Month: September 2015

Seminars

Engineering life: How synthetic biology is improving the world around us

Presented by Dan Tarjan, Justin Feng, and Jianghong “John” Min Biology is a new science. It was only about 200 years ago that Charles Darwin formulated the principles of Evolution by natural selection, and Gregor Mendel described the first clues that living organisms have Genes. These and other recent discoveries form the basic building blocks of our understanding of life. Synthetic Biology is a new … Continue reading Engineering life: How synthetic biology is improving the world around us

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Reproduce or Bust?!: Bringing Reproducibility Back to Center Stage

by Steph Guerra figures by Krissy Lyon Reproducibility in science is not very sexy. Because our scientific culture generally rewards innovation over cautiousness, replicating a study conducted by others will not get a researcher a publication in a high-end journal, a splashy headline in a newspaper, or a large funding grant from the government. In fact, only an estimated 0.15% of all published results are … Continue reading Reproduce or Bust?!: Bringing Reproducibility Back to Center Stage

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Seminars

Quantum to Analytical: Seeing and hearing the chemistry of art

Presented by Katherine Phillips and Benjamin Sanchez-Lengeling Science and art are often seen as disparate topics, but they frequently intertwine in surprising and interesting ways. In this talk, we will see how science can help us analyze, understand, and even create works of art. In doing so, we will lead the audience on a sensory adventure that will be fascinating for art-lovers and science-lovers alike. … Continue reading Quantum to Analytical: Seeing and hearing the chemistry of art

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The Flavor Rundown: Natural vs. Artificial Flavors

by C. Rose Kennedy figures by Kaitlyn Choi What’s in a Flavor? The word “flavor” pervades our daily vocabulary, evoking associations of rich or vivid experiences beyond the experience of eating. Even in the literal context, the Flavor Extract Manufacturers Association (FEMA) describes flavor as “the entire range of sensations that we perceive when we eat a food or drink a beverage. Flavor encompasses a substance’s … Continue reading The Flavor Rundown: Natural vs. Artificial Flavors

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Harmful Algal Blooms Threaten Public Health and Economic Stability Along the West Coast

by Matthew Schwartz A new danger is threatening the economic stability of the west coast of the United States and has the potential to cause a public health crisis. A massive harmful algal bloom has accumulated across most of the west coast and may be the largest toxic algal bloom ever recorded [1]. The bloom is a threat because it is releasing a toxin which … Continue reading Harmful Algal Blooms Threaten Public Health and Economic Stability Along the West Coast

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Measuring symmetries of nature with unprecedented precision

The experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland have produced many impressive results in recent years studying the nature of the fundamental particles and forces that govern the world around us. While it is better known for its function as a proton-proton collider, the LHC can also collide beams of lead ions. These collisions produce a vast array of particles … Continue reading Measuring symmetries of nature with unprecedented precision

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Stephen Hawking Makes Big Claims about Black Holes

Stephen Hawking recently announced that he has solved one of the most famous puzzles in science, the black hole information paradox. The information paradox is a conundrum of Hawking’s own making. In the 1970s, he predicted that black holes radiate, evaporate, and eventually disappear. This scenario is particularly concerning, because once inside a black hole, nothing can escape. If a black hole were to completely … Continue reading Stephen Hawking Makes Big Claims about Black Holes

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A Successful Pill for Preventing HIV?

A recent study has delighted many by claims that taking the pill Truvada prevents HIV infection. The study is one of the first to test the pill in a real-world setting involving 600 individuals at risk of getting HIV in San Francisco, CA. Although promising, the applicability of the pill to other settings still warrants further analyses. The study is convincing for its testing on … Continue reading A Successful Pill for Preventing HIV?

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Sit'N Listen

Sit’N Listen! Episode 1: Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO)

Science in the News at Harvard University has just launched our first podcast, titled “Sit’N Listen!” Each episode of Sit’N Listen, we’ll bring you scientists’ perspectives on intriguing and newsworthy science. In this episode we discuss how Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are developed in the lab and a new law that would change how GMOs are regulated. For a healthy yet tasty snack for the … Continue reading Sit’N Listen! Episode 1: Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO)

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Ants self-medicate: are even cooler than Ant-Man made them look

 2015 has been a good year for ants: Ant-Man was added to the roster of Marvel superheroes and now a recent paper has shown ants participating in zoopharmacognosy – a long, fancy name to describe self-medication by non-human animals. While self-medicating has been observed in many animals – both vertebrate and invertebrate – it is often hard to discern whether that behavioral instance should be … Continue reading Ants self-medicate: are even cooler than Ant-Man made them look

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