Month: September 2010

  • Nation & World

    Not just child’s play

    Researchers at Harvard-affiliated Children’s Hospital Boston and UMass studied energy expenditure and enjoyment in schoolyard play, finding a menu of games to address childhood obesity.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Doubting Thomas nation

    Why aren’t you listening? Scientists discuss the difficulty of transferring scientific consensus to the public.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Locking up your bike on campus

    To make life harder for thieves and easier for pedestrians, cyclists who ride to and around campus should take advantage of the University’s parking spots and racks, remember to lock their bikes, and stay off the sidewalk.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Faculty Council meeting held Sept. 29

    At its Sept. 29 meeting, the Faculty Council approved a revised version of the Rules of Faculty Procedure for discussion by the full Faculty, reviewed a draft of the Dean’s Annual Report, discussed Harvard’s upcoming capital campaign, and heard a report from the Standing Committee on Women on faculty hiring, retention, and promotion.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Breakthrough in cell reprogramming

    A group of Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers has made such a significant leap forward in reprogramming human adult cells that HSCI co-director Douglas Melton said the institute will immediately begin using the new method to make patient- and disease-specific induced pluripotent stem cells, known as iPS cells.

    9 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Graphene may help speed up DNA sequencing

    Researchers from Harvard University and MIT have demonstrated that graphene, a surprisingly robust planar sheet of carbon just one-atom thick, can act as an artificial membrane separating two liquid reservoirs.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Funding for the future

    Faculty members at Harvard and its affiliated hospitals have been awarded the National Institutes of Health New Innovators awards for promising research by young researchers, and Transformative grants, for groundbreaking work by established researchers.

    8 minutes
  • Nation & World

    How to get happy

    Former Harvard President Derek Bok and his wife Sissela, a Harvard fellow, discussed their recent books on happiness in a discussion at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The way forward

    Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s minister of foreign affairs, delivered messages of cooperation and inclusiveness while elaborating on his six principles for Turkey’s future at a Harvard Kennedy School forum.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Harvard Corporation looks ahead

    It is a time of change for the Harvard Corporation. In recent months, the oldest corporation in the Western Hemisphere, formally known as the President and Fellows of Harvard College, has welcomed a new member and a new senior fellow, even as it has undertaken a probing look at its own role and practices. President…

    13 minutes
  • Nation & World

    It all adds up

    New mathematical modeling by scientists from Harvard and other institutions reinforces the view of cancer as a complex culmination of many mutations.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Challenge of finding a cure

    A large, multidisciplinary panel has recently selected 12 pioneering ideas for attacking type 1 diabetes, ideas selected through a crowdsourcing experiment called the “Challenge,” in which all members of the Harvard community, as well as members of the general public, were invited to answer the question: What do we not know to cure type 1…

    12 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The value of women

    If slavery and totalitarianism were the great moral issues of the 19th and 20th centuries, then the worldwide oppression of women and girls will be the defining issue of the 21st, said Nicholas D. Kristof, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The New York Times, in a talk at Harvard Medical School’s Carl Walter Amphitheater.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    High marks for doctoral programs

    A national group rates Harvard’s doctoral programs highly in a sweeping new report.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Friedman named director of Arboretum

    William “Ned” Friedman, an evolutionary biologist who has done extensive research on the origin and early evolution of flowering plants, has been appointed director of the Arnold Arboretum.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Gordon-Reed wins MacArthur Award

    Harvard Professor Annette Gordon-Reed wins MacArthur award, which she plans to use to further her research on race in America.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    More from spores: How they spread

    Researchers discover how fungi developed an aerodynamic way to reduce drag on their spores so as to spread them as high and as far as possible.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Social Studies at 50

    Nearly 400 gather to celebrate 50th anniversary of the social studies program at Harvard.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Trials set for body-chilling anaesthesia

    Medical researchers at Harvard say they are poised to begin human trials on a suspended-animation technique for surgery patients.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Two faculty receive Science of Generosity grants

    Rohini Pande, Mohammed Kamal Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, and Assistant Professor of Psychology Felix Warneken have received grants of $149,000 and $150,000, respectively, from the Science of Generosity, an initiative at the University of Notre Dame.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Greyser wins Sports Marketing Lifetime Achievement Award

    Stephen A. Greyser, Harvard Business School’s Richard P. Chapman Professor of Business Administration Emeritus, has received the 2010 Sports Marketing Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Marketing Association in recognition of his “distinguished career contributions to the scientific understanding of sports business.”

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Karen Putnam named Radcliffe’s associate dean for advancement

    Karen Putnam has been appointed associate dean for advancement at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Putnam’s position became effective on Sept. 15.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Toffel awarded for environmental research

    Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Michael W. Toffel has won the Emerging Scholar Award from the Academy of Management’s Organizations and the Natural Environment Division.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Neuman elected to Human Rights Committee

    Gerald Neuman ’80, the J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law at Harvard Law School, has been elected to the Human Rights Committee, the premier treaty body in the U.N. human rights system.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Center for the Environment welcomes 2010-12 fellows

    The Center for the Environment welcomes an incoming group of environmental fellows for the 2010-12 academic years. These four new fellows will join a group of five scholars who will be beginning the second year of their fellowships.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Sustainability at Harvard: We are a living lab

    A video tour through five case studies of sustainability at Harvard, including: * Student Peer-to-Peer Programs Educate and Inspire * Innovative Solutions that Serve as Models for Other * Greener, Healthier, More Efficient Buildings * Rethinking Campus Operations * Building a Culture of Sustainability

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Education scholar Gerald Lesser, 84

    Gerald Lesser, Charles Bigelow Professor of Education and Developmental Psychology Emeritus at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), died on Sept. 23 at the age of 84.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Gordon Brown’s prescription

    Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s prescription for a shaken world economy: Coordinate action, and write a global economic constitution that reflects morality while acknowledging business needs.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Technology in governance

    A two-day Kennedy School conference examined the need to integrate information technology training into the curriculum through a new, long-term initiative.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Gordon Brown: UK and US must coordinate economic policy

    Gordon Brown warns in speech at Harvard that America and Europe risk a decade of high unemployment and low growth unless new policies are urgently taken to improve global co-operation.

    1 minute