Postdoc, Katrina Jones and Prof. Stephanie Pierce teamed with the Field Museum of Natural History to find how and when changes happened in the spine of mammals during evolution. Jones says the study, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, tries to answer a fundamental evolutionary question, "How does a relatively simple structure evolve into a complex one that can do lots of different things?"

A...

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Naomi Pierce and PhD candidate, Richard Childers teamed with researchers at Columbia University to examine the wings of Lepidoptera. Butterfly wings contain a matrix of living cells whose function requires appropriate temperatures. However, given their small thermal capacity, wings can overheat rapidly in the sun. The team analyzed wings across a wide range of simulated environmental conditions and found regions containing living cells are maintained at cooler temperatures. The wings act like temperature sensors, which allows butterflies to respond swiftly to... Read more about Butterfly Wings Are A Matrix of Living Cells

Congratulations to Stephanie Pierce, awarded the 2019 Fannie Cox Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching!  The Harvard Gazette Read more about Stephanie Pierce Awarded Fannie Cox Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching

With profound sadness, we note the passing of our dear friend and colleague, Jim McCarthy, on December 11th after a protracted illness. Jim was a towering figure, whose impact as a scholar, policy advisor, and human being was extraordinary. The OEB community is greatly diminished by his loss, and we will all feel Jim’s absence deeply.

Notable remebrances by the Harvard Center for the Environment and ...

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Congratulations to Andrew Biewener, named fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Read more about Andrew Biewener Named AAAS Fellow

Artificial muscles will power the soft robots and wearable devices of the future, but the underlying mechanics is not well known. Professor L. Mahadevan's study in Physical Review Letters uncovers some of the fundamental physical properties of artificial muscle fibers. The thin soft filaments can stretch, bend and twist into extreme deformations. Mahadevan's study explains the theoretical...

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New research by Bence Ölvecsky and Postdoc, Ashesh Dhawale, suggests errors resulting from variability in motor function is a feature, not a bug, of our nervous system and play a critical role in learning. The study published in Current Biology addresses the issue of how the brain regulates variability, which is necessary for learning, but not useful when a successful...

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