All articles

  • Campus & Community

    Caribbean theme a hit with Cambridge seniors

    The palm trees on the steps of the Memorial Church lent Harvard Yard a tropical look on July 31 as the sounds of steel drums and smells of exotic fruits wafted through the air on a balmy afternoon.

  • Campus & Community

    Barbecue draws summer interns for fun in the sun

    More than 100 summer interns, faculty, and staff converged on the Bio Labs courtyard on July 24 for the inaugural Harvard Integrated Life Sciences (HILS) summer barbecue.

  • Campus & Community

    Young scientists do summer research

    During this short hot summer, approximately 120 undergraduate scientists spent more time on the laboratory bench than at the local beach. These fledgling biologists, chemists, and engineers were participating fellows in the Harvard College Program for Research in Science and Engineering (PRISE).

  • Nation & World

    IFC, U.N. to cooperate on study of investment contracts and human rights

    The International Finance Corp. (IFC), which is a member of the World Bank Group, and Kennedy School of Government (KSG) Professor John Ruggie, who is the United Nations secretary-general’s special representative on business and human rights, recently launched a joint study on foreign direct investments and human rights.

  • Campus & Community

    Harvard endowment posts strong positive return

    Harvard University’s endowment earned a 23.0 percent return during the fiscal year ending June 30, 2007. With FY07 being one of the best performance years since the inception of Harvard Management Company in 1974, the overall value of the University’s endowment grew to $34.9 billion.

  • Nation & World

    Close call in Peru

    While protestors lobbed rocks through the windows of their hotel, Andrew Krumholz ’09 and his brother Richard ’07 waited apprehensively to see if the police would be able to quell the disturbance. But when they saw the nearby bus station burst into flames, they knew it was time to call for help.

  • Nation & World

    Looking at war through a legal lens

    The debate over international humanitarian law wrapped up a weeklong executive session for 35 humanitarian workers from around the world, including Sudan, Chechnya, and Uganda. The weeklong program, “Advanced Training on International Humanitarian Law in Current Conflicts: New Challenges and Dilemmas,” was sponsored by the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research at Harvard University…

  • Health

    Man-made medical mystery gets second solution

    Researchers have created a new material that they believe improves on an eight-year-old solution to a decades-long medical mystery over the cause of widespread artificial joint failure. The new material, developed at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and implanted for the first time July 19, could help fill the demand for higher-performance joints from a…

  • Campus & Community

    Danilov Monastery bells to ring in Russia once more

    Nearly 80 years after they were rescued by plumbing magnate Charles R. Crane, the Lowell House bells are returning to their original home in the Danilov Monastery in Moscow.

  • Health

    Human stem cells help monkeys recover from Parkinson’s

    Richard Sidman, Bullard Professor of Neuropathology Emeritus at Harvard Medical School (HMS), and colleagues from Harvard and other universities and medical schools published the first report of a promising attempt to treat Parkinson’s in a humanlike animal in the July 17 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

  • Campus & Community

    Provost Hyman names Buckley, Porter top administrators for HUSEC

    Harvard University Provost Steven E. Hyman has selected two individuals with both broad and deep experience in Harvard science administration to provide administrative leadership and structure for the newly created Harvard University Science and Engineering Committee (HUSEC).

  • Arts & Culture

    El Saadawi explores notion of creativity

    Activist, author, psychiatrist, and playwright Nawal El Saadawi delivered the Harvard Committee on African Studies’ annual Distinguished African Studies Lecture on Oct. 9 in the Tsai Auditorium at the Center for Government and International Studies.

  • Campus & Community

    Mohsen Mostafavi is named dean of Design School

    Mohsen Mostafavi, an international figure in the fields of architecture and urbanism, will become the dean of the Faculty of Design beginning in January 2008, President Drew Faust announced today.

  • Campus & Community

    Wacker, former Cabot House co-master, dies

    Ann MacMillan Wacker, co-master of Cabot House from 1978 to 1984, died May 18. Wacker was married to Warren E.C. Wacker, Henry K. Oliver Professor of Hygiene Emeritus and, from 1971 to 1989, the director of University Health Services.

  • Health

    New science provides compelling framework for early childhood investment

    A remarkable convergence of new knowledge about the developing brain, the human genome, and the extent to which early childhood experiences influence later learning, behavior, and health now offers policymakers an exceptional opportunity to change the life prospects of vulnerable young children, says a new report from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard…

  • Health

    Sensory organ differentiates male/female behavior in some mammals

    For years, scientists have searched in vain for slivers of the brain that might drive the dramatic differences between male and female behavior. Now biologists at Harvard University say these efforts may have fallen flat because such differences may not arise in the brain at all.

  • Health

    Broken hearts found to mend themselves

    Stem cells apparently try to mend hearts damaged by heart attacks or high blood pressure. But they do not refresh hearts run down by aging. Evidence for this heartening and disheartening news comes from experiments with mice done at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

  • Health

    Youngest girls spirited to brothels show highest HIV rates

    Girls forced into the Indian sex trade at age 14 or younger show significantly higher rates of HIV infection than older girls and women similarly forced into prostitution, according to a new study that highlights for the first time the increased HIV risks faced by sex trafficked Nepalese girls and women.

  • Health

    Risk genes for Multiple Sclerosis Uncovered

    A large-scale genomic study has uncovered new genetic variations associated with multiple sclerosis (MS), findings that suggest a possible link between MS and other autoimmune diseases. The study, led by…

  • Health

    Obesity is contagious

    Public health officials have been working hard to account for the dramatic rise in U.S. obesity rates. Many obvious factors, such as poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle, certainly contribute…

  • Campus & Community

    National Weather Service calls Harvard ‘StormReady’

    Every year Harvard braces for a storm of applications. Now it’s ready — officially — for storms of the natural variety. In a brief ceremony July 20, federal officials certified Harvard as the first university in New England, and the first Ivy League school, to receive a “StormReady” designation from the National Weather Service (NWS).

  • Campus & Community

    ‘To instruct and delight’

    Hyacinth M. Young, a Jamaica native with a flair for cool sunglasses and flashy blouses, teaches high school English in California. She’s at Harvard for three weeks (July 2-21) to study poetry in a summer seminar sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Joining her are 14 other teachers from around the country.

  • Arts & Culture

    Life lessons

    On a sultry August day three decades ago, historian Jean Strouse ’67 stopped in Harvard Square to buy daisies. She walked on to the nearby grave site of diarist Alice James, who died in 1892.

  • Arts & Culture

    Light Prop shines again

    This Saturday (July 21), one of the Busch-Reisinger Museum’s most unusual artworks will get a new lease on life.

  • Arts & Culture

    In brief

    ‘HUCTW Creates’ showcases range of talents “HUCTW Creates: The Visual Arts,” a group art exhibit featuring visual artist members of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW) will be up through July 31 at Gutman Library, 6 Appian Way. The closing reception will be held July 31 from 5 to 7 p.m.

  • Campus & Community

    Chandler memorial service upcoming

    A memorial service for Alfred D. Chandler Jr., the Isidor Straus Professor of Business History Emeritus at Harvard Business School, will be held at the Memorial Church in Harvard Yard on Oct. 19. Chandler died May 9, 2007, at the age of 88.

  • Campus & Community

    Nussbaum dies at 81

    Retired Associate Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology Alexander Leopold Nussbaum of Newton, Mass., died June 22, 2007. He was 81.

  • Campus & Community

    IOP announces fall fellows

    Located at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG), the Institute of Politics (IOP) recently announced the selection of an experienced group of individuals for resident fellowships this fall. Resident fellows interact with students, participate in the intellectual life of the community, and pursue individual studies or projects throughout an academic semester.

  • Campus & Community

    Dept. of Music announces fellowship, award winners

    Harvard’s Department of Music recently announced its fellowship and award recipients. Close to $220,000 will go toward fellowship and award programs for the department’s graduate and undergraduate students.

  • Campus & Community

    GSD award winners named

    The following awards were presented at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) during June Commencement.