Harvard Horizons

What does it mean to be a human in a world that's dominated by science and technology—and in a universe in which we might not be alone? With the advancement of observational technology—for instance, the new James Webb telescope situated nearly a million miles from Earth—the detection of extraterrestrial life increasingly becomes a possibility. And while scientists have long had a love-hate relationship with speculative fictions, they are in constant engagement with them as they search for extraterrestrial life. In this episode of the Harvard Horizons podcast, PhD student Karina Mathew Mathew talks about engaging our imaginations to move beyond the restrictions of technology and human expectations.

At a conference in 1932, the Nobel Prize-winning nuclear physicist, Enrico Fermi, became the first scientist to use the term “neutrino” publicly. Since then, scientists have experimentally confirmed Fermi's theories and directly observed neutrinos, but the subatomic particles are still not fully understood. In this episode of the Harvard Horizons podcast, PhD student Nicolò Foppiani asks whether the "sterile neutrino" exists and whether it could explain one of the greatest mysteries in astrophysics: the source of dark matter.

“When all else about an individual dies or is devoured,” writes Harvard PhD student Vanessa Braganza, “ciphered documents [those written in code] can preserve their identity beneath the calcified surface of history.” In this episode of the Harvard Horizons project, Braganza explains how the secret letters of Mary, Queen of Scots, written in code, upend our notions of the doomed royal as a woman with no agency, swept under by a powerful leader and the currents of history.

While juries convict and judges pass sentence, it is the elected local prosecutor—the district attorney (DA)—more than any other actor who determines the course of criminal justice in the United States. The decision on whether to charge an individual, what charges to file, whether to drop a case or offer a plea bargain--and the specific terms of that bargain--are unreviewable powers of district attorneys (DAs). In this episode of the Harvard Horizons podcast, PhD student Chika Okafor explores the dramatic effect that electoral politics have on the sentences DAs seek in criminal cases.   

For nearly as long as there has been art, there have been technicians in the background who enabled the artist to realize her creative vision—from those who prepared paint to those who quarried marble, made canvas, built galleries, and constructed museums. The size and scope of contemporary art, however, have made these technical specialists even more critical to the creative process—and more of a part of it. In this episode of the Harvard Horizons podcast, PhD student Hannah Cohen sheds light on the work of these craftspeople through a look at one of the century's most arresting works of art: Shibboleth, an installation that involved cracking the foundation of London's massive Tate Modern museum.

Tuberculosis (TB) has taken over a billion lives in the past 140 years. Although the disease is both preventable and treatable, resistance to traditional therapies is growing. The WHO calls multidrug-resistant TB “a public health crisis and a health security threat,” citing a 10 percent increase in cases from 2018 to 2019. In this Harvard Horizons presentation, Harvard University PhD student Harry Won describes a new approach to treating the disease: by targeting and destroying critical parts of TB’s cellular “machine.” 

At night, the sky above the Colombian coffee farm where Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences student Juliana García-Mejía grew up teemed with stars. On many evenings her uncle, an anthropologist with a love of astronomy, would gather all the cousins together to gaze up and think about the universe.  “He started asking us questions such as ‘Do you think that the existence of the moon is important for life on earth?’” García-Mejía remembers. “I was absolutely enthralled. I really could not get enough of those conversations with my uncle. It became this kind of love for science that we shared.” García-Mejía is still enthralled with the night sky—so much so that she has designed, built, installed, and is now testing a new instrument to search the heavens. This work was the topic of her 2022 Harvard Horizons talk, “The Tierras Observatory: An Ultra-Precise Photometer to Characterize Nearby Terrestrial Planets.” Her ultimate goal is to identify worlds that might support life.