A series of random questions answered by Harvard experts. Leslie Valiant, the T. Jefferson Coolidge Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the John H. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, has spent decades studying human cognition. His books include “Circuits of the Mind” and, most recently, “The Importance of Being Educable.” Notions […]
Your Mom says you’re so smart. What does she mean? Read More »
Laura van den Berg circled her partner on the mat at a Central Square boxing gym on a recent Tuesday evening, hands raised protectively in front of her face, delivering quick, precise jabs into the training mitts. Others in the class paused for water between exercise intervals, but van den Berg remained in place, bouncing
Lace up gloves, enter ring, and write Read More »
Which is better? The 1996 film adaptation of “Hamlet” starring Kenneth Branagh or a spoof on the Prince of Denmark’s “to be or not to be” soliloquy delivered by Homer Simpson? The question was posed last month to more than 800 undergraduates during “Justice: Ethical Reasoning in Polarized Times.” The legendary Gen Ed offering has returned to
How to apply cool-headed reason to red-hot topics Read More »
They may be microscopic, but tardigrades are larger than life. Called “water bears” because of their plump shape and lumbering movement, the ancient micro-animals are nearly indestructible, able to survive anything from deadly radiation and arctic temperatures to the vacuum of space. They can still be found anywhere there’s water today, but the evolutionary history
Big discovery about microscopic ‘water bears’ Read More »
Genes are the control panel for an embryo morphing from a ball of cells into organs, muscles, and limbs, but there’s more involved than just genetics. There’s also physics — the shaping of tissues by flows and forces from cellular activity and growth. Two recent studies in Developmental Cell and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shed light
The making of the gut Read More »
Crisper fall weather is descending, signaling the coming end of another mosquito season that this year saw modest outbreaks of West Nile virus and eastern equine encephalitis. The good news has been that the disease-carrying mosquitoes would rather bite birds than humans, a factor in keeping the maladies relatively rare. The bad news is that
Threat of mosquito-borne diseases rises in U.S. with global temperature Read More »
If you’ve ever seen dolphins swim, you may have wondered why they undulate instead of moving side to side as fish do. Though they have a fishlike body, cetaceans, which include whales, dolphins, and porpoises, are mammals that descended from land-dwelling ancestors. Cetaceans have undergone profound changes in their skeletal structures to thrive in aquatic
How whales and dolphins adapted for life on the water Read More »
Xi Jinping has managed to maintain his grip on power in the People’s Republic of China for longer than a decade. What will unfold when the 71-year-old president eventually steps down? “I think it’s almost certain that he will choose a weak … successor,” said Yuhua Wang, a professor of government and one of three
Is China headed toward instability? Read More »
