Faculty News

A school of Danio in the respirometer_Yangfan Zhang

Unlocking the energetic secrets of collective animal movement: How group behavior reduces energy costs in fish

February 20, 2024

Many animals, including apex predators, move in groups. We know this collective behavior is fundamental to the animal’s ability to move in complex environments, but less is known about what drives the behavior because many factors underlie its evolution. Scientists wonder, though, if all these animals share a fundamental drive such as for mating, safety, or perhaps even to save energy.

“The keyword is perhaps,” said lead author Yangfan Zhang, postdoctoral researcher, “because no one has actually measured this and compared it directly across all animal groups, mainly...

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die-cut-card-laser_shutterstock

A kirigami research love story

February 14, 2024

Kirigami (from the Japanese kiri meaning cut and kami meaning paper), the less popular cousin of origami, has been used for years to create art and even structures, such as castles. The art intrigued Professor L. Mahadevan, the Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and of Physics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), inspiring his lab to learn how artists control the location...

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Daniel L. Hartl

Dan Hartl awarded the Mendel Memorial Medal

February 6, 2024

Congratulations to Professor Daniel L. Hartl, awarded the Mendel Memorial Medal.

Professor Hartl is honored for his dedication and achievements in the field of genetics and for his contribution to the development of Gregor Mendel's legacy and the interpretation of his scientific work.

The Mendel Memorial Medal is awarded jointly by the Mendelianum Committee and the Moravian Museum of Brno, The Czech Republic. The award is given to an internationally recognized...

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Enrollment in arthropods

Unveiling ancient secrets: 3D preservation of trilobite soft tissues sheds light on convergent evolution of defensive enrollment

December 20, 2023

They’d been in the collections of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) since the 1870s when they were first discovered. Nestled in among the largest collection of trilobites, the unique fossils rested in drawers until 145 years later when  Sarah Losso, PhD candidate in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology (OEB) at Harvard, began combing through the collection of trilobites as part of her dissertation.

“I started my PhD going through all of these thin sections of...

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Figure showing changing cell behaviors and initial cell types_LMahadevan

Researchers show how changes in cellular activity can drive changes in embryonic development

December 14, 2023

A team of researchers led by L. Mahadevan, Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and of Physics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), developed a theoretical framework tha can reproduce and predict the patterns associated with gastrulation in a chicken embryo.

Gastrulation is one of the most important phases in early embryonic development. It is a operation of self-organization that requires coordinated movements...

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Ölveczky, left, Engert, right. Photo by Simon Simard

Bence Ölveczky joins the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race

November 15, 2023

Professor Bence Ölveczky has joined the crew of the 70-foot yacht, the Washington, DC, to take on the most dangerous leg of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race! The crew will race from Cape Town, South Africa to Freemantle, Australia. That leg of the race passes through some of the world's most dangerous waters.

Ölveczky, a neuroscientist in OEB, is no stranger to the sea! He has been sailing for most of his life. His father was a national champion and professional sailor trainer for the Tokyo Olympics. ...

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A 3D-printed cursive "Cambridge" printed using reinforcement learning (Soft Math Lab/Harvard SEAS).

Reverse engineering Jackson Pollock

October 27, 2023

Professor L. Mahadevan, Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and of Physics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), led a team of researchers that trained a machine to paint like Jackson Pollock.

The team asked if 3D-printing could apply Pollock's distinctive techniques to quicky and accurately print complex shapes. The team combined physics and machine learning to develop a new 3D-printing technique that...

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A fossil from the Fezouata Shale of Morocco shows a straight-shelled nautiloid that died, fell to the seafloor, and was colonized by dozens of tiny pterobranchs_by Javier Ortega-Hernández

480-Million-year-old fossil reveals ancient seafloor communities

October 11, 2023

In a study published in Nature, researchers, led by postdoctoral researcher Karma Nanglu, describe a 480-million-year-old cephalod from Morocco that shows the earliest example of ocean bottom dwellers making their home in dead bodies.

Dead bodies in the ocean drift to the bottom where they become home to bottom dwellers, the practice dates back to 530 million years ago. During the Paleozoic era, however, it became much harder to track the interspecies interactions. Nanglu and co-authors,...

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Franky’s narrow-mouthed frog (Mysticellus franki), described by Garg & Biju in 2019, is a Critically Endangered species_Credit S.D. Biju

Saving the frogs from existential threats

October 4, 2023

Amphibians, the first vertebrates to inhabit land 360 million years ago, are facing existential threats due to climate change, habitat destruction, and disease.

Postdoctoral researcher Sonali Garg and associate Sathyabhama Das Biju co-authored a new study published in Nature that assesses the global status of amphibians. Garg and Biju are experts in frog biology and have documented more than 100 new frog species across India, Sri Lanka, and other parts of the subcontinent. Garg,...

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