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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.
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Campus & Community
Morris Simon
Morris Simon, MB, BCH, died suddenly and unexpectedly on January 17, 2005, one day after his 79th birthday. At the time of his death he was professor emeritus at Harvard Medical School and working regularly in the Department of Radiology at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, as he had for almost a half century.
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Campus & Community
FAS dean hosts town meeting
Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Dean Michael D. Smith will host a town meeting for faculty and staff to update the community on the financial challenges facing FAS; talk about the progress made toward solving these challenges; and present the next steps to address the budget shortfalls projected for FY10 and FY11. The meeting…
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Campus & Community
Hammonds, Smith announce College will be closed during mid-year break
In an e-mail sent Monday (April 6) to Harvard students, faculty, and staff, Harvard College Dean Evelynn Hammonds and Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Michael D. Smith announced that Harvard College will be closed during the 2009-2010 mid-year break, between the end of exams in December and the first day of classes in January.
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Campus & Community
Unleashed pets barred from Yard
Effective April 1, unleashed pets will no longer be allowed in Harvard Yard. All pets, with the exception of service animals, must be on a leash at all times.
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Campus & Community
Samuel P. Huntington service set
A memorial service for Samuel P. Huntington, who was the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor at Harvard, will be held on April 22 at 3 p.m. in the Memorial Church in Harvard Yard. Huntington, a longtime Harvard University professor, an enormously influential political scientist, and a mentor to a generation of scholars in widely…
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Campus & Community
Narayanamurti accepts spot at HKS’s Belfer Center
Venkatesh “Venky” Narayanamurti will be the new director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School’s (HKS) Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Belfer Center director Graham Allison announced April 1.
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Campus & Community
Crimson men’s golf take Yale Spring Opener
For the second consecutive season, the Harvard Crimson men’s golf team found success in New Haven, Conn., capturing the Yale Spring Opener behind the play of senior John Christensen and juniors Danny Mayer and Greg Shuman, who finished first, second, and third, respectively, in the tournament.
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Campus & Community
Crimson women’s golf remain unbeaten; win sixth tournament
The Harvard women’s golf team, which before this past weekend (April 4-5) had won each of the five tournaments they competed in this season, made it six-for-six on Sunday (April 5), completing the 2009 Brown Invitational 34 strokes ahead of second-place finisher Boston College.
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Campus & Community
Crimson win 3 in walk-off fashion
In dramatic fashion, the Harvard men’s baseball team took three-of-four from Cornell and Princeton this past weekend (April 4-5), with the help of three key walk-off hits, two from Tom Stack-Babich ’09 and one from Taylor Meehan ’09.
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Campus & Community
PBHA holds Summer Urban Auction
The Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) will host its sixth annual Auction for the Summer Urban Program at the Cambridge Queen’s Head Pub (45 Quincy Street) on April 28 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. The event will support PBHA’s 12 summer camps, which serve more than 900 children and youth in Boston and Cambridge.