Month: January 2011

  • Nation & World

    Help on the home front

    Harvard programs assist employees trying to juggle careers and families, bridging coverage gaps.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Identity issues

    In what many participants called a “historic moment,” scholars from around the world gathered for three days at Harvard to explore issues of race, racial identity, and racism in Latin America.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Haiti: 3 Years, 6 Months

    Living in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, most of Haiti’s nine million people are subsistence farmers. Poverty and malnutrition are exacerbated by poor health care and a low vaccination rate.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    South Africa: Valley of 1,000 Hills

    One of the continent’s richest nations, South Africa also has one of the world’s highest HIV infection rates and is home to the world’s biggest population of HIV-infected people, an estimated 5.5 million.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Lesotho: The Pilots

    The tiny African nation of Lesotho is among those hardest hit by the raging twin epidemics of ADIS and tuberculosis. Harvard faculty members are advising the government and helping to revamp clinics and treat patients in the far-flung mountain regions of this poor country.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Mexico: Illuminating the Past

    Harvard archaeologists from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology have been working in the Maya city of Copán Ruinas, Honduras, for years, unearthing the secrets of the civilization that once built pyramids there. In recent years, these archaeologists began digging at a new site, Rastrojón, perched on a mountainside where it would be visible…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Mexico: Ancient Wisdom Examined

    Harvard archaeologists from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology have been working in the Maya city of Copán Ruinas, Honduras, for years, unearthing the secrets of the civilization that once built pyramids there. In recent years, these archaeologists began digging at a new site, Rastrojón, perched on a mountainside where it would be visible…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    The Moore’s the merrier

    It snowed on Julianne Moore’s parade, but the acclaimed actress and 2011 Woman of the Year didn’t let weather stop her from visiting Harvard for a tour, a roast, and the coveted Pudding Pot on Thursday (Jan. 27).

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Daniel Bell, social scientist, 91

    Daniel Bell, the Henry Ford II Professor of Social Sciences Emeritus at Harvard University and one of America’s most dynamic thinkers, died on Jan. 25. He was 91.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    After the uprising

    A pair of Harvard experts addressed unrest in Tunisia — and whether it will lead to a truly democratic government — in a panel discussion at the Harvard Kennedy School.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Big thinkers

    Psychologists at Harvard University have found that infants younger than a year old understand social dominance and use relative size to predict who will prevail when two individuals’ goals conflict.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Faculty Council meeting held Jan. 26

    The Faculty Council met on Jan. 26 and heard reviews of the chemical biology program, the standing committee on writing and speaking, and the rules concerning honors.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Winter storm update: University resumes normal business operations

    As of 11 a.m., the University has resumed all normal business operations across Harvard’s Central Administration. Students, faculty, and staff are still encouraged to take any necessary precautions while traveling…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Hide and seek

    A new Harvard exhibit aims to challenge how things are categorized by delving into the University’s vast museum and archival collections.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    American tune

    Ethnomusicology graduate student Sheryl Kaskowitz talks about her dissertation on cultural shifts in the meaning of Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.”

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Run (or walk)

    Running and walking can do wonders for our physical, mental, and emotional health. At the launch of Harvard on the Move, President Drew Faust and a panel of University experts made the case that it should also be fun — even in winter. The first community walk is noon Feb. 1.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Adult kidney stem cells found in fish

    It has long been a given that adult humans — and mammals in general — lack the capacity to grow new nephrons, the kidney’s delicate blood filtering tubules, which has meant that dialysis, and ultimately kidney transplantation, is the only option for the more than 450,000 Americans who have kidney failure.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    E.O. Wilson to receive Thoreau Prize

    PEN New England will present this year’s Henry David Thoreau Prize for Literary Excellence in Nature Writing on Feb. 8 to author Edward O. Wilson in recognition of his exceptional talents.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    HKS receives $600,000 from William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

    The Harvard Decision Science Laboratory, a cross-faculty research facility based at the Harvard Kennedy School, has received a three-year, $600,000 grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to support the lab’s scientific research in human judgment and decision making.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Winter storm update: Adjusted staffing plans

    In response to the winter storm moving through the area late Wednesday and early Thursday, the University has adjusted its normal staffing plans. For further details, see the Harvard University…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Raising the bar on disaster relief

    One year after the deadly earthquake in Haiti, Harvard undergraduates and faculty from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences are trying to develop a way to quickly provide shelter to victims of disasters. The Rapid Deployment Disaster Relief Shelter is one of a dozen initiatives funded by the new President’s January Innovation Fund for…

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Let the Word Go Forth

    “Let the Word Go Forth” is a film of many faces and voices recreating President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Walter H. Abelmann, professor of medicine, emeritus, 89

    Walter H. Abelmann, professor of medicine emeritus at Harvard Medical School and member of the faculty of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences Technology, died on Jan. 6. He was 89.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    It’s the ‘lab-on-a-chip’ model

    With little more than a conventional photocopier and transparency film, anyone can build a functional microfluidic chip.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Sticking together

    Maintain Don’t Gain and Team Fitness Challenge are team-oriented programs that help Harvard employees avoid gaining weight during the winter months. A new session of Team Fitness Challenge starts Jan. 31.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Leno is Man of Year

    Hasty Pudding Theatricals names comedian and talk show host Jay Leno as its 2011 Man of the Year. The Man of the Year festivities will take place on Friday (Feb. 4).

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Harvard Library joins Borrow Direct

    The Harvard Library has joined the Borrow Direct Partnership, which will enable faculty, staff, and students to search a combined catalog of more than 50 million volumes at nine institutions and request circulating items.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    HKS establishes Kenneth I. Juster Fellowship Fund

    The Harvard Kennedy School of Government is establishing the Kenneth I. Juster Fellowship Fund to support the research of outstanding Master in Public Policy students specializing in international and global affairs.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Do you speak Cheese?

    Students use four days of winter break to look inside the comforting universe of cheese, soup, bread, chocolate, coffee, and desserts.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Plotting the demise of malaria

    Authorities on malaria from around the world came to Harvard Medical School to participate in a forum discussing a change in strategy in the battle against malaria, moving from control to eradication.

    5 minutes