Featured series 
Year: 2012
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Nation & World
‘Having it all’ at Harvard
After an Atlantic magazine cover story launched a national debate on how women balance career and family, a group of Harvard women is continuing the conversation, and is looking for new ideas on how to make the work-life juggling act a little less stressful.
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Nation & World
William Kaye Estes
At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on November 6, 2012, the Minute honoring the life and service of the late William Kaye Estes, Daniel and Amy Starch Professor of Psychology, Emeritus, was placed upon the records. Professor Estes made pioneering contributions to many cognitive domains over a period spanning more than…
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Nation & World
Meditation’s positive residual effects
A new study has found that participating in an eight-week meditation training program can have measurable effects on how the brain functions even when someone is not actively meditating.
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Nation & World
Room for improvement in ed policy
In a discussion at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, a panel of education experts examined how the election results will impact education reform at the federal, state, and local levels.
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Nation & World
Memories and beginnings
Members of the Harvard community gathered Sunday to salute the University’s war dead for Veterans Day, an event accompanied by the official institution service for Jonathan Walton, the Memorial Church’s new Pusey Minister and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals.
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Nation & World
Reising serves those who serve
Harvard Law School student Jesse Reising will extend the Warrior-Scholar Project to Harvard. The Warrior-Scholar Project is a two-week “academic boot camp” to help veterans transition from the military to college.
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Nation & World
Green light for Obamacare
Health care specialists discussed post-election Obamacare, including potential bumps in the road, in a panel talk at the Harvard School of Public Health.
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Nation & World
The lessons of election ’12
Two political philosophers from opposite sides of the fence met at the Tsai Center to size up the factors in play during the recent presidential election, and the weight that they could take on in 2016.
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Nation & World
Intelligent Earth
Once its axis tilts, how does the Earth “know” to return to its normal orientation? Work by Harvard researchers provides some answers.
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Nation & World
What history gives the present
Eight Harvard historians gathered at Emerson Hall with an ambitious goal in mind: to explain — in eight minutes or less — apiece — that “everything is history and history is everything.”
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Nation & World
Exorcising the curse of knowledge
Author Steven Pinker told a packed audience what is wrong with so much academic writing: It’s filled with abstract language, clunky transitions, clichés, “zombie nouns,” and “compulsive hedging.”
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Nation & World
HBS’s Thomas K. McCraw Sr., 72
Thomas K. McCraw Sr., a renowned and much-honored Harvard Business School (HBS) historian, teacher, and author, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1985 for his book “Prophets of Regulation,” died Nov. 3 at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Mass., after a long illness. He was 72.
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Nation & World
A collection unlike others
Harvard’s newly acquired Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection is the largest of its kind in the world, centuries of art, literature, and popular culture artifacts related to the chief avenues to altered states of mind: sex and drugs.
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Nation & World
Harvard goes to Washington
Tuesday night’s national elections sent a number of Harvard alumni and affiliates off to Washington.
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Nation & World
When parasites catch viruses
Researchers have found that a protozoan parasite causing an STD that affects a quarter of a million people yearly is fueled in part by its own viral symbiont. Antibiotics that simply kill the parasite are not the solution.
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Nation & World
Insulin and colon cancer linked
Researchers have found that colorectal cancer survivors whose diet and activity patterns lead to excess amounts of insulin in the blood have a higher risk of cancer recurrence and death from the disease.
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Nation & World
Architects in supermarkets
The session “Paper or Plastic: Re-Inventing Shelf Life in the Supermarket Landscape” looked at how architects — with their skills in three-dimensional conceptualization — can address a host of design challenges, including ones that might sit on shelves in the local supermarket.
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Nation & World
Imagine if everyone gave
The Harvard Community Gifts campaign launched on Nov. 7. Faculty and staff can choose to donate by payroll deduction by Dec. 7, or may elect to give by check or credit card through Jan. 15. Harvard has established a user-friendly website where individuals can select their charity and donation amount.
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Nation & World
New way to model human disease
Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have mimicked pulmonary edema in a microchip lined by living human cells. They used this “lung-on-a-chip” to study drug toxicity and identify potential new therapies to prevent this life-threatening condition.
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Nation & World
Election 2012 at Harvard
As voters across the United States traipsed to the polls and awaited the election results, so did students, faculty, and staff members at Harvard, the University that helped to educate both major presidential candidates.
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Nation & World
How much exercise is enough?
“We found that adding low amounts of physical activity to one’s daily routine, such as 75 minutes of brisk walking per week, was associated with increased longevity: a gain of 1.8 years of life expectancy after age 40, compared with doing no such activity,” explained Harvard Medical School Professor of Medicine I-Min Lee.
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Nation & World
Hello again, climate change
Superstorm Sandy’s hurricane winds and torrential downpours killed at least 106 people, left millions without power, and caused billions of dollars in damage. It also got people talking again about climate change.
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Nation & World
Empty Bowls to fill coffers
An Empty Bowls open house and dinner was held Thursday at the Harvard Allston Education Portal Annex. The fundraiser utilized the talents of Harvard students, artists at Harvard’s ceramics program, and other community partners to raise money for the hungry.
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Nation & World
When jazz was king
Three local jazz figures came to Harvard to explore their passion for the music and its future as a singular American art form.
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Nation & World
Harvard students run own marathon
The decision to cancel the ING New York City Marathon didn’t stop Harvard College seniors Samantha Whitmore and Meredith Baker from running their own fundraising marathon on Sunday to raise awareness and funds for victims of the devastation in the tri-state area.
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Nation & World
Students furnish feedback on furniture
During a recent open house at the Student Organization Center at Hilles, students toured furniture displays from four different companies. The feedback gathered from the students will help administrators both narrow down specifications for ordering furniture for Old Quincy and work toward a standard to draw on.
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Nation & World
How Google sees the race
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, a Ph.D. student in economics, uses Google Insights for Search, an online tool for extracting data from the millions of daily Google searches, and then uses statistical tools to analyze the data to gain insights on who is likely to vote and on voter turnout on Election Day.
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Nation & World
Bypassing the Bible
Ellery Schempp, one of the last living symbols of a series of Supreme Court cases that banned mandatory displays of faith in public schools, brought the contentious battle over religious expression to life for a Harvard Divinity School audience.
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Nation & World
Probing sleep’s drowsy mystery
Harvard researchers have worked for years to understand better the familiar mystery of sleep, highlighting not only what happens when we close our eyes, but also the effects on us when we don’t.
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Nation & World
Election reflection by Dukakis
In a wide-ranging talk at Harvard, Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic candidate for president, discussed the 2012 presidential election and the challenges facing the nation.
