Month: October 2011

  • Nation & World

    Through artistry, toleration

    “On the Nature of Things,” a poem written 2,000 years ago that flouted many mainstream concepts, helped the Western world to ease into modernity, author Stephen Greenblatt recounted.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Lessons from a leader

    At an event sponsored by the Women’s Initiative in Leadership at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, President Drew Faust discussed qualities that make a great leader and offered insights into her own role heading Harvard.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    James Yannatos, conductor, 82

    Composer and conductor James Yannatos, who as leader of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra for more than 45 years worked with thousands of young musicians, died at his home in Cambridge on Oct. 19 from complications of cancer. He was 82.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Woods, yes, but as before, no

    The stunning regrowth of New England forests over the past century marks a conservation victory, but an Arnold Arboretum forest expert says there’s no turning back the clock to pre-colonial times. Today’s forests are a blend of native New England plants and invasive species, growing on a human-altered landscape.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A better view of heart disease

    In clinical settings, simple 2-D displays of human arteries are more effective than traditional 3-D rainbow models, according to Harvard researchers.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Understanding interference

    In a discovery that might eventually lead to new biomedical treatments for disease, researchers from Harvard’s Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology have identified two types of RNA that are able to move between cells as part of a process called RNA-interference (RNAi).

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Rosenbloom, HBS professor, 78

    Richard S. Rosenbloom, the David Sarnoff Professor of Business Administration Emeritus at Harvard Business School, died on Oct. 24 at the age of 78.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Weighing the risks of fracking

    Susan Tierney, former assistant secretary for policy at the U.S. Department of Energy, discussed the environmental risks and potential benefits of shale gas extraction in a Future of Energy talk sponsored by the Harvard University Center for the Environment.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Affordable cancer treatments available

    Report reveals that readily available and affordable cancer prevention, treatment, and pain relief interventions could decrease deaths and improve the lives of millions in developing countries.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Settling scores

    The famously detailed scores of conductor Sir Georg Solti will now live at Harvard’s Loeb Music Library — and soon on the Web. A reception celebrated a new exhibit of his work, as well as the visit of Solti’s widow and the collection’s donor, Lady Solti.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A Harvard perspective on military service

    Harvard’s Office of Career Services adds to its shelves of guides a pamphlet on military service.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Where town meets gown

    A Radcliffe and Rappaport symposium explored the important city-university relationship, and areas where each side can benefit the other.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    New way to explore how life, disease work

    Researchers have built a map that shows how thousands of proteins in a fruit fly cell communicate with each other. This is the largest and most detailed protein interaction map of a multicellular organism, demonstrating how approximately one-third of the proteins cooperate to keep life going.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Breathing easier with lung regeneration

    Harvard researchers have cloned stem cells from the airways of the human lung and have shown that these cells can form into the lung’s alveoli air sac tissue. Mouse models suggest that these same stem cells are deployed to regenerate lung tissue during acute infection, such as during influenza.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Jasanoff lectures as Sarton Chair

    Harvard professor Sheila Jasanoff, the 2011-12 Sarton Chair in History of Science at Ghent University, recently gave two lectures that will be published in the journal Sartoniana.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    A look inside: Lowell House

    Lowell House is full of history, and at a recent High Table dinner, former residents of the House mingled with current residents for a night of eat, drink, and entertainment.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Sharing the fun of research

    Scholar, friends develop guidebook to help younger students understand, succeed in science.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Forces beyond nations

    Most people would say they live in a globalized world, but a sociology professor favors the model of a denationalized world in which regional organizations increasingly predominate.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Harold Bolitho

    Harold Bolitho first taught at Harvard as the Edwin O. Reischauer Visiting Professor in 1983-1984, joining Harvard’s Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations in 1985. He taught a variety of courses on Japanese history, including one on the Samurai that enrolled as many as 500 students. He chaired the department from 1988 to 1989…

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The Harvard Sampler: Liberal Education for the Twenty-First Century

    Edited by three Harvard faculty members, including Dean of Harvard College Evelynn M. Hammonds, and featuring essays by University faculty including Jonathan Losos, Steven Pinker, Werner Sollors, and others, this collection of essays offers insight into contemporary education and issues in academia.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Helping to manage pollution

    After leaving his native Somalia at the height of a civil war, Mohamed Omar has found community in unlikely places: in Lowell, Mass., and at Harvard, where he now excels as an environmental engineer.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The podcast revolution

    Two fellows at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society revolutionized how people create and consume digital information.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The newest live in the oldest

    The top floor of Mass Hall, as it is commonly known, is still used as a dorm for a small group of students. The remainder of the building serves as office space for Harvard’s top administrators.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The line that defines

    A new book by Rachel St. John unearths the colorful history of the 2,000-mile U.S. border with Mexico.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Guides on the undergraduate quest

    Advising programs enable students to get the most from their undergraduate academic experience, encouraging students to think in terms of their long-term personal and intellectual development.

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The Copan Sculpture Museum: Ancient Maya Artistry in Stucco and Stone

    With illustrations and archaeological context, Barbara Fash, director of the Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions Program at the Peabody Museum, discusses the global significance of a Honduran museum dedicated to the ancient Maya stone carvings in Copan.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    A chance at an Ivy title

    After an inconsistent season and a late win streak, the women’s soccer team has two games left. Its eye is on the prize, the league championship.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A room fit for a president

    A Winthrop House suite that once housed the young John F. Kennedy gets a facelift, and recreates the room as the future U.S leader would have known it.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

    In this wave-making book, Cogan University Professor Stephen Greenblatt takes into account “On the Nature of Things,” an eerily modern poem by the ancient Roman writer Lucretius, which helped shape the great thinkers of the Renaissance, even if fewer than three copies of the poem were known to exist at the time.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    A magic wand for artists’ dreams

    With an annual program administered by the Office for the Arts, Harvard undergraduates explore extraordinary opportunities for growth in their fields.

    6 minutes