Month: March 2009

  • Nation & World

    Angiogenesis inhibitor improves brain tumor survival by reducing swelling

    The beneficial effects of anti-angiogenesis drugs in the treatment of the deadly brain tumors called glioblastomas appear to result primarily from reduction of edema – the swelling of brain tissue…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Infant weight gain linked to childhood obesity

    As childhood obesity continues its 30-year advance from occasional curiosity to cultural epidemic, health care providers are struggling to find out why — and the reasons are many. Increasingly sedentary…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Newly identified genetic variants found to increase breast cancer risk

    A large-scale effort to identify genetic markers of breast cancer has uncovered two common genetic variants that increase risk of the disease in women of European ancestry. The paper, published…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Five at Harvard named HHMI Early Career Scientists;

    Five Harvard scientists are among 50 young scientists  nationwide who will have their work supported for the next six years by a new initiative from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute…

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    President Obama taps Howard Koh for Assistant Secretary for Health

    President Barack Obama announced today his intent to nominate Howard Koh, the Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), to…

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Mechanism directing stem cells to their destination identified;

    Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers have for the first time identified in mice a cellular mechanism that directs stem cells to their ultimate destination in the body. The finding…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Policies regarding IRB members’ industry contacts often lacking

    At a time of heightened concern about conflicts of interest posed by relationships between academic medical researchers and commercial firms, a new study finds that a significant number of academic…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    U.S. hospitals slow to adopt electronic health records, citing cost

     There is broad consensus that electronic health records (EHR) have the potential to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of health care providers. Yet, to date, there has been no reliable…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Blumenthal named national coordinator for health information technology

    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced today (March 20) the selection of David Blumenthal as the Obama administration’s choice for national coordinator for health information technology. …

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Hearing could hold key to unlocking schizophrenia mystery

    Measuring brain waves in response to hearing a variety of tones appears to be a useful way to begin understanding the underlying genetic abnormalities associated with schizophrenia, says a study…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    OfA, OCS name 2009 Artist Development Fellowships

    The Office for the Arts at Harvard (OfA) and Office of Career Services (OCS) are pleased to announce the 2009 recipients of the Artist Development Fellowship (ADF). This program supports the artistic development of students demonstrating unusual accomplishment and/or evidence of significant artistic promise. The ADF program represents Harvard’s deep commitment to arts practice on…

    9 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Peabody preserves rare daguerreotypes

    Thirty-six rare daguerreotype portraits from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology have recently been stabilized and preserved for future generations, in collaboration with the Weissman Preservation Center at Harvard University Library and the Mellon Foundation. Until photo conservators got to work, some daguerreotypes were nearly obscured by the deterioration of glass and other components,…

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Playwright plumbs texts, ancient and modern

    You know Noh, no? Chiori Miyagawa does. The Bard College playwright-in-residence, a Radcliffe Fellow this year, has steeped herself in Noh theater, a measured style of Japanese drama that dates back to the 14th century. It’s one of the many literary echoes — some old, some ancient — that she brings to her work. “I…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Picture this, and you will begin to understand

    It has been almost 20 years since photographer Felice Frankel started working with scientists by helping them illustrate the intricate geometries of physical worlds too tiny to see. From the beginning, she was struck by one thing: To explain their ideas, scientists always start by drawing them. That gave Frankel an idea — “Picturing to…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Drawing from history

    History and art are intricately linked in “Wiyohpiyata: Lakota Images of the Contested West,” a new exhibit at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology based on a collection of drawings by Native American warriors. “It’s so rich. It’s such a complex, interesting document that has so many stories embedded in it,” said the show’s…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Yu Hua reads work, participates in star-studded panel at Fairbank event

    It’s strange to imagine your dentist as one of the most interesting and controversial novelists of the 21st century. But that’s just what Yu Hua is. Or was — the former dentist who admitted, more frighteningly, that he possessed little formal dental training, recently derided his former profession to a New York Times reporter, saying,…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Carroll Emory Wood Jr. passes away at the age of 88

    Carroll Emory Wood Jr., a professor of biology and curator of the Arnold Arboretum, passed away at his South End (Boston) home on March 15 at the age of 88.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Crimson turn on offense vs. Hartford

    There’s something special about the Harvard men’s lacrosse team. The signs are everywhere. There’s the Crimson’s 9-6 upset at Duke — against the country’s No. 5 team, in the season opener — followed by a 12-4 pounding of Stony Brook the next weekend. Then there is the crucial play of freshman attackman Jeff Cohen, who…

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Friedrich named assistant dean for undergrad social planning

    David R. Friedrich, the manager of the Student Organizations Center at Hilles (SOCH), has been appointed assistant dean of Harvard College and director of the Student Activities Office. He will be responsible for working with undergraduate students on developing and implementing extracurricular and social planning. His appointment is effective immediately.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Higher IQ power strips will save Holyoke energy

    The key to saving electricity is right at your feet — and there’s no need to reach for it. In February, University Information Systems (UIS) technicians installed Smart Strip Power Strips at about 700 workstations in Harvard’s Holyoke Center. When workers there turn off their computers at the end of the day, these floor-level devices…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Lights will go out as University joins worldwide Earth Hour

    For an hour on the evening of March 28, Harvard will turn the lights off on some of its iconic architectural features — part of Earth Hour 2009, a global event promoting individual action to reduce climate change. From 8:30 to 9:30 p.m., the University will shut off non-essential lights atop Memorial Hall and on…

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    University offers staff a bridge to somewhere

    Melani Bizarria cries when she talks about Harvard’s Bridge to Learning and Literacy Program. “I need to say thank you so much for the opportunity,” says Bizarria after a recent English class, her eyes welling up with tears. “I’m trying to do my best, but I don’t have words to explain my feelings. I am…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Biologist McCarthy nets Scientist of Year Award

    The Harvard Foundation will present the 2009 Scientist of the Year Award to James J. McCarthy, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography and master of Pforzheimer House, at this year’s Annual Albert Einstein Science Conference: “Advancing Minorities and Women in Science, Engineering, and Mathematics.” McCarthy will be honored for his outstanding work in climate science…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Fijian girls succumb to Western dysmorphia

    In 1982, Harvard Medical School psychiatrist Anne E. Becker was still an undergraduate at Radcliffe when she traveled to Fiji for a summer of anthropology fieldwork. What struck her about this South Pacific island nation — and has in many research trips since — was “the absolute preoccupation with food and eating,” she said. “Family…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Study IDs human genes required for hepatitis C viral replicating

    Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers are investigating a new way to block reproduction of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) — targeting not the virus itself but the human genes the virus exploits in its life cycle. In the March 19 Cell Host & Microbe, they report finding nearly 100 genes that support the replication of…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Geospatial Library relaunched

    Following a yearlong process of redesign and testing, the University Library’s Office for Information Systems has relaunched the Harvard Geospatial Library (HGL), the University’s catalog and repository of data for geographic information systems (GIS). The new HGL offers an enhanced user experience through new functionality and a highly intuitive interface.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Panel: Housing crisis is opportunity for action

    When housing prices on Main Street tumbled last year — who doesn’t know this? — tremors rumbled all the way to Wall Street, and beyond. For the first time in 40 years of record-keeping, the median price of a single-family home declined. In six months, the value of U.S. housing stock dropped $3 trillion. Credit…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    An attempt to define ‘academic excellence’

    Michèle Lamont, Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies and professor of sociology and of African and African American studies, analyzes the system of peer review in her new book “How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment.”

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Nieman recognizes Charlotte Observer with Taylor Family Award

    For its coverage of health and safety violations in the poultry industry “The Cruelest Cuts,” the Charlotte Observer has won the 2008 Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Newspapers, and will be presented a $10,000 prize by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard on April 16, 2009.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Training the talent in trouble spots

    The Harvard Initiative for Global Health (HIGH) has begun a fellowship program with the aim of identifying and helping train bright young developing-world health professionals in remote regions of the world with the greatest global health challenges.

    5 minutes