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171 stories in February, 2008
HMS, Broad Institute team works to better understand mitochondria
Why do nearly 1 million people taking cholesterol-lowering statins often experience muscle cramps? Why is it that in the rare case when a diabetic takes medication for intestinal worms, his glucose levels improve? Is there any scientific basis for the purported health effects of green tea?
The three green ‘r’s: Reduce, reuse, recycle
On a snowy Friday morning last week (Feb. 22), a truck pulled up in front of 90 Windom St., a two-story brick building on the site of Harvard’s new Allston Science Complex. The former commercial space is the last of the structures to be cleared before construction begins.
Jazz great Herbie Hancock takes home Artist of the Year
Music legend Herbie Hancock received the 2008 Cultural Artist of the Year Award from the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations at the organization’s 23rd annual Cultural Rhythms celebration, an afternoon and evening of performances from a diverse cultural mix of 29 student groups. Hancock was feted at the first of two shows (March 1) at Sanders Theatre where it was hard to tell who was having more fun, the performers or the jazz great himself.
The first civil rights movement
Most of us think of the Civil Rights movement as something that took place in the transitional 1950s and the tumultuous 1960s. It’s seen as a cultural artifact squeezed between the defiance of Rosa Parks (1955) and the demise of Martin Luther King Jr. (1968).
Goodfellow Liotta visits University
Film actor Ray Liotta recently (Feb. 25) visited the Harvard Foundation as a special guest. He met with representatives of several student cultural organizations, including the Harvard Italian-American Cultural Society.
New Ph.D. film program launched
The study of moving images has always been viewed through a wide lens at Harvard. Since the beginning, film studies at the University has sought to incorporate a broad range of disciplines in order to appreciate and understand the visual experience. The rich fields of philosophy, psychology, and the fine arts were all mined early on to examine the medium. Harvard widened its scope recently with the announcement of a new doctoral program in film studies in the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies (VES). The program, its creators said, will build on the University’s eclectic approach to the subject.
Hollywood writer wins kudos at Rosovsky Hall
rreverence was the theme of the evening (Feb. 21) as one of the sharp satirical minds behind the nation’s quirkiest cartoon family addressed a rapt audience at Harvard Hillel’s Rosovsky Hall. Mike Reiss ’81, a founding writer of the animated series “The Simpsons,” gave the crowd what they came for with an hour-long stand-up routine peppered with sarcasm and profane punch lines. His younger audience members and their parents, all equally adoring fans, roared their approval.
Playwright Tony Kushner to deliver Tanner Lectures
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner will deliver this year’s Tanner Lectures on Human Values, sponsored by the Office of the President and the Department of English at Harvard University. Kushner will speak on the topic “Fiction That’s True! Historical Fiction and Anxiety” on April 9 and 10 at 4:30 p.m. in Lowell Lecture Hall. On April 11 from 10 a.m. to noon, Kushner will lead a seminar with Harvard commentators at the New College Theatre.
“If you wouldn’t tell Stalin, don’t tell anyone else!” In the early years of the Cold War, a billboard near an atomic bomb testing site in New Mexico urged passersby to keep research developments close to the vest. Secrecy was of the utmost importance in that era — and not just in scientific circles — as Americans nervously watched the Soviet Union expand its influence throughout the East.
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