To build more aerodynamic machines, researchers are drawing inspiration from an unlikely source: the ocean.

A team of evolutionary biologists and engineers at Harvard University, in collaboration with colleagues from the University of South Carolina, has shed light on a decades-old mystery about sharkskin and, in the process, demonstrated a new, bioinspired structure that could improve the aerodynamic performance of planes, wind turbines, drones, and cars.

The research is published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface...

As the global population rises toward 10 billion, the planet is headed for a food shortage, with some estimates saying supply will have to double by 2050 to meet demand.

The continued advance of agricultural technology — genetic modification along with new crop varieties and land-management techniques — will cover some of the increased demand. But such technologies will require a dramatic increase in the production of agricultural fertilizers, an energy-intensive process fed by fossil fuels and reliant on a robust manufacturing infrastructure: factories connected to rail and road...

Climate change poses two fundamental challenges for society: How will cities and regions adapt to the impact we can already see? And, how can society rapidly transform the way it now creates and consumes energy into a fully renewable clean-energy system?

Seven new research projects, awarded funding in the fourth round of grants from Harvard’s Climate Change Solutions Fund, will use the humanities, engineering, science, and design to tackle these twin challenges all over the world, from hospitals in Boston to...

A picture is worth 1,000 words, the saying goes, but a group of Harvard-based scientists is hoping that it may also be worth the same number of equations.

Pictorial laws appear to unify ideas from disparate, interdisciplinary fields of knowledge, linking them beautifully like elements of a da Vinci painting. The group is working to expand the pictorial mathematical language first outlined last year by Arthur Jaffe, the Landon T. Clay Professor of Mathematics and Theoretical Science, and postdoctoral fellow Zhengwei Liu.

“There is one word you can take away from this: excitement,”...

Images captured by Harvard researchers often blur the boundary between art and science. From high-powered microscopes to technology that can render biological tissue transparent, new tools are revealing the world in unexpected and compelling ways, expanding our understanding while showcasing unique beauty.

You can see the world in a biofilm, or the universe in a neural network. Jellyfish, seahorses, and turtles fluoresce in the ocean depths, while deadly...

Spending hours a day diving around the coral reefs off St. Croix might sound like the stuff of a dream vacation, but for Annie Opel ’17, it was serious business.

Opel spent much of her Virgin Islands adventure on thesis research that shows that efforts to restore coral reefs have a positive impact on fish populations, both short- and long-term. The study was published in the December issue of Marine Biology with Opel as first author, a rare accomplishment for an undergraduate.

“Reefs are not only biologically important — more than 4,000 species of fish rely on these ecosystems —...