All articles

  • Health

    Common gene variants increase risk of hypertension

    A new study has identified the first common gene variants associated with an increased incidence of hypertension — a significant risk factor for heart attack, stroke, and kidney failure. The…

  • Science & Tech

    The evolution of Darwin

    In a fitting celebration of a man whose ideas revolutionized science, Harvard marked Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday in style.

  • Arts & Culture

    Woodberry curator named Bynner Fellow

    Woodberry Poetry Room Curator Christina Davis has been awarded one of two 2009 Witter Bynner Fellowships by Poet Laureate Kay Ryan. Davis and the other recipient, Mary Szybist, from Portland, Ore., will each receive a $10,000 fellowship, and both will read from their works in a public event at the Library of Congress on Feb.…

  • Arts & Culture

    Prolific poet John Ashbery ’49 will receive 2009 Harvard Arts Medal

    Pulitzer Prize-winning poet John Ashbery ’49 will receive the 2009 Harvard Arts Medal in a ceremony kicking off the Arts First festivities on April 30.

  • Campus & Community

    Elliot Forbes

    At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on December 9, 2008, the Minute honoring the life and service of the late Elliot Forbes, Fanny Peabody Professor of Music, Emeritus, was placed upon the records. Forbes is well known for his revision and critical annotations of Alexander Wheelock Thayer’s Life of Beethoven.

  • Campus & Community

    Flu shots still available

    Free flu vaccines are still available to all Harvard faculty and staff through Harvard University Health Services (HUHS).

  • Campus & Community

    Kuwait Program research funds now available

    The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) recently announced the spring 2009 funding cycle for the Kuwait Program Research Fund.

  • Campus & Community

    M-RCBG names spring fellows, scholars

    A Korean Trade official, a member of the Northern Ireland civil service, a founder of AllWorld Network, and a British public policy scholar are among the incoming visitors being welcomed this spring at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS).

  • Campus & Community

    Kennedy School’s Ash Institute welcomes Asia Programs fellows

    The Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) recently announced 11 new fellows for the spring 2009 term. As representatives from academic, government, and business sectors in Asia, the fellows will pursue independent research at the Ash Institute’s Asia Programs.

  • Campus & Community

    Sports briefs

    Women’s hoops sweep weekend series; Crimson edged by Boston College

  • Campus & Community

    Crimson fall in Beanpot final

    In Tuesday’s (Feb. 10) matchup against the Boston College (B.C.) Eagles, in line with Bryant’s theory, the Crimson knew it would take an outstanding defensive performance against the No. 7-ranked Eagles to skate off the ice with their 13th Beanpot championship trophy.

  • Campus & Community

    Gazette conducts first readership survey

    In an attempt to gauge how well the Harvard Gazette addresses the needs, tastes, and desires of its readers, the paper is conducting its first-ever readership survey.

  • Arts & Culture

    Student work lights up Mass Hall corridor

    These days Mass Hall’s ground-floor main corridor looks more like a contemporary art gallery than simply a prestigious passageway — and that’s exactly how University President Drew Faust likes it.

  • Campus & Community

    Cancer Society’s daffodils can drive away winter blues

    With months until spring’s anticipated return comes a beacon of yellow hope. Daffodils are an invigorating component in the American Cancer Society’s (ACS) efforts, and Harvard is again a key participant in Daffodil Days, the ACS’s annual flowery fight to help patients and eradicate cancer.

  • Campus & Community

    Red Book applications being accepted by Medical School

    Harvard Medical School (HMS) invites junior faculty and postdoctoral fellows to apply for fellowships and grants as part of the spring 2009 Red Book Awards.

  • Health

    Clinicians override most medication safety alerts

    Computer-based systems that allow clinicians to prescribe drugs electronically are designed to automatically warn of potential medication errors, but a new study reveals clinicians often override the alerts and rely instead on their own judgment.

  • Health

    Kou is shaking up the world of statistics

    Harvard statistics professor Samuel Kou, now 34, grew up in Lanzhou, a city in China’s mountainous northwest near the border with Inner Mongolia. The altitude there is higher than Denver’s storied mile, and earthquakes rumble through town several times a year.

  • Health

    Exploring abundance under the sea floor

    Called the North Pond Basin, the site — researchers at Harvard and beyond believe — can provide a window onto a vast world of subterranean microscopic life that extends kilometers below the Earth’s surface and which, according to rough estimates, could rival life above the surface in both diversity and sheer mass.

  • Health

    Neural wiring hints at nervous system gene limits

    Genetics may play a surprisingly small role in determining the precise wiring of the mammalian nervous system, according to painstaking mapping of every neuron projecting to a small muscle mice use to move their ears. These first-ever mammalian “connectomes,” or complete neural circuit diagrams, reveal that neural wiring can vary widely even in paired tissues…

  • Arts & Culture

    ‘Passing’ in colonial Colombia

    Radcliffe Fellow Joanne Rappaport gave a glimpse of her work last week (Feb. 4) during a talk at the Radcliffe Gymnasium, where 80 listeners were drawn in by her intriguing title: “Mischievous Lovers, Hidden Moors, and Cross-Dressers: The Meaning of Passing in Colonial Bogotá.”

  • Campus & Community

    HAA announces Overseers, Elected Directors candidates

    Appearing below are the Harvard Alumni Association’s (HAA) candidates for the 2009 election to the Harvard Board of Overseers and the HAA Elected Directors.

  • Campus & Community

    Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing sees remodeling potential

    The U.S. home improvement industry, much like the broader housing market, is experiencing a severe downturn, but prospects for growth are already developing, finds a new report released by the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

  • Campus & Community

    HLS’s Olin Center and Harvard University Press offer first open access journal

    In partnership with the John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics, and Business at Harvard Law School, Harvard University Press (HUP) launched the Journal of Legal Analysis, its first foray into online, open access publishing, on Feb. 3.

  • Arts & Culture

    Project on Soviet Social System goes online

    or decades, the Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System (HPSSS) has been a major source of information for researchers analyzing the Soviet Union between World War I and World War II. Due to its archaic and often-confusing indexing system, though, the HPSSS has also been a source of frustration for researchers trying to comb…

  • Campus & Community

    Civil rights legend recognized for years of service

    At times, the best way to truly honor those who have selflessly and tirelessly served is with a simple “thank you.”

  • Campus & Community

    This month in Harvard history

    Feb. 20-March 8, 1901 —French literary critic Gaston Deschamps gives a series of eight Sanders Theatre lectures in French on “Modern French Drama,” sponsored by the Cercle Français (French Club).

  • Campus & Community

    Police reports

    Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending Feb. 9. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.

  • Campus & Community

    Newsmakers

    THREE HMS PROFESSORS ELECTED TO MICROBIOLOGY ACADEMY; STONE ELECTED TO THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING; KLEINMAN HONORED BY SOCIETY FOR MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

  • Campus & Community

    In brief

    JOINT CENTER ACCEPTING GRAMLICH FELLOWSHIP APPLICATIONS; ISRAELITE BREAD-MAKING DISCUSSION AT THE SEMITIC MUSEUM; KISSEL GRANTS ARE AVAILABLE

  • Arts & Culture

    VES film features city on the move

    Maxim Pozdorovkin and Joe Bender, graduate students in Harvard’s Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, respectively, have captured Kazakhstan’s dramatic emergence in a documentary film titled “Capital.”