HarvardScience

Harvard Medical School grad heads for International Space Station

404132862 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:01:00 -0500

In an era when elementary schoolchildren can create exciting new worlds and explore them with the click of a computer mouse, will we again see bold explorers like Lewis and Clark or the Mercury Seven astronauts? Will we follow modern Jasons and their Argonauts through space in an age in which the nation’s deficit is soaring and equally alluring worlds in our body’s cells offer the potential to cure disease and extend life?

Robert Satcher says we will.

Researchers ‘NOTCH’ a victory in war on cancer

404132862 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:09:01 -0500

A consortium of Harvard and five other leading research universities and the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) have endorsed a far-reaching “Statement of Principles and Strategies for the Equitable Dissemination of Medical Technologies” in the developing world.

Quantum gas microscope offers glimpse of quirky ultracold atoms

404132862 — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:39:22 -0500

Harvard physicists have created a quantum gas microscope that can be used to observe single atoms at temperatures so low the particles follow the rules of quantum mechanics, behaving in bizarre ways.

The work, published this week in the journal Nature, represents the first time scientists have detected single atoms in a crystalline structure made solely of light, called a Bose Hubbard optical lattice. It's part of scientists' efforts to use ultracold quantum gases to understand and develop novel quantum materials.

Materials scientists find better model for glass creation

404132862 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:09:50 -0500

Harvard materials scientists have come up with what they believe is a new way to model the formation of glasses, a type of amorphous solid that includes common window glass.

Glasses form through the process of vitrification, in which a glass-forming liquid cools and slowly becomes a solid whose molecules, though they’ve stopped moving, are not permanently locked into a crystal structure. Instead, they’re more like a liquid that has merely stopped flowing, though they can continue to move over long stretches of time.

Orphan army ants join nearby colonies

404132862 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:01:00 -0500

Gay men are most attracted to the most masculine-faced men, while straight men prefer the most feminine-faced women, according to the results of a new study by a Harvard researcher.

The findings suggest that regardless of sexual orientation, men’s brains are wired for attraction to sexually dimorphic faces — those with facial features that are most synonymous with gender.

To tell the truth

404132862 — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:25:20 -0400

The rationale behind systemic torture is that pain will make the guilty confess, but a new study by Harvard researchers finds that the pain of torture can make even the innocent appear guilty.

In the study, participants met a woman suspected of cheating to win money. The woman was then “tortured” by having her hand immersed in ice water while study participants listened to the session over an intercom. She never confessed to anything, but the more she suffered, the guiltier she was perceived to be.

Darkness with the light

404132862 — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:36:17 -0400

Adult survivors of childhood cancer have an increased risk of suicidal thoughts, even decades after their cancer treatments have ended, according to a study led by Harvard researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI).

Finding the seat of language?

404132862 — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:59:52 -0400

A team of Harvard and University of California, San Diego (UCSD), researchers report having pinpointed an area of the brain where three essential components of language — word identification, grammar, and word pronunciation — are processed.

Ned T.

Harvard scientists bend nanowires into 2-D and 3-D structures

404132862 — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:10:33 -0400

Taking nanomaterials to a new level of structural complexity, Harvard researchers have determined how to introduce kinks into arrow-straight nanowires, transforming them into zigzagging two- and three-dimensional structures with correspondingly advanced functions.

The work is described this week in in a letter in the journal Nature Nanotechnology by scientists led by Bozhi Tian and Charles M. Lieber.

Researchers exploit genetic ‘co-dependence’ to kill treatment-resistant tumor cells

404132862 — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:00:53 -0400

Cancer cells fueled by the mutant KRAS oncogene, which makes them notoriously difficult to treat, can be killed by blocking a more vulnerable genetic partner of KRAS, report scientists at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.

Bringing new meaning to the term scientific paper

404132862 — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:00:57 -0400

An insight from the labs of Harvard chemist George M. Whitesides and cell biologist Donald Ingber is likely to make a fundamental shift in how biologists grow and study cells – and it’s as cheap and easy as reaching for a paper towel.

From stem cells to functioning strip of heart muscle

404132862 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:00:00 -0400

A team of Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and collaborators at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) has taken a giant step toward the possibility of using human stem cells to repair damaged hearts.

Stimulus funds provide welcome research boost

705287540 — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:15:58 -0400

In remarks last month at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md., President Barack Obama said not only do we need stimulus money to create thousands of jobs in the sciences and technology, but also to get the progress of the nation’s research back on track.

Three-dimensional structure of human genome deciphered

404132862 — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:40:21 -0400

Scientists have deciphered the three-dimensional structure of the human genome, paving the way for new insights into genomic function and expanding our understanding of how cellular DNA folds at scales that dwarf the double helix.

Three Harvard teams to receive $9 million each in federal funding for stem cell research

404132862 — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:11:45 -0400

Three teams of Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers are slated to receive $27 million over seven years in National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) grants for the development of stem-cell based tools and treatments to understand and treat cardiovascular and blood disorders. The NHLBI Progenitor Cell Biology Consortium will consist of nine research hubs, each involving multidiscplinary teams from two academic medical centers.

Harvard team reports major step forward in cell reprogramming

404132862 — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:00:00 -0400

A team of Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers has made a major advance toward producing induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, that are safe enough to use in treating diseases in patients.

Jack Szostak 2009 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine

404132862 — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 08:01:59 -0400

Jack Szostak, a genetics professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), has won the 2009 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for pioneering work in the discovery of telomerase, an enzyme that protects chromosomes from degrading.

The work not only revealed a key cellular function, it also illuminated processes involved in disease and aging.

How does a worm build a throat?

404132862 — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:00:24 -0400

Mention worms to most people, and they probably think of fishing, gardening, or trips to the vet. Mention them to Susan E.