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Campus & Community
Program allows gifted scholars to kick back and … work
Abena Dove Osseo-Asare studies African medicinal plants, including their fate at the hands of modern science and global patent systems.
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Health
Hansjörg Wyss gives $125M to create institute
Engineer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Hansjörg Wyss, M.B.A. ’65 has given Harvard University $125 million to create the Hansjörg Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.
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Campus & Community
The pine beetle’s tale: Destructive insect has pharmaceutical potential
Researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, have discovered how beetles and bacteria form a symbiotic and mutualistic relationship — one that ultimately results in the destruction of pine forests. In addition, they’ve identified the specific molecule that drives this whole phenomenon.
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Campus & Community
Harvard China Fund accepting 2010 proposals
The Harvard China Fund, under the Office of the Provost, has announced its fiscal year 2010 grants program for Harvard faculty, programs, and Schools. The purpose of the fund is to support interdisciplinary research and teaching in and about China, focus Harvard’s considerable strengths toward tackling the challenges that China faces, and improve communication and…
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Science & Tech
Hansjorg Wyss gives $125 million to create institute for biologically inspired engineering
Engineer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Hansjörg Wyss MBA ’65 has given Harvard University $125 million to create the Hansjörg Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. Investigators at the Wyss Institute (pronounced…
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Science & Tech
Smoking and solid-fuel-burning in homes in China projected to cause millions of deaths
If current levels of smoking and biomass and coal fuel use in homes continues, between 2003 and 2033 there will be an estimated 65 million deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary…
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Campus & Community
Al Gore to celebrate sustainability at Harvard
Former Vice President Al Gore will be coming to campus on Oct. 22 for the first-ever University-wide celebration of sustainability. The event, hosted by President Drew Faust, will mark the official launch of the University’s new greenhouse gas reduction effort and will also celebrate Harvard’s broader environmental initiatives, including the critical role the University plays…
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Campus & Community
Police reports
Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending Sept. 29. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu.
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Campus & Community
Harvard-Yenching Institute names doctoral fellows
Initiated in the 1960s, the Harvard-Yenching Institute’s Doctoral Scholars Program (DSP) now consists of two branches, the Harvard-DSP and Non-Harvard DSP. Each year the institute invites Harvard departments in the humanities and social sciences to nominate candidates for the Harvard doctoral scholarships. To be eligible for this program, candidates must be from Asia.
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Campus & Community
Sports brief
There was not enough rain to keep the women’s golf team from winning its third tournament in three appearances this season at the Fall Intercollegiate at Yale University (Sept. 27-28). Competing against elite teams from the Northeast, the Crimson placed first out of 19. Crimson top performer, junior Claire Sheldon, finished tied for fourth, shooting…
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Arts & Culture
Key statistical ideas celebrate birthdays
University of Chicago statistics professor Stephen M. Stigler, a frequent visitor to Harvard, has a favorite movie — “Magic Town,” a black-and-white flick from 1947. It stars James Stewart as a pollster who discovers a magical place: a heartland town whose citizens have a range of opinions that are a near-perfect composite of the whole…
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Nation & World
Leadership panel to advise on business, human rights
John Ruggie, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s special representative for business and human rights, recently announced that he is convening a leadership panel to advise him on how best to ensure that businesses worldwide respect internationally recognized human rights standards.
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Nation & World
History of human rights declaration is reviewed at CGIS
In September 1948, representatives of 18 nations at the newly minted United Nations were inspired by the tumult and horror of World War II to create a Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
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Science & Tech
Environmental report card grades Harvard A-
Harvard received the highest ranking in a recent “College Sustainability Report Card” that graded the green credentials of 300 colleges and universities. Harvard received high ranks for an array of activities, including recycling, green buildings, energy supply, transportation, and student involvement. Overall, the University was among 15 nationwide that received the top A- grade, earning…
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Campus & Community
President’s office hours 2008-09
President Drew Faust will hold office hours for students in her Massachusetts Hall office on the following dates: Thursday, Oct. 16, 4-5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 13, 4-5 p.m. Monday, March…
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Campus & Community
Harvard-affiliated gene study receives NIH funding
Two Harvard Medical School (HMS) professors of ophthalmology are co-principal investigators of a gene project that has received funding by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Lou Pasquale and Janey Wiggs, both glaucoma researchers at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, are leading the grant-winning team of researchers that includes Vincent L. Gregory Professor in…
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Campus & Community
Milton Fund offers unique opportunities for faculty
Voting faculty from all of Harvard’s Schools are eligible to apply for grants from the Milton Fund, which supports original research by Harvard faculty.
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Science & Tech
Technique offers close-ups of electrons and nuclei
Providing a glimpse into the infinitesimal, physicists have found a novel way to spy on some of the universe’s tiniest building blocks. Their “camera,” described this week (Oct. 1) in the journal Nature, consists of a special “flaw” in diamonds that can be manipulated into sensitively monitoring magnetic signals from individual electrons and atomic nuclei…
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Arts & Culture
Du Bois fellow makes ‘Little Fugitive,’ take two
The wonder of Brooklyn’s iconic amusement park Coney Island as seen through the eyes of a young runaway is at the heart of the 1953 classic film “Little Fugitive” by the directing team of Ray Ashley, Morris Engel, and Ruth Orkin. What lies at the heart of Joanna Lipper’s ’94 recent remake is much darker.
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Campus & Community
Herbert C. Kelman receives IPRA Peace Award
Herbert C. Kelman, the Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics emeritus and co-chair of the Middle East seminar at Harvard University, has received the 2008 Peace Award from the International Peace Research Association (IPRA). The award, honoring the founders of peace research, was announced this past July at IPRA’s global conference in Leuven, Belgium.
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Campus & Community
Harvard, MIT, Yale presses join forces to help rebuild Iraqi National Library
Last week, more than 5,700 books were shipped from TriLiteral, the warehouse that holds inventory for Harvard University Press, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Press, and Yale University Press, to help replenish the Iraqi National Library. The three presses have partnered with the Sabre Foundation, whose book donation program has a long history of…
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Health
Financial risk-taking behavior is associated with higher testosterone
Higher levels of testosterone are correlated with financial risk-taking behavior, according to a new study in which men’s testosterone levels were assessed before participation in an investment game. The findings help to shed light on the evolutionary function and biological origins of risk taking.
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Campus & Community
Theme of Ig Nobels: Redundancy redundancy
The 18th First Annual Ig Nobel winners will be showered with applause and paper airplanes at Sanders Theatre on Thursday (Oct. 2). Traveling from four continents, the 10 award recipients will be honored for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.”
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Health
Advance in pluripotent cell creation
A team of Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) scientists has taken an important step toward producing induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells that are safe to transplant into patients to treat diseases. Excitement over the ability of researchers to create this form of stem cell by inserting four genes into adult cells has thus far been…
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Arts & Culture
Heaney ‘catches the heart off guard’
Over the years, readings by poet Seamus Heaney have been so wildly popular that his fans are called “Heaneyboppers.” A reading this week at Sanders Theatre, sponsored by Harvard’s Department of English and American Literature and Language, was no exception. The event’s free tickets were gone weeks ago, within hours, and on Tuesday (Sept. 30)…
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
Oct. 17, 1640 — The Great and General Court grants Harvard the revenues of the Boston-Charlestown ferry, which plies the shortest route between Boston and Charlestown, Cambridge, Watertown, Medford, and the plantations of Middlesex County. (From Charlestown, travelers could head for Connecticut.)
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Campus & Community
Dental School’s Goldhaber dies at 84
Paul W. Goldhaber, dean of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine (HSDM) for 22 years, died this past July 14 from complications of pancreatic cancer. He was 84.
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Health
New approach to gene therapy may shrink brain tumors, prevent their spread
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers are investigating a new approach to gene therapy for brain tumors — delivering a cancer-fighting gene to normal brain tissue around the tumor to keep it from spreading. An animal study described in the journal Molecular Therapy, the first study to test the feasibility of such an approach, found that…
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Campus & Community
Incoming HSPH dean receives Clinton Global Citizen Award
Julio Frenk, who will become dean of the Harvard School of Public Health in January 2009, has received a Clinton Global Citizen Award. In naming Frenk, along with four other individuals, former President William J. Clinton said, “The Global Citizen Awards are about honoring and inspiring service to humanity. Our award recipients were chosen from…
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Campus & Community
HSPH expands HIV/AIDS work in Tanzania
Nearly 150 years ago, the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam was known by another name — Mzizima, meaning “healthy town” in the local language. But over the decades, the city and the country of Tanzania have experienced mounting challenges to that health.