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Cambridge, Mass. March 4, 2010 - Geologists have found evidence that sea ice extended to the equator 716.5 million years ago, bringing new precision to a “snowball Earth” event long suspected to have taken place around that time. Led by scientists at Harvard University, the team reports on its work this week in the journal Science.

Where others see dirt, John Bonner sees beauty. Where others see jumbled clumps, he sees highly sophisticated organization. At age 89, Bonner, the George M. Moffett Professor Emeritus of Biology , is one of the world's leading experts on cellular slime molds, found in soils the world over. He has led the way in making "Dictyostelium discoideum" a model organism central to examining some of the major questions in experimental biology.

Cambridge, Mass. December 3, 2009 - Taking inspiration from genetic screening techniques, researchers from Harvard and MIT have demonstrated a way to build better artificial visual systems with the help of low-cost, high-performance gaming hardware. The neural processing involved in visually recognizing even the simplest object in a natural environment is profound - and profoundly difficult to mimic.

Cambridge, Mass. September 7, 2009 - Neurobiologist Florian Engert, a pioneer in the development of the larval zebrafish as a system for study of neural circuits and behavior, has been named professor of molecular and cellular biology in Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, effective July 1, 2009.

A team of researchers at UCL's Ear Institute is using a unique machine to deepen our understanding of how the brain responds to sound. The Ear Institute's new small-animal magnetoencephalograph, or MEG for short, is the most advanced machine of its type in the world. Its installation is a result of a collaboration between UCL, the Kanazawa Institute of Technology (KIT) in Japan and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris, France.

Cambridge, Mass. April 30, 2009 - Researchers at Harvard University have found that humans aren't the only ones who can groove to a beat - some other species can dance, too. This capability was previously believed to be specific to humans. The research team found that only species that can mimic sound seem to be able to keep a beat, implying an evolutionary link between the two capacities.

In einem Projekt mit der Veterinärwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Zürich und dem appenzellischen Textilunternehmen Eschler hat die Empa mit Unterstützung von Swiss Olympic neuartige Pferdedecken entwickelt.