Year: 2011

  • Nation & World

    Sinking ice and hovering foams

    The annual Science & Cooking Fair shows off students’ final projects from the undergraduate General Education course “Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to the Science of Soft Matter.”

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Easy like Lionel Richie

    Singer Lionel Richie visits Harvard to receive the Harvard Foundation’s inaugural Peter J. Gomes Humanitarian Award, dining with undergraduates and recalling his career.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Paul Doty, 91, founder of Belfer Center

    Paul Doty, the founder of Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, died Dec. 5 at the age of 91.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Scaling a mountain of trash

    With half of U.S. trash still going into landfills, discussions are ongoing about how to handle the nation’s waste, with recycling, composting, incineration, and reuse all part of the mix, says Samantha MacBride, who studies such issues.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Words from Wiseman

    The dean of American direct cinema, 81-year-old Frederick Wiseman, offers a summary of his documentary shooting and editing techniques.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Harvard basketball makes history

    For the first time in program history, the Harvard men’s basketball team is ranked in the AP and ESPN/USA Today coaches’ national polls. The Crimson appears at No. 25 in the country in the AP rankings and No. 24 in the coaches’ poll.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Good works, and fine experience

    Harvard students made good use last summer of the Presidential Public Service Fellowship Program, a new initiative that supports good works through financial grants.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Plotting the demise of AIDS

    Hundreds of scientists, activists, doctors, and others who have been on the front lines battling the HIV virus, gathered on Harvard’s Longwood campus for a conference reflecting on progress against the ailment, while rededicating themselves to end the epidemic.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Optimism on solar energy

    Energy Secretary Steven Chu says China has “Henry Ford-ed” the U.S. solar industry, building a global empire on advances made in the U.S.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Dealing with inequality

    A panel discusses “The Growing Challenge of Inequality,” an issue easily described and summarized, but difficult to solve, the speakers said, given the political and economic climate that currently dominates the United States.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    How to teach students about truth

    Professor Howard Gardner explored how to teach students the primal concepts of truth, beauty, and goodness during a lecture based on his newest book.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Abraham Zaleznik, HBS professor, 87

    Harvard Business School Professor Emeritus Abraham Zaleznik, a renowned authority on leadership and social psychology, died in Boston on Nov. 28 at the age of 87.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Harvard paleontologist awarded

    Fisher Professor of Natural History Emeritus Alfred W. Crompton received the A.S. Romer–G.G. Simpson Medal from the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Three GSAS among winners of HHMI fellowships

    Three Graduate School of Arts and Sciences students — Nataly Moran Cabili, Mehmet Fisek, and Le Cong — are among the 48 winners in a new fellowship competition from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    McAuley named Marshall Scholar

    Harvard senior James McAuley was recently named a Marshall Scholar, a prestigious award that will allow him to study for two years at a university of his choice in the United Kingdom, likely Oxford.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Powerful telescope has scientists seeing red

    In the distant reaches of the universe, almost 13 billion light-years from Earth, a strange species of galaxy lay hidden. Cloaked in dust and dimmed by the intervening distance, even the Hubble Space Telescope couldn’t spy it. It took the revealing power of NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope to uncover not one, but four remarkably red…

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Rosenthal to depart HUHS

    David Rosenthal, who has been director of Harvard University Health Services for 23 years and oversaw both physical and electronic modernization, is stepping down at the end of the academic year.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Former College Dean Jewett dies at 75

    L. Fred Jewett ’57, former dean of Harvard College and a longtime University administrator, died on Nov. 27. He was 75.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A vote for more natural gas

    James Hackett, chairman and chief executive officer of the Anadarko Petroleum Corp., described an energy future driven by new, abundant supplies of natural gas. He spoke during a Future of Energy talk sponsored by the Harvard University Center for the Environment.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Faculty Council meeting held Nov. 30

    At the Nov. 30 meeting of the Faculty Council, its members approved the Harvard Summer School “Courses of Instruction” for 2012. They also heard reports on advising in the College and on information technology.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Soap opera creator visits Dec. 6

    Emmy Award-winning screenwriter and producer Agnes Nixon will visit Harvard on Dec. 6 as the Harvard Foundation’s artist-in-residence.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Hello, Lionel Richie!

    Distinguished singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer Lionel Richie will receive the 2011 Peter J. Gomes Humanitarian Award from the Harvard Foundation on Dec. 5 at Kirkland House.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A building block for GPS

    A professor emeritus of physics who died recently at 96, Norman Ramsey laid the foundation for the atomic clock, which allows scientists to measure time more precisely than ever, and is a critical component in GPS.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Swimmer comes up aces

    A top swimmer with hopes for a national title, Chuck Katis also oversees The Magic of Miracles, a nonprofit that entertains sick children.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A data bank to battle cancer

    Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute are collaborating on a massive, long-term effort to collect and analyze tumor tissue from 10,000 cancer patients annually. The researchers hope the data will enable them to understand better how tumors behave, while providing opportunities to test new therapies.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Worming out of listening

    A freshman seminar helps students to understand Darwin by reading his works and re-creating 10 experiments — including one showing that the wiggly creatures just don’t hear.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Harvard Catalyst collaborative funding opportunity

    Harvard Catalyst, The Harvard Clinical and Translational Research Center has presented unique funding opportunities for faculty, staff, and students.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Knitting toward a purpose

    Marie Dach, an assistant to the provost and a House tutor, organized a crafts circle — for women’s chats and charity.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A look inside: Quincy House

    Quincy House master Deb Gehrke oversees an annual painting salon called Deb’s Paint Bar.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The future of archaeology

    Smitten as a boy with the wonders of ancient Egypt, archaeologist Peter Der Manuelian deep into excavations but also wedded to the Web.

    5 minutes