a Hole in the Ground
As the cold began to bite down hard earlier this month, the students of Anthropology 1130: "Archaeology of Harvard Yard" ...
Severity of H1N1 Reassesed
The current H1N1 outbreak in the U.S. may be much less severe than originally anticipated, according to a recent study ...
NIH Approves Stem Cell Lines
Eleven lines of human embryonic stem cells produced by the Harvard-affiliated Children’s Hospital Boston were approved for federal research funding ...
Loneliness May Spread Contagiously
Laughter is supposedly contagious, but so is loneliness, according to a new article co-authored by Harvard Medical School professor and Pforzheimer House Master Nicholas A. Christakis.
Got Lice? Who cares!
Lice. Those nasty, hard to kill, infectious little creatures haunted your elementary school days. The memory alone must be making you genuflect for a match book to burn those suckers. Well, you might want to calm down. Richard J. Pollack, a research associate with the Harvard School of Public Health, says that head lice (Pediculus capitis) just aren't that big of a deal. And your elementary school principal, well he is probably among the ranks of school administrators nation-wide who overreact about these harmless creatures. FlyBy picked his brain yesterday (pun intended) about this bold assertion. Pollack estimated that on average there is one child absent from school from every elementary school in the country everyday due to the diagnosis or misdiagnosis of head lice. "Oh and I think that's conservative," he said. Pollack, who said he and his colleagues have screened over 10,000 school-children, characterized most of what people hear about the creatures, which live in the human head, as bunk. “As far as I can tell head lice does not impart any advantage to a child. There might be who knows," Pollack said (emphasis added). While he conceded it is "wild speculation" to suggest the head lice may be beneficial, he strongly emphasized the absence of any demonstrated health risks associated with head lice. So call up your teacher who embarrassed you in front of your 3rd grade class and tell him how wrong he was. Follow the jump to find out the facts surrounding head lice and to learn more about them than you ever expected to find interesting.
Physicists Create Microscope
Members of Harvard’s physics department have created a quantum gas microscope that allows atoms to be observed individually at a temperature of five billionths of a degree above absolute zero.
Most H1N1 Cases Go Unreported
The reported number of confirmed H1N1 “swine flu” cases nationwide is likely a considerable underestimation of the total sum of ...
Poision Victim Alleges Foul Play
An HMS research fellow says he doesn't think the toxins in his coffee were placed there accidentally.
Study Finds Vitamin D Deficiency in Kids
A high percentage of American children have low levels of vitamin D—a deficiency that could lead to a host of health problems, ranging from respiratory diseases to weak bones to the common cold.
Christakis’ Study To Survey Flu Students
Randomly selected Harvard undergraduates and their friends will report their popularity and flu-like symptoms as participants in a new Harvard ...