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Campus & Community
GSD professor, renowned engineer, LeMessurier dead at 81
William James LeMessurier, Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) adjunct professor of architectural technology in the Department of Architecture, died this past July 14. One of the world’s pre-eminent structural engineers, he taught at the GSD for decades. He was 81.
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Campus & Community
Memorial services
The date of the memorial service for Alfred D. Chandler Jr., Isidor Straus Professor of Business History Emeritus, has been changed from Sept. 28 to Oct. 19. A memorial service for Wilga M. Rivers, professor of Romance languages and literatures emerita, will be held in Appleton Chapel of the Memorial Church on Oct. 17 at…
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Campus & Community
Harvard-Yenching Institute names visiting scholars, fellows
The Harvard-Yenching Institute recently welcomed 33 visiting scholars and fellows to the institute for the 2007-08 academic year.
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Campus & Community
Harvard Forest announces Bullard Fellows
Harvard Forest recently announced the 2007-08 Charles Bullard Fellows in Forest Research. The purpose of this fellowship program, established in 1962, is to support advanced research and study by persons who show promise of making important contributions, either as scholars or administrators, to forestry defined in its broadest sense as the human use and study…
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Nation & World
Phillips Brooks House welcomes first fellow
With its long tradition of service and community involvement, the Phillips Brooks House (PBH) — composed of the Phillips Brooks House Association, the student-run, public service organization, and the Harvard Public Service Network, which supports more than 45 student-led service groups — extended its scope last week as it welcomed the first Phillips Brooks House…
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Campus & Community
President’s office hours
President Drew Faust will hold office hours for students and staff in her Massachusetts Hall office on the following dates:
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Campus & Community
Sports in brief
The Harvard women’s soccer team defended its perfect home record with a 1-0 edging of Fairfield this past Tuesday afternoon (Oct. 2). The Harvard sailing team placed third out of 14 teams in the Women’s Regis Bowl this past Sunday (Sept. 30) on the Charles River. Lehigh defensive lineman Paul Bode returned a fumble 27…
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Campus & Community
University unites for Day of Service
The atmosphere was cheerful and upbeat as volunteers, young and old, from Harvard and beyond, gathered on a bright autumn morning last Saturday (Sept. 29) for what organizers and University officials hope will be the first in a long tradition of an annual University-wide Day of Service.
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Health
Second pathway behind HIV-associated immune system dysfunction is discovered
Researchers at the Partners AIDS Research Center (PARC) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) may have discovered a second molecular “switch” responsible for turning off the immune system’s response against HIV. Last year, members of the same team identified a molecule called PD-1 that suppresses the activity of HIV-specific CD8 T cells that should destroy virus-infected…
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Campus & Community
Taking distance education to the next level
A major advance in distance education was initiated this fall in a specially equipped classroom at the Harvard Extension School. Classes held there give online students the ability to view on-campus lectures in real-time and actually take part in classroom discussions. The facility also serves as an experimental locus to test distance education teaching methods…
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Science & Tech
Harvard brings the Earth to high school
Steam vents in Yellowstone National Park are part of the area’s unique environment, seen in a case study exploring Yellowstone and the reintroduction of wolves into the park. This case study is part of a new environmental science course for high school science teachers.
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Health
‘Speed limit’ found on rate of evolution
Harvard University scientists have identified a virtual “speed limit” on the rate of molecular evolution in organisms, and the magic number appears to be six mutations per genome per generation — a rate of change beyond which species run the strong risk of extinction as their genomes lose stability.
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Science & Tech
Do sports and statistics constitute a ‘dream team’?
Many argue it’s the reason the curse was finally reversed. A few say it has revolutionized the game. “Sabermetrics” — the statistical analysis of baseball data — pervades sports conversation today. But how many people are aware that analytical statistics can make powerful contributions to other sports, like say, pingpong? Well, for a start there…
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Science & Tech
Ancient practice sans theory
Move over, Archimedes. A researcher at Harvard University is finding that ancient Greek craftsmen were able to engineer sophisticated machines without necessarily understanding the mathematical theory behind their construction.
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Arts & Culture
Maya, Aztec monument casts get the shake-out, dust-off
Plaster reproductions of Maya and Aztec carvings, which preserve precious details now lost on the originals, are leaving dusty, haphazard storage for cleaning, cataloging, and crating that will prepare them for a new era of usefulness and relevance.
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Health
Stem cells may enhance capability of heart cells to regenerate
During a fatal heart attack, at least 1 billion heart cells are killed in the left ventricle, one of the heart’s two big lower pumping chambers that move blood into the body.
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Health
Stem Cell Summit draws 500 participants
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick Wed-nesday (Oct. 3) called on those attending the second day of a Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI)-sponsored Stem Cell Summit to support his proposed $1 billion life sciences initiative “so we can get partnering with you.”
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Campus & Community
Chili pepper cocktail points to wide-awake surgery
Imagine an epidural or a shot of Novocain that doesn’t paralyze your legs or make you numb yet totally blocks your pain. This type of pain management is now within reach. As a result, childbirth, surgery, and trips to the dentist might be less traumatic in the future, thanks to researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital…
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Health
Research links panic and heart attack in older women
New research has linked panic attacks in older women with an increased risk of heart attack, stroke, and death from all causes, adding panic attacks to the growing list of mental and emotional conditions with potentially deadly physical effects.
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Campus & Community
Kennedy School launches Initiative on Religion with Luce Foundation grant
Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government has announced a new academic research program, the Initiative on Religion in International Affairs. The interdisciplinary initiative, based at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, will be directed by Monica Duffy Toft, associate professor of public policy, and J. Bryan Hehir, Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of…
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Nation & World
Pre-emption: Preventive, coercive, or both?
In the wake of 9/11, how to defend the country in a new age of terrorism has sparked an ongoing, often divisive debate. Some consider tactics like pre-emption, the right to use force to respond to an imminent threat, and preventive war, the use of force to prevent a serious threat from worsening over time,…
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Nation & World
Wade hails ‘African renaissance’
His Excellency Abdoulaye Wade, president of the Republic of Senegal, visited Harvard last week (Sept. 27). Looking younger than his 81 years, he walked onto the stage at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum to the sound of a tama, a West African “talking drum” used to telegraph complex messages.
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Campus & Community
American Indians bless search for Harvard roots
With a ceremonial blessing and a cautionary reminder of native peoples’ historic oppression, a group of American Indian leaders joined an assemblage of experienced and budding archaeologists Wednesday (Sept. 26) to begin the search for Harvard’s Indian College roots.
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Nation & World
Conference celebrates tribal governance
Imagine the map of the United States as it really is. Not 50 states, but 50 states plus 562 sovereign nations — the 562 federally recognized American Indian tribes and communities that exist within U.S. borders.
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Campus & Community
AAAS to induct 13 Harvard faculty to 227th class of fellows
Thirteen Harvard University faculty members will be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences at a ceremony on Saturday (Oct. 6). Celebrated for their scholarship, artistic triumphs, and service to society, the 227th class of fellows includes the following Harvard affiliates:
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Campus & Community
Harvard University receives major gift to endow Brazil Studies Program
The J.P. Lemann family has made a major gift to Harvard University to endow permanently its Brazil Studies Program. The first significant commitment of Drew Faust’s presidency, it signals the importance of international priorities at Harvard.
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Nation & World
At Kennedy School, Iraqi foreign minister outlines recent progress
“Iraq is back,” the country’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, told his audience at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at the Kennedy School of Government Oct 1. With the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein replaced by a “constitutional, democratically elected government,” Iraq is in the midst of “a truly historic transformation” as important as “any…
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Health
Mental disorders cause 1.3 billion ‘out of role’ days annually
The importance of role disability, that is, inability to work or carry out usual activities, has become increasingly recognized as a major source of indirect costs of illness because of…