Science

Discover the scientific breakthroughs and engineering innovations being pioneered across Harvard’s labs and centers.

A black primate hanging lazily on a branch in a lush green forest.

What Bonobos Teach Us About Female Power and Cooperation

A Harvard scientist expands our understanding of our closest living relatives.

by Annie Roth

Traditional light-microscopy, such as this image of human brain-tumor cells in culture, still has a place in cancer research.

Virtual Tumors

Modeling tumors may help scientists beat cancer.

by Mike Martin

Brain images show the differences in activity patterns between the two groups of subjects that professor of psychology Jill Hooley examined. The brains of recovered depressed subjects (left) had more active amygdalae while listening to criticism than did the brains of subjects who had never been depressed. The brains of the latter showed more activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (center) and the anterior cingulate cortex (right) compared to brains of subjects with a history of depression.

How Depression Lingers

After depression patients recover, their brains still process criticism differently.

by Elizabeth Gudrais

This portrait of Smith forms part of a mural, by Nelson Chase, that decorates the Aesculapian Room of the Harvard Club of Boston.

Theobald Smith

A brief profile of the pioneering comparative pathologist

by Steven M. Niemi

Michael McCormick

Sexual apartheid in medieval England

Cutting-edge science helps historians push further and more fully into the past.

by Jonathan Shaw

All in a day’s treatment: Khaled, seen in these photographs with hemapheresis practitioner Beverly Gedutis, R.N., and author David Nathan, spent May 8 at Children’s Hospital Boston, where for decades he has been transfused with red blood cells every three weeks. The bottles he carries below contain the iron chelator deferisirox.

Lessons from an Unexpected Life

One patient’s struggle with chronic illness highlights the complexities of modern medicine and the healthcare challenge.

Cutting-Edge Cancer Research Looks Beyond the Traditional Grant Funding System

Medical School professor George Demetri again leads cutting-edge cancer research, in an environment of timid funding for experimentation.

In This Mass Extinction, the Enemy Is Us

The New Yorker magazine quotes Fisher professor of natural history Andrew Knoll on the current mass extinction. The enemy is us.

Particulate matter that is 2.5 microns or less in diameter (PM2.5), the kind emitted from smokestacks and tailpipes, is known to be especially harmful. Reductions in such pollution lead to increased life expectancy. In Boston between 1980 and 2000, for example, as PM2.5 concentrations dropped from 18 to 11 micrograms per cubic meter, local average life expectancy climbed four years. Of that increase, four-tenths of a year—or 10 percent of the total gain—was attributable to improved air quality.

Clean Air, Longer Life

Controls on fine particle pollution extended average lifespan in the United States by five months between 1980 and 2000.

by Jonathan Shaw

A scanning electron microscope image reveals the porous nature of a bioengineered disk where immune cells can reside and be programmed for vaccination.

Fighting Disease in Situ

A new technique aims to boost the body’s ability to seek out and destroy cancer cells.

"Dissing Evolution"

Energy is the key to understanding human evolution—and to saving ourselves and our planet, says Daniel Lieberman.

by Elizabeth Gudrais