All articles

  • Campus & Community

    Vertical Harvard

    Harvard University’s early buildings hugged the ground; after two centuries, the campus began to soar.

  • Science & Tech

    Pluto’s demotion debated

    In 2006, the International Astronomical Union demoted Pluto from its rank as a planet. But after an hourlong debate between planetary science experts on what constitutes a planet, an audience packed into Harvard’s Phillips Auditorium voted to restore it to its place.

  • Campus & Community

    Let there be light

    The glass-and-steel roof, the calling card of Pritzker Prize-winning Italian architect Renzo Piano, caps the expanded and renovated Harvard Art Museums and is the building’s defining feature.

  • Science & Tech

    Build your own bot

    A new resource provides both experienced and aspiring researchers with the intellectual raw materials needed to design, build, and operate robots made from soft, flexible materials.

  • Nation & World

    Microbursts in learning

    The annual Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching conference forges path between engagement and distance.

  • Health

    All goes swimmingly

    Using simple hydrodynamics, a team of Harvard researchers was able to show that a handful of principles govern how virtually every animal — from the tiniest fish to birds to the largest whales — propel themselves through the water.

  • Health

    Deadly violence a natural tendency in chimps, study finds

    A new study shows that chimps engage in violent and sometimes even lethal behavior regardless of human effects on local ecology.

  • Nation & World

    After Ferguson’s fury

    A panel convened by HLS professor Charles Ogletree reflected on the broad social, legal, and political issues raised by the protests in Ferguson, Mo., last month.

  • Science & Tech

    Recruiting bacteria for innovation

    A team at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University sees biofilms as a robust new platform for designer nanomaterials that could help clean polluted rivers, manufacture pharmaceutical products, fabricate new textiles, and more.

  • Science & Tech

    A mark on modern Europe

    New research from the lab of David Reich challenges the prevailing view among archaeologists that there were no major influxes of new peoples into Europe after the advent of agriculture.

  • Campus & Community

    A MacArthur for math professor

    Professor of Mathematics Jacob Lurie, whose work has helped to transform algebraic geometry to derived algebraic geometry and made it applicable to other areas in new ways, has been named a MacArthur fellow.

  • Campus & Community

    A sense of direction

    President Drew Faust discussed challenges facing Harvard at the start of a new academic year in a conversation with journalist Nicholas Kristof at Sanders Theatre.

  • Nation & World

    A union scotched?

    Niall Ferguson explains the motives behind the national referendum on Scottish independence and what’s on the horizon if Scotland leaves the U.K.

  • Health

    The communications gap on vaccines

    Panelists at the School of Public Health called for a stronger communications effort by physicians to counter misinformation on vaccines.

  • Science & Tech

    Have silicon switches met their match?

    Silicon has few serious competitors as the material of choice in the electronics industry. Now, Harvard researchers have engineered a quantum material called a correlated oxide to perform comparably with the best silicon switches.

  • Nation & World

    For peace’s sake

    Atalia Omer, who received a Ph.D. from Harvard in 2008 and is currently associate professor of religion, conflict, and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame, will deliver the 2014 Dana McLean Greeley Lecture for Peace and Social Justice at Harvard Divinity School’s Center for the Study of World Religions at 5:15 p.m. today…

  • Health

    Diabetes’ genetic variety

    Harvard researchers working at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have uncovered nine rare genetic mutations that dramatically increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The discovery of the mutations highlights the dizzying genetic diversity of a disease rapidly spreading around the world.

  • Campus & Community

    McKinlock Hall, rejuvenated

    Leverett House’s McKinlock Hall re-opened to students at the beginning of the academic year after 15 months of reconstruction. McKinlock is the second completed project in the House renewal initiative, which is one of the largest and most ambitious capital improvement campaigns in Harvard College history and a major campaign priority.

  • Arts & Culture

    Watching the watchers

    Harvard fellow Adam Tanner talks about his new book, “What Stays in Vegas: The World of Personal Data — Lifeblood of Big Business — and the End of Privacy as We Know It.”

  • Arts & Culture

    ‘Ulysses’ unlocked

    A new book by Harvard lecturer in history and literature Kevin Birmingham tracks the challenge of bringing “Ulysses,” the masterwork by James Joyce, to the page and to the public.

  • Science & Tech

    Wiping out sepsis

    A new device inspired by the human spleen and developed by a team at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering may radically transform the way doctors treat sepsis.

  • Campus & Community

    ‘Elements of Architecture’ reprised by Koolhaas

    “Elements of Architecture” was reprised in Cambridge as Harvard Professor Rem Koolhaas expounded on the exhibit during a lecture that kicked off the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s “The Grounded Visionaries” weekend (Sept. 12-14).

  • Campus & Community

    Medical School receives $30M in grant funding

    The Harvard Program in Therapeutic Science has received $30 million in grant funding over the five years from three U.S. government agencies to launch its new research activities, Harvard Medical School announced on Sept. 11.

  • Nation & World

    Voice of the brutalized

    Harvard Humanitarian Initiative researchers polled residents of a war-torn part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, finding that though many think the security situation has improved, trust in government is at a low ebb.

  • Arts & Culture

    A leap for the Loeb

    The Loeb Classical Library Foundation has joined with Harvard University Press to digitize all of the library’s 520-plus volumes.

  • Campus & Community

    Shopping week? Priceless

    During the first few days of each semester, Harvard offers “shopping week,” in which students try out a class before formally registering.

  • Nation & World

    Cruel summer

    Faculty from HLS and HKS examined recent upheaval in the Middle East as part of a new Harvard Hillel series on politics and public policy.

  • Arts & Culture

    Star-spangled beauty

    Harvard scholars reflect on the lyricism, the language and the legacy of the national anthem “The Star-Spangled Banner” on its 200th anniversary.

  • Nation & World

    To speak out, or not

    In a panel discussion, Harvard academics wrestle with the issue of when to speak out on pressing public issues.

  • Health

    Undermining leukemia

    A Harvard Stem Cell Institute study comparing how blood stem cells and leukemia cells consume nutrients found that cancer cells are far less tolerant of shifts in their energy supply than their normal counterparts. The results suggest there could be ways to target and kill cancer cells without affecting healthy cells.