Science

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

Illustration of diverse healthcare professionals around a central medical cross symbol.

AI Outperforms Doctors in Emergency Room Tasks, New Harvard Study Shows

Researchers say the technology could help physicians with triage, diagnosis.

by Jonathan Shaw

Tail of the panther chameleon, <em>Furcifer pardalis</em>, of Madagascar. The same species appears on the cover (below, right). Chameleons do not change color to match their backgrounds, but to communicate excitement, anger, fear, and other emotions.

Animals Speak Color

Kit Reed introduces an exhibition at the Harvard Museum of Natural History that reveals the different roles color plays in the animal and plant kingdoms.

by Christopher Reed

Tiktaalik Resurfaces

In today’s New York Times, science writer John Noble Wilford reports on new findings (to be published tomorrow in the journal Nature) about Tiktaalik roseae, a fossil fish that...

Martin Chalfie ’69, Ph.D. ’77, and Roger Y. Tsien ’72 Share Chemistry Nobel Prize

Fundamental work on the green fluorescent protein, isolated from jellyfish, is now a basic tool used to study biological processes...

$125-Million Gift for Bioengineering

Hansjörg Wyss, M.B.A. ’65 has given the University $125 million—the largest donation in its history—to create a research institute for biologically inspired engineering...

The Teen Brain

It’s a paradoxical time of development. These are people with very sharp brains, but they’re not quite sure what to do with them...

by Debra Bradley Ruder

Proof Positive

Richard L. Taylor’s work connects two discrete domains of mathematics: curved spaces, from geometry, and modular arithmetic, which has to do with counting...

by Elizabeth Gudrais

This unorthodox de-mining team avoids most of the traditional pitfalls. Metal detectors give too many false alarms, fooled by bullets or other debris. Hand-held ground-penetrating radar machines are too expensive. Dogs weigh enough to trigger mines, injuring or killing themselves and their handlers.

Man, Mongoose, and Machine

Standing outside a Sri Lankan army base in the spring of 2007, Thrishantha Nanayakkara mapped an entire minefield without once setting foot in it.

by Paul Gleason

Doing Community Medicine

A few years ago, instructor of medicine Pieter Cohen began noticing a strange pattern of symptoms among some of his Brazilian immigrant patients...

A Startling Achievement in Regenerative Medicine

Douglas Melton, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, has figured out how to transform one type of cell in a living animal into another, using...

A Startling Achievement in Regenerative Medicine

Douglas Melton, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, has figured out how to transform one type of cell in a living animal into another, using a new process his research team has dubbed “direct reprogramming”...