Thirty years ago the Hubble Space Telescope began snapping photos of distant stars, providing a time machine that has taken astronomers back to when the universe was less than a billion years old.

Harvard researchers are using a chemical process known as triplet fusion upconversion to transform near-infrared photons into high-energy photons. The high-energy photons could be used in a huge range of applications, including a new type of precisely targeted chemotherapy, in which low-energy infrared lasers that penetrate deep into the body could be used to transform innocuous compounds into cancer-fighting drugs.