Harvard Science Review

by Eesha Khare In 1991, an unusual phenomenon was observed following the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. After nearly 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide were launched into the stratosphere1—the second largest eruption of this century—the global temperatures dropped temporarily by 1°F. Amid the large-scale destruction, it seemed the Earth was fighting […]

by Grace Chen In Greek mythology, a chimera was a grotesque monster formed of a conglomeration of different animal parts…. With the head of a goat, body of a lion, and tail of a snake, the chimera was a fearsome but reassuringly fictional concept. Today, however, scientists know that real-life chimeras do indeed exist. The […]

by William Bryk The science fiction writer Arthur Clarke famously wrote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Yet, humanity may be on the verge of something much greater, a technology so revolutionary that it would be indistinguishable not merely from magic, but from an omnipresent force, a deity here on Earth. It’s known […]

by J. Rodrigo Leal We’ve all seen films or heard stories about the “Invaders from Mars”: aliens coming from other galaxies to colonize Earth and take advantage of its bountiful natural resources. But what if the story happened the other way around? Organizations like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and private companies like […]

by Ada Bielawski In 1798, Thomas Malthus published his Essay on the Principle of Population and described the limits of human population growth: the population will continue to grow exponentially while the Earth’s resources are able to sustain the increasing food production needed to feed this population. He concluded that, as the population approaches 8 […]

By: Felipe Flores Diabetes has aroused great interest in public health experts, physicians, patients and researchers because of its many accompanying conditions and complications, including stroke, blindness, and limb loss (1). However, research is promising to find better forms of treatment, and even a cure. To understand all of this research, one should first understand […]

By: Patrick Anderson In the late 1960s, researchers started to address the prospect of wearable robotic technologies for humans. The majority of these first attempts were intended for enhancing the physical capabilities of able-bodied people, particularly those serving in the military (3). Despite the failure of these initial powered prototypes to attain widespread usage either for […]

By: Eleni Apostolatos Living organisms are physical manifestations of genetic data. Formally known as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the genetic code of living creatures is composed of two strands with varying configurations of four bases—adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. DNA is interpreted and expressed by native molecular machinery within cells. In transcribing and translating the bases, […]

By: Alex Zapien History was made on February 11, 2016 when the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific and Virgo collaboration teams confirmed the existence of gravitational waves, ripples that propagate in the fabric of spacetime generated by gravitational interactions once predicted by Albert Einstein. The announcement sparked widespread excitement in the scientific community. Many described […]

By: Kristina Madjoska Each one contributes to a story, forms a unique context with the pieces around it, and finally emerges as part of a collection of stories that make up one human brain. Scientists from around the world have endeavored to make sense of the way these nanoscale puzzle pieces, or neurons, communicate with each […]