Science and Sleep on Line

The University’s Office of News and Public Affairs has debuted HarvardScience (http://harvardscience.harvard.edu), a website on scientific, medical, and engineering research—and the people who conduct it—throughout Harvard. The site reports science news, profiles researchers, and follows Harvard people out into the field. There are also links to affiliated hospitals and research institutes; a directory of science researchers (although links to their labs and home pages may be found more readily, in many instances, directly through their departmental and school listings); and topical indexes. These aids may even prove useful within the University to connect researchers with common interests or emerging queries.

Separately, Harvard Medical School’s Division of Sleep Medicine (http://sleep.med.harvard.edu) has joined with WGBH Interactive, an affiliate of Boston’s PBS channel, to create an on-line sleep and health education program, www.HealthySleep.hms.harvard.edu. The first unit, on healthy sleep, appears in January, with interactive content explaining the science of sleep, why it matters, and how to get it. Coverage of disorders—such as insomnia, apnea, narcolepsy—will follow. The timing (just after New Year’s Eve revels) and the home venue (a research university where students seem barely able to get to bed before sunrise) seem especially apt.