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Nation & World
Congo: The facts of gender violence
Researchers from the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative are working to understand the volume and impact of gender violence by analyzing data provided by survivors.
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Nation & World
Congo: Panzi-HHI partnership
Harvard’s partnership with a Congolese hospital seeks to understand the causes of the violence against women that hangs like a toxic cloud over a huge swath of this enormous country in Africa’s midsection.
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Health
Study links steroid abuse to key biological, psychological characteristics
A study by researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital sheds new light on anabolic steroid users, augmenting previous research suggesting that users can become dependent on the drugs and showing for…
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Health
Breast cancer danger rising in developing world
Women in developing nations, once thought to have a small chance of contracting breast cancer, are increasingly getting the disease as lifestyles incorporate risk factors common in industrialized nations, panelists at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) said Tuesday (April 14).
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Health
For cancer cells, genetics alone is poor indicator for drug response
In certain respects, cells are less like machines and more like people. True, they have lots of components, but they also have lots of personality. For example, when specific groups…
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Health
Harvard surgeons perform second partial face transplant in U.S.
Surgeons at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital toiled for 17 hours in twin operating rooms yesterday performing the second facial transplant surgery operation in the U.S. The complex, challenging operation,…
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Arts & Culture
Uncovering the power of ritual in ‘The Rite of Spring’
“Art is a coalescing, unifying force,” says Christine Dakin, addressing the students gathered for her weekly seminar at the Harvard Dance Center. A glance around the room confirms her statement — Dakin’s students represent a cross-section of Harvard that could not be more diverse. They are performance artists, neurobiologists, and economists. They come from several…
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Campus & Community
Crimson women improve to 19-9
In the early part of the season, the Harvard Crimson softball team has racked up their fair share of frequent-flier miles. The first 25 games of the season have seen the Crimson play up and down the East Coast — from Rhode Island to Florida — but it was about time for a game in…
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Nation & World
Despite years of study, schools’ success matter of contention
There wasn’t an empty seat in Askwith Hall Wednesday night (April 1) as students, educators, and researchers crowded in to hear “Informing the Debate: A Panel Discussion on Boston’s Charter, Pilot, and Traditional Schools,” sponsored by the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), the Rappaport Institute, and the Center for Education Policy Research.
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Nation & World
HLS students help at-risk children to succeed in school
A witness to terrible domestic violence until the age of 8, “Jamal” still carries his worries into the classroom every day. Even though he and his mother are now safe, he’s unable to focus, frequently acts out, and has been suspended from third grade.
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Science & Tech
Florida: The far side of paradise
It was near midnight. Gnarly oak trees and sandy pines draped with Spanish moss encroached upon the narrow road. Warm air sweetened by the scent of orange blossoms wafted through the windows as the van lurched to a stop. The headlights illuminated a metal sign pinned to a gate that read “Archbold Research Station.” We…
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Science & Tech
Saving lives, saving money
Seguro Popular, a Mexican health care program instituted in 2003, has already reduced crippling health care costs among poorer households, according to an evaluation conducted by researchers at Harvard University in collaboration with researchers in Mexico.
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Science & Tech
Expedition: Blue Planet 2009 explores water
When environmental advocate Alexandra Cousteau left in February on a nonstop, 100-day expedition to critical water sites across five continents, she brought with her a writer, a photographer, an editor, and a support team of more than 60 researchers, all Harvard Extension School students. But the students needed no airline tickets. From their desktops in…
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Campus & Community
Mark Moore named first Herbert A. Simon Professor
Mark Moore, a leading expert in criminal justice, police, management, nongovernmental organizations, and nonprofit management, has been appointed the first Herbert A. Simon Professor in Education, Management, and Organizational Behavior at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), effective July 1. Moore will maintain his current appointment as the Hauser Professor of Nonprofit Organizations at…
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Science & Tech
Energy policies: ‘Forty-year failure’
In 1973, four weeks after the Arab oil embargo, President Richard Nixon went on national television to talk about an energy crisis that had been mounting for two years. He asked Americans to turn off their Christmas lights.
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Arts & Culture
Harvard University Library awarded $5M grant from Arcadia Fund
Britain’s Arcadia Fund has awarded $5 million to the Harvard University Library. Arcadia’s five-year grant will provide flexible support for the library’s core functions: acquisitions, access, preservation, and dissemination.
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Arts & Culture
The pogrom that transformed 20th century Jewry
On April 8, 1903 — Easter Sunday — a mild disturbance against local Jews rattled Kishinev, a sleepy city on the southwestern border of imperial Russia.
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Nation & World
International Education Program fetes 10th anniversary
A politician intends to revolutionize the educational system in Kenya. A husband-and-wife team offers professional development to teachers to reduce social violence, develop civic competencies, and help eradicate poverty in Mexico. A student hopes to work on international educational reform.
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Arts & Culture
Scholar enjoys wrestling ‘the Great Bear’
Some scholars are hard-pressed to identify what exactly drew them to their field. Others can point to a specific “aha!” moment when they found their academic calling. In Justin Weir’s case, it all began with a bit of bureaucracy.
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Nation & World
Frank calls for (re) regulation
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, came to the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Monday (April 6) to lay out a four-point program for re-regulating the nation’s financial system.
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Science & Tech
International conference thinks about sustainable cities
What will the cities of the future look like? Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD) offered some ideas last week at a three-day international conference, “Ecological Urbanism: Alternative and Sustainable Cities of the Future,” April 3-5.
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Campus & Community
Reservoir system proposed to meet needs
A former Massachusetts water official is proposing a new network of central Massachusetts reservoirs to meet population-driven demand that he says will outstrip current supplies in the coming decades.
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Science & Tech
Climate change an ‘opportunity’ as well as a threat
Conservation pioneer Russell A. Mittermeier started this year’s Roger Tory Peterson Memorial Lecture (April 5) with a quiz. In front of several hundred listeners at Harvard’s Science Center he turned on a small recorder.
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Science & Tech
Planning to save a changing world
Climate change is not only altering Alaska’s natural world, it’s also affecting how humans interact with it, particularly those whose culture and traditions have pointed the way for generations to survive in the sometimes inhospitable far north. Terry Chapin, a professor of ecology at the University of Alaska’s Institute of Arctic Biology, said that climate…
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Health
Study shows waist size predictor of heart failure in men and women
Adding to the growing evidence that a person’s waist size is an important indicator of heart health, a study led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has found that larger waist circumference is associated with increased risk of heart failure in middle-aged and older populations of men and women.
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Arts & Culture
National Endowment for the Humanities supports preservation of Qajar dynasty
The National Endowment for the Humanities has made a $346,733 grant to a team of Qajar historians. The purpose of this grant, which lasts from May 2009 to June 2011, is to develop a comprehensive digital archive and Web site at Harvard University that will preserve, link, and render accessible primary source materials related to…
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Arts & Culture
Cinematic reverberations
The writing of culture watcher and critic Louis Menand — Harvard’s Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of English — has cast a wide net over the years.
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Arts & Culture
Poet/critics and the state of the art
A triumvirate of prominent poet-critics – each with strong Harvard ties – took on the meaning of contemporary poetry last week. And despite a lively discussion, none of them provided a comprehensive definition.
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Arts & Culture
Gail Mazur reads at Radcliffe
After removing her soaked red sneakers, Radcliffe Fellow Gail Mazur read aloud from new poems Monday (April 6) in dry black socks. The poet was undeterred by the onslaught of gray rain that thrashed Radcliffe Gymnasium’s windows — a fitting backdrop for Mazur’s charged, emotional poems.