all engineering + technology stories

Doctors override most electronic medication safety alerts

50443248 — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:54:20 -0500

Computer-based systems that allow clinicians to prescribe drugs electronically are designed to automatically warn of potential medication errors, but a new study reveals clinicians often override the alerts and rely instead on their own judgment.

Video game technology may help surgeons operate on beating hearts

50443248 — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:20:48 -0400

Surgery has been done inside some adults’ hearts while the heart is still beating, avoiding the need to open the chest, stop the heart and put patients on cardiopulmonary bypass. But to perform intricate beating-heart operations in babies with congenital heart disease or do beating-heart complex repairs in adults, surgeons need fast, highly sophisticated real-time imaging that allows them to see depth.

Panel investigates media reporting on science and politics of stem cells

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 11:21:33 -0400

Stem cells, politics, "fairness," and what one participant termed "the disintegration of traditional journalism," were all on the bill at Thursday night’s (Oct. 18) public forum titled "Stem Cells and the Media," hosted by the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.

A panel of four science journalists who have extensively covered the stem cell "story" gathered in the Radcliffe Gym to discuss and debate the challenges and complexities of stem cell research coverage by the mainstream media.

"This is the most political issue in science," said William Saletan, a national correspondent for Slate magazine.

Nanowire makes own electricity

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 13:41:55 -0400

Harvard chemists have built a new wire out of photosensitive materials that is hundreds of times smaller than a human hair. The wire not only carries electricity to be used in vanishingly small circuits, but generates power as well.

Charles M. Lieber, the Mark Hyman Jr. Professor of Chemistry, and colleagues created the nanowire out of three different kinds of silicon with different electrical properties. The silicon is wrapped in layers to create the wire. When light falls on the outer material, a process begins due to the interaction of the core with the shell layers, leading to the creation of electrical charges.

The work was described in the Oct. 18 issue of the journal Nature.

Frankel wins Lennart Nilsson Award

404132862 — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 23:15:10 -0400

Felice Frankel, scientific imagist and Senior Research Fellow at Harvard’s Initiative in Innovative Computing, has been named the recipient of the 2007 Lennart Nilsson Award for scientific or nature photography.

Frankel was cited for creating images described by Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, which oversees the award, as “exquisite works of art and crystal-clear scientific photographs – both fascinating and valuable to the general public and scientific community alike.”

Stem cells may enhance capability of heart cells to regenerate

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 12:21:50 -0400

During a fatal heart attack, at least 1 billion heart cells are killed in the left ventricle, one of the heart’s two big lower pumping chambers that move blood into the body.

In less severe coronaries, dead cardiac cells are replaced by connective tissue cells that form scar tissue in the damaged heart. But the result is never very satisfactory. Scarred ventricular walls are thin, and don’t contract very well — a problem in a workhorse organ designed for sustained pumping.

Inadequate heart repair concerns British-trained developmental biologist Christine Mummery, who has made cardiac cells her specialty. She’s the Harvard Stem Cell Institute Radcliffe Fellow, and will be in residence at Harvard for a semester.

Taking distance education to the next level

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 13:21:21 -0400

A major advance in distance education was initiated this fall in a specially equipped classroom at the Harvard Extension School. Classes held there give online students the ability to view on-campus lectures in real-time and actually take part in classroom discussions. The facility also serves as an experimental locus to test distance education teaching methods and technology. One of the extraordinary benefits of the $1 million in state-of-the-art equipment is that several courses can be taught at the same time.

The Extension School is among a small number of institutions across the country offering streaming video of college courses.

Chili pepper cocktail points to wide-awake surgery

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 11:56:32 -0400

Imagine an epidural or a shot of Novocain that doesn’t paralyze your legs or make you numb yet totally blocks your pain. This type of pain management is now within reach. As a result, childbirth, surgery, and trips to the dentist might be less traumatic in the future, thanks to researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School (HMS) who have succeeded in selectively blocking pain-sensing neurons in rats without interfering with other types of neurons.

The pint-sized subjects received injections near their sciatic nerves, which run down their hind limbs, and subsequently lost the ability to feel pain in their paws. But they continued to move normally and react to touch.

Harvard to limit greenhouse gas emissions in new Allston construction

404132862 — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:15:17 -0400

Harvard University this week reiterated its long-standing commitment to improving the environment, voluntarily agreeing to limit greenhouse gas emissions from new buildings constructed on its Allston campus in ways that will keep those emissions levels well below current national standards for similar facilities. This commitment begins with the Allston Science Complex, the first project in Harvard’s 20-year master plan.

The agreement between the University and the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) ensures that the four-building, 589,000 square-foot Allston Science Complex will produce only half the greenhouse gas emissions of a typical laboratory building already meeting current national standards.

“This is a first,” EEA Secretary Ian Bowles said of the University’s commitment. “Governor Deval Patrick and I applaud Harvard for its leadership in voluntarily capping greenhouse gas emissions from its Allston campus project,” he said. “Harvard’s Allston project will now be watched carefully around the country and I expect other institutions and states will step forward and take on similar commitments in the years to come,” Bowles added.

Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino said this collaborative agreement between Harvard and the state “further advances our green vision for Boston. … This project appropriately demonstrates a deep commitment to the city and the state’s goals for sustainability,” Menino said.

According to the EEA, the voluntary agreement with Harvard is the first in the nation to legally bind a developer to reducing greenhouse gases beyond the current standards. Research has shown greenhouse gases to be a prominent cause of global warming. Harvard will be providing ongoing reports to confirm compliance with these requirements.

Chris Gordon, chief operating officer of the Allston Development Group, said that “Harvard’s Allston campus ultimately will be the University’s greatest expression of environmental sustainability. This agreement advances a long-standing environmental strategy that benefits both the University and the community, and reflects our continuing commitment to work with the state, city, and community to protect and improve the environment.”

Bowles issued three written decisions in accordance with the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) in response to Harvard University’s proposed campus 20-year master plan for Allston. In these decisions, the secretary:

Determined that the proposed Allston Science Complex would not have any environmental impacts requiring further review under MEPA, and included a commitment to limit greenhouse gas emissions in the complex to 50 percent below current baseline standards;
Established the terms of future environmental review under MEPA of Harvard’s 20-year Allston master plan, which includes a commitment to limit greenhouse gas emissions to 30 percent below current baseline standards;
Established a special review procedure for Harvard’s Allston campus development that, while maintaining the same environmental standards as under the standard MEPA review process, will allow for planning and environmental review to take place over several years, allowing specific projects to go forward concurrent with environmental review of the master plan.

Harvard’s voluntary commitment to cap Science Complex greenhouse gas emissions well below the nationally required level is another example of the environmental progress being made in Boston under the leadership of Mayor Menino. The Mayor’s Green Building Task Force has led to several green policies in force, including changes to the city’s zoning code requiring green buildings. Harvard has been working in partnership with the cities of Boston and Cambridge for several years to advance green building development and operations on its campus.

“Boston has an ambitious goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by the year 2050 and is the first in the nation to have green building zoning, and this Science Center will achieve the US Green Building Council’s gold standard,”said Menino. “We have a campaign to plant 100,000 trees in neighborhoods throughout Boston, and Harvard has committed to planting thousands of trees in the Allston-Brighton area.”

Among strategies Harvard is implementing to reduce the environmental footprint of the new Science Complex are:

Including high performance building design minimizing heating and cooling losses;
Using cogeneration and microgrid distribution of power, geothermal wells, solar chimneys, and other renewable energy strategies to heat and cool the buildings;
Having extensive natural day lighting to reduce energy demand;
Including sophisticated ventilation and building controls strategies, the careful selection of energy efficient equipment, and high performance building systems such as motors, fans, lights, pumps, freezers, and fume hoods.

Other concepts under consideration for the new extended campus in Allston include the use of windmills, a geothermal loop, and the capturing of potential heating energy from the sewage system.

“We are very pleased to be partnering with the state and the city in tackling the critical issue of climate change and environmental sustainability as it relates to our campus development,” said Leith Sharp, director of the Harvard Green Campus Initiative. “The Harvard community — staff, students, and faculty alike, understand that Harvard has a profound responsibility to the local, state, national, and international communities on addressing these issues.”

“Harvard is doing pioneering development in Allston on a project that is the way of the future in terms of research and technology,” said Paul Berkeley, a member of the Harvard Allston Task Force, the president of the Allston Civic Association, and a lifelong Allston resident. “In some ways this is new territory. Harvard is taking land once industrial that has been sitting for all these years and will transform it into an area that looks to the future. This is a unique opportunity to set the tone for how this building will be developed.”

Harvard has distinguished itself as an environmental leader for many years by adopting the recognized industry standard for sustainable design, the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standard, in over 26 building renovation and construction projects, expanding campus renewable energy projects and green power purchases, undertaking extensive campus waste reduction and recycling efforts, reducing single-occupant vehicle use, and meeting or exceeding all environmental compliance requirements. The Harvard Green Campus Initiative engages thousands of staff and students across the University in green practices by encouraging the Harvard community to be a living laboratory, a learning organization, and a global leader in campus sustainability. Harvard operates under University-wide campus sustainability principles. In combination, all of these efforts have set Harvard on a path to achieving significant greenhouse gas reductions across its campus.

Harvard christens School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

404132862 — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 17:48:55 -0400

An afternoon of reflection, promise, and a bit of humor marked the official launch of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences on Thursday (Sept. 20), the first new Harvard school since the John F. Kennedy School of Government was created 71 years ago as the Graduate School of Public Administration.

Harvard President Drew Faust officially ushered the former Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences into its new status a little after 2 p.m., unfurling the new School's banners during a luncheon ceremony held on the lawn of Pierce Hall.

‘Hot’ ice could lead to medical device

50443248 — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 15:28:19 -0400

Harvard physicists have shown that specially treated diamond coatings can keep water frozen at body temperature, a finding that may have applications in future medical implants.

Doctoral student Alexander Wissner-Gross and Efthimios Kaxiras, physics professor and Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics, spent a year building and examining computer models that showed that a layer of diamond coated with sodium atoms will keep water frozen up to 108 degrees Fahrenheit.

In ice, water molecules are arranged in a rigid framework that gives the substance its hardness. The process of melting is somewhat like a building falling down: pieces that had been arranged into a rigid structure move and flow against one another, becoming liquid water.

Biohybrid of elastic film and muscle cells packs a punch

50443248 — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 16:04:05 -0400

In an innovative marriage of living cells and a synthetic substrate, bioengineers at Harvard University have found that a rubberlike, elastic film coated with a single layer of cardiac muscle cells can semi-autonomously engage in lifelike gripping, pumping, walking, and swimming. The tissue engineering feat was reported in the Sept. 7 issue of the journal Science.

The researchers, led by Kevin Kit Parker and Adam W. Feinberg, report that the exact movement undertaken by these hybrid muscular thin films (MTFs) can be tailored by controlling muscle alignment relative to the shape of the flexible film. Some of the MTFs even contract spontaneously, an intrinsic property of cardiac muscle that allows the devices to move around without user intervention.

Creating a computer currency

50443248 — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 16:36:02 -0400

Computer scientists are using the latest version of peer-to-peer video sharing software to explore a next-generation electronic commerce model that uses bandwidth as a global currency.

The software, called Tribler, is available for download beginning today (Aug. 29) on the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) Web site: http://tv.seas.harvard.edu.

Once installed, the software lets those who download it join a peer-to-peer video sharing network. Tribler was originally created by scientists in The Netherlands, at Delft University of Technology and Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. The most recent release was created in collaboration with scientists at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Brain implants relieve Alzheimer’s damage

50443248 — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 15:53:35 -0400

Genetically engineered cells implanted in mice have cleared away toxic plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

The animals were sickened with a human gene that caused them to develop, at an accelerated rate, the disease that robs millions of elderly people of their memories. After receiving the doctored cells, the brain-muddling plaques melted away. If this works in humans, old age could be a much happier time of life.

Alzheimer’s involves a protein called amyloid-beta, which makes up gooey clots or plaques that form in the brain. These toxic clumps, along with accessory tangled fibers, kill brain cells and interfere with memory and thinking. The situation has been compared to a build-up of cholesterol in coronary arteries.

Man-made medical mystery gets second solution

50443248 — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 17:04:10 -0400

Researchers have created a new material that they believe improves on an eight-year-old solution to a decades-long medical mystery over the cause of widespread artificial joint failure.

The new material, developed at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and implanted for the first time July 19, could help fill the demand for higher-performance joints from a new generation of patients.