Biology
Beaker Time
Mahan Nekoui ’17, left, and Gal Wachtel ’17, right, work on an experiment in a Molecular and Cellular Biology 60 lab on Tuesday, Nov. 3. Students designed their own experiments to examine protein interactions in damaged cells.
Beaker Time
Mahan Nekoui ’17, left, and Gal Wachtel ’17, right, work on an experiment in a Molecular and Cellular Biology 60 lab on Tuesday. Students designed their own experiments to examine protein interactions in damaged cells.
Beaker Time
Courtney C. Okwara ’18, left, and Dar C. Nwaudo ’18, right, work on an experiment in a Molecular and Cellular Biology 60 lab on Tuesday. Their experiment tests the effects of DNA damage on the function of yeast cells.
Radcliffe DNA Symposium
Principal Investigator Terence D. Capellini and visiting graduate student Jiaxue Cao present their poster at Radcliffe’s DNA symposium on Friday afternoon. The conference, called “The Past, Present, and Future of DNA,” featured lectures about human ancestry, forensics, and ethics.
New Intensive Integrated Life Sciences Course Launches
The course will serve as the academic equivalent of four individual courses and incorporates biology, chemistry, math, computing, and physics into a life sciences curriculum.
Integrated Science
Approximately 25 students attend the second lecture of Life Science 50a, the first half of an intensive two-semester, double course incorporating topics in biology, chemistry, math, computing, and physics.
Andrew W. Murray
Molecular Genetics professor Andrew W. Murray, course head of Life Science 50a, demonstrates examples of rule-based symbol transformation during the course’s second lecture.
Understanding Islands
Jonathan B. Losos ’84, professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, explains the ecological significance of islands and their role in understanding evolution. The talk took place in a packed Geological Lecture Hall and was part of the Cambridge Science Festival, happening from April 17-26.
Troubled Frogs
Tyrone Hayes ’89 speaks about his research on atrazine, a drug denied regulatory approval in the EU due to its demonstrated endocrine disruption in frogs, which subsequently ensued in controversy. Hayes gave the lecture entitled "From Silent Spring to Silent Night: A Tale of Toads and Men" at Harvard Law School on Thursday evening.
Mummies and Microbes: A Conversation with Ralph Mitchell
Mitchell’s pure passion for applied microbiology is obvious from the start of our conversation—he seems to be on a mission to convince me of how important these microscopic organisms are.
Lecturer Examines Evolution 70,000 Years After Volcanic Eruption
Stanley H. Ambrose, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, lectured on the behavioral differences between modern humans and Neanderthals, and the implication of those differences in the context of environmental degradation more than 70,000 years ago.
BioVisions Initiative Highlights Importance of Life Sciences Visualizations
BioVisions, an initiative supported by Harvard and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, works to make digital visualization a more common tool in studying the life sciences.
Lab Rat of the Week: Brian D. Farrell
Brian D. Farrell, who is a biology professor, curator of Entomology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, and director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, combines his diverse interests in science and music in his teaching.
Researchers Pave Way for Anti-Obesity Drug
The discovery could help transform the body’s energy-storing white fat into energy-burning brown fat.
Term Time: LS1A
The folks behind LS1A—Harvard’s popular introductory life sciences course—have become known for renaming various ordinary aspects of their class, such as tests (“ICEs”) and homework (“pre-games”). Confused by all these unfamiliar terms? Never fear—we’ve created a handy guide to the LS1A lexicon, and added a few suggestions of our own.
Poster Child
A poster of the human skeletal system hangs at the Body of Knowledge display in Science Center 251. The exhibition, which focuses on the history of human anatomy, runs until Dec. 5, 2014.
New Exhibit Remembers Passenger Pigeon 100 Years After Extinction
On Saturday, the Harvard Museum of Natural History opened a new exhibit to mark the 100th anniversary of Martha’s death and the extinction of the passenger pigeon.
Study Links Fetal Gender to Milk Production in Cows
The report—which draws on both Bradford’s specialty in dairy nutrition and Hinde’s expertise in evolutionary biology—focused on dairy farms, one of America’s longest running industries.
Professor Discusses Ethics of World War II Biological Weaponry Tests
The Japanese army killed around 10,000 Chinese civilians, Russians, and American prisoners of war while testing biological weaponry during World War II, but the U.S. government withheld knowledge of the fatal tests. Even though the episode has often been overshadowed, it played a significant role in America’s ethical history, according to professor David S. Jones ’97 at the Ethics of Human Experimentation, a discussion hosted by the Harvard Undergraduate Bioethics Society Monday night.
Human Experimentation
Prof. David Jones ‘93 talks about various unethical human experimentation studies in the 20th century and how those studies differed from each other with the Harvard Undergraduate Bioethics Society.
Study Examines Nocturnal Predator-Prey Relationship
A new Harvard study reveals that predator animals are less active on most moonlit nights, while some prey animals are more active.
Researchers Compare Exercise, Drugs as Cardiovascular Treatments
According to a new study conducted at Harvard Medical School, structured exercise programs may be as effective, or even more useful, than medication to treat cardiovascular conditions.
How To Pick the Right Concentration
If you’re a sophomore, you’re probably freaking out about having to declare your concentration by mid-November (and by even earlier for some programs). To help you avoid picking the wrong one, Flyby compiled a cheat sheet detailing some possible areas of study.