Marine sponges inspire the next generation of skyscrapers and bridges
September 21, 2020
By Leah Burrows / SEAS Communications
(CAMBRIDGE, Mass.) – When we think about sponges, we tend to think of something soft and squishy. But researchers from Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) are using the glassy skeletons of marine sponges as inspiration for the next generation of stronger and taller buildings, longer bridges, and lighter spacecraft.
The skeleton of Euplectella aspergillum, a deep-water marine sponge. Credit: Matheus Fernandes/Harvard SEAS
In a new paper published in
Nature Materials, the researchers showed that the diagonally-reinforced square lattice-like skeletal structure of
Greener groceries
All illustrations by @businessfrog
The average supermarket has about 30,000 items on its shelves, so discerning shoppers are awash in a sea of choices organic vegetables, artisanal cheeses, grass-fed meats, fair-trade coffee.
But what if shoppers want to purchase foods that minimize their impact on the environment? Information on a product’s carbon footprint typically can’t be found on its label.
Enter Marble, a startup co-founded by a Harvard graduate student that enables shoppers to scan a food product’s barcode with their smartphone and see an estimate of that item’s carbon footprint (in kilograms of CO2).
Share This Finding and designing practical, feasible, scalable projects to help organizations achieve climate goals This interactive, multi-disciplinary Climate Solutions Living Lab course and research project led by Clinical Professor and Director of Harvard Law School’s Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, Wendy Jacobs, focuses on studying and designing practical solutions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions at Harvard, in neighboring communities, elsewhere in United States, and abroad. The course is designed to bring together students from across the University to work on inter-disciplinary teams applying their legal, business, public policy, public health, engineering, and design training. The approaches developed will be scalable for consideration and potential adoption by other similarly-situated institutions and enterprises that want to reduce their emissions and improve public health in and around their buildings
Claverly Hall complete; Apthorp scheduled to finish this summer
BACOW: All of us hope that by fall we will have returned to some semblance of normality but we’re also planning for contingencies. If this virus has taught us anything, it is that we need to be flexible, and adaptable.
GAZETTE: Along those same lines, the pandemic has fundamentally changed the nature of work for so many. Do you have a sense of what work will look like at Harvard going forward?
BACOW: I think we’ve learned that people can work far more effectively from remote locations than we ever might have imagined. I have not set foot in Mass Hall since March 13, except for five minutes to reclaim a notebook that I left there shortly after I departed. If you had told me that I could do my job from my study here at Elmwood for a year without seeing the deans and VPs, the faculty, students, staff, alumni, donors, or the governing boards in person, I would have said, “No way.” But now we’ve all learne
Uniting to save small businesses
First-year student’s small business investment app wins Schmidt Futures support
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First-year student Steven Wang launched UsTogether, a startup that provides an easy way for people to invest in the long-term financial health of the small businesses they care about. (Photo provided by Steven Wang)
Ninety-five percent of small businesses nationwide took a financial hit from COVID-19 in 2020, with 26 percent temporarily closing and 56 percent reducing operations, according to a survey by the Federal Reserve.
Many of those small businesses struggled to access financing from traditional lenders and have relied on community support to stay afloat. But individuals who want to support a business in their neighborhood often don’t know how to help beyond contributing to occasional, one-time fundraisers.