Featured series 
Year: 2012
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Nation & World
Library in transition
A new Harvard Library portal opens the window on a library reorganization that preserves the print past and embraces the digital future.
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Nation & World
Future man
“Tectonic Visions Between Land and Sea,” at Gund Hall through Oct. 16, is a room-filling, eye-filling Kiyonori Kikutake retrospective.
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Nation & World
Spiritual weeding
Tucked away along a row of trees behind Harvard Divinity School (HDS) Dean David Hempton’s house, the HDS garden came to flourish in 2009 and continues to thrive to this day.
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Nation & World
The housing industry, adrift
Former HUD Secretary Mel Martinez called for innovative solutions to the nation’s housing crisis and proposed less government, more private-sector initiative, and clarity on Dodd-Frank financial reforms.
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Nation & World
Jorie Graham wins Forward Prize
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jorie Graham has become the first American woman ever to win one of the U.K.’s most prestigious poetry accolades, the Forward Prize for best collection.
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Nation & World
When Armageddon loomed
A new website at the Harvard Kennedy School marks the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis. In an interview, Belfer Center director Graham Allison outlines the lessons learned from the dangerous yet deft dance of diplomacy.
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Nation & World
A welcome to the military
In an annual fall tradition, Harvard rolls out the welcome mat for its new students and fellows who are veterans or who are still in the service.
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Nation & World
Startups, sped up
Students from across Harvard’s Schools gathered at the Innovation Lab Sept. 28-30 for the StartUp Scramble, a mad-dash affair designed to take their business ideas from concept to pitch in just 48 hours.
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Nation & World
‘The Paper Chase’ at 40
Author and Harvard Law School graduate John Osborn Jr. rose to fame in the ’70s with the publication of his book “The Paper Chase” about his experience at the School. He sat down for a Q-and-A session with Dean Martha Minow on the book’s 40th anniversary.
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Nation & World
Mothers in peril
Every 90 seconds, a mother dies in pregnancy or of childbirth complications — a tragic statistic, but one that may drive efforts to improve health care in developing countries, said public health specialists in a Harvard talk.
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Nation & World
‘Point of no return’ found
Using a continent-spanning telescope, an international team of astronomers has peered to the edge of a black hole at the center of a distant galaxy. For the first time, they have measured the black hole’s “point of no return” — the closest distance that matter can approach before being irretrievably pulled into the black hole.
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Nation & World
Economist, neurosurgeon win MacArthurs
Raj Chetty, professor of economics, and Benjamin Warf, a neurosurgeon at Children’s Hospital Boston and associate professor at Harvard Medical School, are among 23 recipients of this year’s MacArthur Foundation fellowships, or “genius grants.”
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Nation & World
Inside-out look at election 2012
Hosted by the Nieman Foundation, a panel of political journalists shared their insights with Harvard faculty members, including their predictions about the outcome in the race for the White House.
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Nation & World
An engineering landmark
The Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences celebrates a landmark degree accreditation, and a broadening, flexible future of programs that break down academic barriers.
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Nation & World
Alumni receive Hiram Hunn Award
Alumni active in schools committee work have been honored with the annual Hiram Hunn Award by the Harvard Admissions Office.
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Nation & World
‘Silent Spring,’ 50 years on
Environmentalists and faculty members gathered at Sanders Theatre to mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” which catalyzed the environmental movement in its impassioned presentation of the impact of chemicals on nature.
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Nation & World
The sounds of nature, as music
The Woodberry Poetry Room hosts an evening of forest recordings and verse about nature, twinning sounds with wordplay.
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Nation & World
In the swing of things
During the renovation of Old Quincy House, three swing spaces in Harvard Square have become residential extensions of the Quincy community: Ridgley Hall, Hampden Hall, and Fairfax Hall.
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Nation & World
Back to Birmingham
Historian Diane McWhorter, a Harvard fellow, finds a surprising nexus between the racial segregation of Birmingham, Ala., in the early 1960s and some of the attitudes of the Third Reich.
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Nation & World
Darwin takes flight
Arnold Arboretum Director William “Ned” Friedman and freshmen from his “Getting to Know Darwin” seminar went to the home of a pigeon fancier. “Darwin not only wrote about pigeons, he bred them himself,” Friedman said.
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Nation & World
The book club goes online
Five of Harvard’s regional centers are teaming up on an outreach program to teachers that takes them on a literary world tour, through an online book club featuring readings that illuminate ordinary life in Libya, Morocco, the Dominican Republic, Russia, and Nigeria.
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Nation & World
Freedom in motion
Burmese activist Aung San Suu Kyi delivered the Godkin Lecture and took questions from students last night at Harvard Kennedy School.
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Nation & World
University statement on HUCTW negotiations
We remain committed to working with the leadership of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW) to reach an agreement that benefits both our employees who are represented…
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Nation & World
Hope for continental recovery, in 2013
A top European Union official says there are signs that reform measures taken in response to the economic crisis in Europe are working, and that a recovery could begin in 2013.
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Nation & World
Speaking volumes
Over two days Harvard hosted a cohort of scholars in medieval sermon studies, a pursuit that helps illuminate the social and intellectual currents of the Middle Ages.
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Nation & World
Link found between ALS and SMA
Scientists have long known the main proteins that lead to the development of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), respectively. Now research shows that these two motor neuron diseases likely share a pathway that leads to the development of disease.
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Nation & World
Flipping the switch that halts obesity
Flipping a newly discovered molecular switch in white fat cells enabled mice to eat a high-calorie diet without becoming obese or developing the inflammation that causes insulin resistance, report Harvard scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
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Nation & World
Putting humanity in its place
Professor Charles Langmuir worked for 10 years on an update of “How to Build a Habitable Planet,” a textbook published in 1985 by famed geoscientist Wallace Broecker.
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Nation & World
Harvard University endowment yields flat return for fiscal 2012
Harvard University announced today that its endowment posted a -0.05% return and was valued at $30.7 billion for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2011. The fiscal year 2012 endowment return was 98 basis points in excess of the -1.03% return on the benchmark Policy Portfolio.
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Nation & World
Coming back, looking forward
Members of Harvard’s Corporation and Board of Overseers, past and present, gathered at Harvard Law School’s new Wasserstein Hall Sept. 22 for a reunion afternoon featuring a panel discussion on teaching innovation and a question-and-answer session with Harvard President Drew Faust.
