Cooperation can make us stronger, building alliances and increasing the availability of resources. A recent symposium hosted by the Human Evolutionary Biology Initiative brought together researchers to examine this principle, sharing studies and findings on intergroup cooperation from a variety of fields.
Harvard geoscientists reported that organic matter harvested from certain meteorites bears chemical traces of “primitive oxygen reservoirs” that have changed little since the birth of our solar system. The findings help trace the origins of organic matter that meteorites may have delivered to a young Earth, supplying the planet with ingredients essential for life.
A recent study from the Harvard Laboratory for Developmental Studies describes how games aimed at improving social skills, played in preschool settings, boost social-cognitive development for Brazilian children living near or below the poverty line.
The Biological Laboratories at 16 Divinity Avenue first opened in 1931. In the 95 years of its existence, the storied building has been home to the pioneering evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson, a dozen eventual Nobel laureates, and even a self-described “zombiologist” or two.
Henry David Thoreau famously went to Walden Pond to live deliberately. But for far longer, he pursued a lesser-known obsession: observing scientifically.
Sixteen years ago, an invasive pest called the woolly adelgid arrived at Harvard Forest and slowly began to devastate its the eastern hemlocks — as they had done in forcce elsewhere. Since then, Harvard Forest scientists have begun to study how to manage the demise of its so-called foundation species.
As the sun sinks below the horizon, two scientists perch quietly beside a darkening field and wait for flashes of light. They have traveled far outside the city in search of research sites, because they study a group of creatures that have been driven to the margins of human settlements: fireflies.
Upon moving to Cambridge, geophysicist Xiyuan Bao often relied on navigation software to find his way through the unfamiliar network of roads. He realized the same technology could help him find something else: a solution to a mystery deep within the Earth.
Blazars, or galaxies powered by supermassive black holes, act as anchor points in the sky. They shine brightly in telescope observations, but because they are so far away, they appear almost perfectly fixed.
New research from Erin Hecht’s Evolutionary Neuroscience Laboratory analyzes how human influence has shaped the canine brain to make dogs better communicators.
The technology, described in a new paper in Cell, could reshape how scientists investigate tissue function and disease.