OEB News

  • The infamous Jackalopus karelliemi, a.k.a. ”Liem’s Jackalope,” made an unexpected appearance at the opening of the newly renovated Great Mammal Hall in the Harvard Museum of Natural History on October 16, 2009. The perpetrator remains unidentified and at large. The prank honors the memory of Bigelow Professor of Ichthyology Karel Liem, who was a master practical joker.
  • NPR's Science Friday has featured a video that Cassandra Extavour made about multicellularity. Watch video, 11/6/2009
  • Yael Aminetzach, a postdoctoral researcher in the Hoekstra lab, shows that venomous shrews and lizards evolved toxic proteins in the same way. Harvard Gazette, 10/29/2009
  • L. Mahadevan receives a MacArthur Foundation 'genius' grant for his work on the science behind familiar objects and everyday events. HarvardScience, 9/22/2009
  • Farish A. Jenkins, Jr. is awarded the prestigious Romer-Simpson Medal at the September meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Bristol, UK. The society's highest award honors sustained and outstanding scholarly excellence in the discipline of vertebrate paleontology. SVP Annual Meeting website, 9/26/2009
  • Pardis Sabeti is awarded an NIH Director's 2009 New Innovator Award for research in host and pathogen evolution in Lassa fever. The award addresses two important goals: stimulating highly innovative research and supporting promising new investigators.NIH Roadmap for Medical Research, 9/24/2009
  • Gonzalo Giribet is part of an international research team using scalable phylogenomic methods to place the Acoelomorph flatworms as a sister clade to other bilaterally symmetric animals. The results appear in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Proc. R. Soc. B Abstract, 9/16/2009
  • Kirsten Bomblies examines plant immune responses for clues to divergence. Harvard Gazette, 9/21/2009 (Read her profile in recently launched Harvard FD&D site.)
  • Chris Organ and Dan Janes show that transition from egg laying to live birth in a species depends on the prior evolution of genetic sex determination. Harvard Gazette, 9/21/2009
  • Professor Karel F. Liem, Henry Bryant Bigelow Professor of Ichthyology, Curator of Ichthyology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, and Honorary Associate and Former Master of Dunster House, died on September 3, 2009. July 2010 symposium in his honor is planned.
  • Congratulations to the 2009 Rhino Cup volleyball tournament winners as team Los Mostachos triumphs. 9/2/2009
  • James McCarthy shared his research on climate change with school teachers from around the Northeast during a weeklong Harvard workshop “Oil and the Contemporary Globe.” Harvard Gazette, 9/1/2009
  • OEB faculty participated in the 2009 Harvard Life Sciences/Howard Hughes Medical Institute sponsored summer outreach programs for high school biology teachers and students. Read more about the MCB-hosted program. Visit the program website. Follow links to videos of evolution lectures by OEB faculty.
  • Hopi Hoekstra, Catherine Linnen and Evan Kingsley's article, published in the journal Science, shows mice living in Sand Hills quickly evolved lighter coloration. Harvard Science, 8/27/2009
  • Stacey Combes and L. Mahadevan are part of research team receiving a $10M NSF grant to develop small-scale mobile robotic devices. Press release, 8/12/2009
  • David Haig's analysis of rare genetic disorders shows maternal, paternal genes' tug-of-war may last well into childhood. Harvard Science, 7/28/2ß009
  • The Joint Genome Institute of the Department of Energy will sequence the genome of Amanita theirsii, a cellulose degrading fungus in an ectomycorrhizal genus. The sequencing effort will be coordinated by the Pringle Laboratory. See project website, 6/29/2009.
  • H. Bradley Shaffer begins term as Hrdy Visiting Fellow in Conservation Biology for the 2009-10 academic year. 7/1/2009
  • Jonathan Losos receives the 2009 E. O. Wilson Naturalist Award from The American Society of Naturalists. Press Release, 6/9/2009
  • Jesse Weber, a graduate student in Hopi Hoekstra's lab, was awarded the Hamilton Prize for the best student paper at the Evolution 2009 Meeting.
  • Christopher Marx to receive prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program award from the National Science Foundation.
  • Work by Yael Salzman, a postdoctoral researcher in Hopi Hoekstra's lab, on the molecular evolution of toxic proteins in shrews was featured in The Washington Post, 6/8/2009.
  • Research by Stacey Combes shows that bees in flight trade energy for safety to stay stable in the wind. Abstract, PNAS, 6/2009
  • Graduate student Matt Hegreness systematically maps synergistic and antagonistic interactions between drugs and the evolution of antibiotic resistance. Nature Reviews Microbiology, 6/2009
  • Graduate student Dino Martins receives a 2009 Whitley Award for his work related to the conservation of insects and sustainable agriculture in Kenya. Watch an online video of Dino’s project. Press Release, 5/13/2009
  • Chris Organ's phylogenetic analysis of proteins in 80-million-year-old duck-billed hadrosaur fossil bolsters earlier T. rex findings about the bird-dinosaur clade. Science, 5/1/2009
  • Scott Edwards is elected to the 2009 class of Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Harvard Gazette, 4/20/2009
  • James McCarthy is honored by the Harvard Foundation as its 2009 Scientist of the Year. Harvard Gazette, 3/12/2009
  • Pardis Sabeti gave a talk entitled "Evolution in the Post-Genomic Age" at the HMNH as part of Harvard's celebration of Darwin's 200th birthday. Sound Lantern Audio file, 2/26/2009
  • Scott Edwards collaborated with recent OEB PhD graduate Leon Claessens to create a 3-D digital model of a rare dodo skeleton in the MCZ's collections. HarvardScience, 2/19/2009
  • Hopi Hoekstra's work on cryptic coloration in mice was featured in Smithsonian Magazine, 2/10/2009.
  • Peter Girguis and Scott Wankel probe the deep subsurface biosphere of the Saragasso Sea and find it teeming with never-before-seen exotic, microscopic life. Harvard Gazette 2/12/2009
  • Arkhat Abzhanov and Hopi Hoekstra are praised among the 'modern Darwins' whose scientific work carries on the legacy Darwin's theory inspired. They are featured in National Geographic. 2/2009
  • Papers by Jonathan Losos, Farish Jenkins and Arkhat Abzhanov are cited among the past decade's 'gems' of evolutionary evidence as Nature marks Darwin's 200th birthday. Nature. 12/31/2008
  • Grad student Dave Blackburn's study of the "Wolverine frog" from Africa—frogs with erectile claws—was one of the Top 10 Stories of 2008 reported by the journal Science. 12/24/2008
  • Anne Pringle researches why explosively launched ascomycete fungal spores have drag-minimizing shapes. PNAS Abstract, 12/22/2008
  • Launch of the Encyclopedia of Life was one of Nature magazine’s 10 “biggest science stories of the year.” Nature, 12/18/2008
  • Gonzalo Giribet's paper on metazoan phylogenomics, published in the journal Nature, was included in Discover magazine’s "top 100 Science Stories of 2008." Discover, 12/4/2008
  • Paul Moorcroft is modeling the forest to provide a detailed view of responses to climate variation. Harvard Gazette, 12/18/2008
  • Prashant Sharma, a graduate student in the Giribet Lab, received the Don Rosen award of the Willi Hennig Society for his talk at the Hennig XXVII International Meeting in Tucuman, Argentina. 10/2008.
  • Walden Pond research by grad students Brad Ruhfel and Charles Willis, working with Charles Davis, is featured in the New York Times, 10/28/2008.
  • Opening of HMNH's exhibit "The Language of Color" featured Hopi Hoekstra describing how animals and plants communicate with color. Harvard Magazine, 10/24/2008
  • Takeshi Ise, a 2008 OEB PhD graduate in Paul Moorcroft's lab, has shown that rising temperatures may dry up peat bogs, causing carbon release. New York Times, 10/14/2008
  • Gonzalo Giribet explained the role of mite harvestmen in National Geographic Channel's Naked Science: "Supercontinent" episode airing on Oct 9, 2008. Program details
  • Kirsten Bomblies is among Harvard's three MacArthur Foundation 2008 "genius" grant recipients in the sciences. She will begin her OEB appointment in July, 2009. More
  • Audubon: The Early Drawings -- A discussion at HMNH with Scott Edwards and Leslie Morris on Sept 18, 2008. More
  • Missy Holbrook will moderate a discussion with Edward O. Wilson and Eric Chivian entitled "Sustaining Life: A Conversation" at Boston's Museum of Science on October 3, 2008. BMOS event details
  • OEB postdoc Terry J. Ord, working with Jonathan Losos, has described how Jamaican lizards mark their territory with shows of strength at dusk and dawn. Harvard Science, 8/27/2008
  • Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity -- HMNH will host a lecture & booksigning by Dr. Eric Chivian and Dr. E. O. Wilson on Oct 16, 2008 More, 8/21/2008
  • "Taking a cue from ants on evolution of humans," the work of Edward O. Wilson is featured in the NewYork Times, 7/15/2008.
  • Brian Langerhans, Liang Liu, Charlie Willis and Santiago Ramirez receive recognition at Evolution 2008 meetings. OEB Department has strong showing. Science, 7/4/2008
  • Yun Zhang awarded prestigious Merck Award for her research aimed at understanding learning and the pathologyof neurological defects LiveScience, 5/27/2008
  • Analysis of Martian rock by Andy Knoll and Nicholas Tosca suggests Mars' water has been too salty to support life. ScienceDaily, 5/30/2008
  • A new species of Sri Lankan frog described by Madhava Meegaskumbara is on 2008 List of Top 10 New Species of the International Institute for Species Exploration. IISE Web, 5/23/2008
  • Peter Girguis's microbial fuel cell powers Harvard student team's winning project in World Bank's Lighting Africa competition. Harvard Gazette, 5/22/2008
  • Chris Organ's molecular analysis of T. rex protein, published in the journal Science, shows shared avian ancestry. Harvard Gazette, 5/1/2008
  • Gonzalo Giribet's phylogenomic sampling research improves resolution of the animal tree of life and is the journal Nature's cover story. 4/10/2008
  • Martin A. Nowak's study, published in the journal Nature, shows that cooperation game winners choose not to escalate conflicts. Harvard Gazette, 3/20/2008
  • Jim McCarthy has been awarded the 2008 Walker Prize from the Boston Museum of Science. BMOS, 4/7/2008
  • The Hrdy Visiting Fellowship in Conservation Biology for the 2008-09 academic year has been awarded to Professor Navjot Sodhi of the National University of Singapore. Fellowship Info 3/7/2008
  • Charles Davis's Rafflesia research is among Discover Magazine's top 100 discoveries of 2007. Discover Magazine, 1/15/2008
  • James McCarthy, co-chair of a United Nations IPCC working group, among delegation honored at laureate Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize ceremony Harvard Gazette, 12/13/2007
  • Anne Pringle used high speed video to reveal the mechanism of mushroom spore discharge. Small Things Considered, 12/10/2007
  • Donald Pfister chosen as new dean of Harvard Summer School Harvard Gazette, 12/06/2007
  • Peter Girguis awarded a Lindbergh Grant for developing microbial fuel cells from soil for lighting and power in rural areas Harvard Gazette, 12/06/2007
  • Andy Biewener and CFS researcher Timothy Higham study complexity of bird muscles in motion. HarvardScience, 11/14/2007
  • Santiago Ramírez, Charles Marshall and Naomi Pierce have identified the ancient fossilized remains of a pollen-bearing bee as the first hint of orchids in the fossil record. Harvard Gazette, 8/29/2007
  • Gonzalo Giribet hunts tiny daddy longlegs to explain continental shifts. New York Times, 8/28/2007
  • Andy Knoll awarded the Geological Society of London's highest honor, the Wollaston Medal The Geological Society Citation, 5/2007
  • Cassandra Extavour's theory of the evolution of germline development featured in special Germ Cell Issue of Science PubMed, 4/20/2007
  • Anne Pringle on the trail of the deadly death cap mushroom NPR's All Things Considered, 2/8/2007
  • Charles Davis unravels the mystery of Rafflesia Harvard Gazette, 2/1/2007
  • Peter Shaw Ashton awarded the Japan Prize Harvard Gazette, 1/11/2007
  • Arkhat Abzhanov, Hopi Hoekstra and Farish Jenkins among the "Top 10" recognized by the journal Science for 2006 breakthroughs Science, 12/22/2006