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Health
Study shows indicator for cardiovascular events
A study appearing in this week’s (March 19) New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) confirms that a combination of gene variants previously associated with cholesterol levels does reflect patients’ cholesterol levels and can signify increased risk of heart attack, stroke, or sudden cardiac death. Led by researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) cardiology division,…
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Health
MGH initiates Phase I of its diabetes trial
Scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have initiated a Phase I clinical trial to reverse type 1 diabetes. The trial is exploring whether the promising results from the laboratory of Denise Faustman can be applied in human diabetes.
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Health
Study: Know thyself and you’ll know others better
Using functional MRI (fMRI) scanning, researchers have found that the region of the brain associated with introspective thought “lights up” when people infer the thoughts of others like themselves. However, this is not the case when we’re considering people we think of as different politically, socially, or religiously. Published in the current issue of the…
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Health
Punishment doesn’t earn rewards
Individuals who engage in costly punishment do not benefit from their behavior, according to a new study published this week in the journal Nature by researchers at Harvard University and the Stockholm School of Economics.
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Nation & World
‘Baby College’ and beyond
Geoffrey Canada — author, educator, psychologist, motivator, poet, black belt, sometime comedian, and founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone — spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of about 300 in the packed Ames Courtroom in Austin Hall last week (March 12).
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Health
Increasing U.S. support could save a million South Africans by 2012
More that 1.2 million deaths could be prevented in South Africa over the next five years by accelerating efforts to provide access to antiretroviral therapy (ART), according to a study released March 13 in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
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Science & Tech
Workshop ponders: Post-Kyoto, what next?
With the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period expiring in 2012, the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements hosted a workshop of leading thinkers Friday (March 14) to help determine what comes next.
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Nation & World
The Holy Land comes to Florida as a theme park
Little did a Harvard scholar who studies sacred spaces imagine that she would find the Holy Land in Florida. Several years ago, while chatting with her niece, a resident of the Sunshine State, Joan Branham, visiting associate professor of women’s studies and early Christianity and Judaism and acting director of the Women’s Studies in Religion…
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Nation & World
Wisse explores mutations of Jewish power
If the Jewish rebellion led to a diaspora that lasted millennia, it also prompted a sea change in the nature of Judaism, said Ruth R. Wisse, Harvard College Professor and Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature. An energetic commentator on Jewish culture, Wisse delivered a Humanities Center lecture this week (March 17) summarizing her new…
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Arts & Culture
African American National Biography launched
From Aaron, a former slave without a last name, through Paul Burgess Zuber, a 20th century lawyer and professor, the recently published African American National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2008) is the most extensive and inclusive collection of biographical information about African American lives ever published. The African American National Biography (AANB), co-edited by Henry…
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Campus & Community
Harvard announces 3.5 percent tuition increase for 2008-09, 21.4 percent rise in need-based scholarship aid
For the upcoming year, the estimated average total aid package of close to $40,000 will reduce the average cost (including nonbilled personal expenses of approximately $3,000) to an estimated $10,500 for those families receiving financial aid. Need-based scholarship aid for undergraduates at Harvard has increased by 143 percent over the past decade, while the total…
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Nation & World
Haiti: Maternal mortality
A serious lack of healthcare infrastructure and an absence of reliable transportation leave Haitian women with few places to safely give birth.
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Nation & World
Haiti: Dr. Louise, a higher purpose
An assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and infectious disease specialist at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Louise Ivers works through the nonprofit organization Partners In Health.
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Nation & World
Haiti: Malnutrition
In Haiti, malnutrition is the most serious threat to pediatric health.
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Health
Stem cells open window on disease processes
A panel of Harvard Stem Cell Institute experts said recently that stem cell research’s biggest impact on patients’ health likely won’t come from therapies that inject stem cells or implant…
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Campus & Community
Shorenstein Center names Goldsmith Award winner
The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy has announced that former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal Paul E. Steiger will receive its Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism on March 18 at 6 p.m. at Harvard Kennedy School’s (HKS) John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum.
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Science & Tech
Cities can help turn the world green
Can green cities save a blue planet? That question was posed last week by Harvard climatologist Daniel Schrag, director of Harvard’s Center for the Environment. The professor of Earth and planetary sciences and professor of environmental science and engineering was one of three technical experts who spoke at a conference March 5 — co-sponsored by…
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Arts & Culture
Thriving cities ‘connect smart people’
In a fast-paced lecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design Thursday evening (March 6), Edward Glaeser, the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics, explained what he called the “central paradox” of cities in the postindustrial age.
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Nation & World
Where the intellectual and spiritual intersect
Kevin Madigan wishes he could have saved Anne Frank. Today, he repeatedly saves her memory. Madigan, professor of the history of Christianity at Harvard Divinity School (HDS), teaches the College freshman seminar “The Holocaust, History and Reaction,” which addresses the Jewish genocide through the study of a variety of texts, literature, and film. The course…
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Arts & Culture
Mining a trove of old ballads gives women a new voice
In the mid-1930s, Milman Parry, a professor in the Department of the Classics at Harvard, traveled throughout Yugoslavia to research and record folk songs. Assisted by his former student Albert Lord, Parry spent 15 months on the road and returned to Harvard with innumerable texts and sound recordings of more than 1,500 epic songs. Their…
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Arts & Culture
A series of concerts by Fromm Players marks 60 years of electronic music
The names Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and Haydn are etched in a ring near the ceiling of Harvard’s Paine Hall. It’s an open question whether these classical masters would have recognized the music performed there last week (March 7-8). But at least one performer is certain that they’d understand.
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Arts & Culture
Synchronized effort rescues collection
Heavy rain Saturday night (March 8) caused a large drainpipe to rupture in Pusey Library. More than 500 gallons of water poured into the Harvard Theatre Collection stacks and seeped through the floor, flooding the three levels beneath it. At risk were hundreds of original drawings of costume and set designs, hand-painted theatrical backdrops, and…
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Arts & Culture
Celebrating thirty years at helm of choruses at Harvard
“It’s one of those great moments in Western music. It’s the highest level of the compositional technique of Bach, one of the most difficult [pieces] to sing,” said Jameson Marvin, director of choral activities and senior lecturer on music at Harvard University. Marvin will conduct the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum, an undergraduate chorus, along with musicians…
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
March 23, 1639 — In recognition of John Harvard’s recent bequest, the Great and General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony orders “that the colledge agreed upon formerly to bee built at Cambridg shalbee called Harvard Colledge.”
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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 March 3. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online athttp://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.
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Campus & Community
Gallery seeks submissions
The Harvard Neighbors Gallery is now accepting portfolio submissions from eligible Harvard-affiliated artists (including current or retired full- or part-time faculty and staff and their spouses/partners).
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Campus & Community
Not too late to get flu shot
With the flu season often lasting through April, there is still plenty of time and good reason to get immunized if you have not already. Following immunization, it takes approximately 10 days to develop antibodies and be protected.
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Campus & Community
Faculty climate survey online
The Harvard University Faculty Climate Survey is available online on the Faculty Affairs Web site (http://www.faculty.harvard.edu). The survey was conducted in academic year 2006-07 by the Office of Institutional Research and the Office of Faculty Development and Diversity. Highlights of the survey results were published in last year’s End of Year Report, which is also…
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Nation & World
Can corporations police themselves effectively?
On the surface, one might argue, it looks like the business world is headed in a decidedly socially conscious direction. Coffee giant Starbucks supports fair prices for its coffee growers. Wal-Mart, the department store dynasty, has instituted a number of measures to lighten its environmental footprint. Companies everywhere tout their eco-friendly products and packaging, and…
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Campus & Community
Senior awarded prestigious Churchill Scholarship
The Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States has named Harvard senior Alison Miller among its 2008-09 scholars.