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  • Campus & Community

    University inaugurates Drew Faust

    It’s happened only 28 times in 371 years, so when a new Harvard president is inaugurated, the occasion is bound to be a memorable one. And the installation of Drew Faust, scheduled for Oct. 12, is shaping up to be one of the most memorable ever.

  • 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…

  • Arts & Culture

    Morrison reads at the Memorial Church

    The historical two-day celebration of Drew Faust’s inauguration as the president of Harvard began Thursday (Oct. 11) on a literary note. Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison read from a work-in-progress…

    Toni Morrison.
  • Arts & Culture

    From jazz to samba to ‘Hill Street Blues’

    A muster of remarkable musicians who also happen to be Harvard graduates gathered in Sanders Theatre Thursday night (Oct. 11) to serenade the soon-to-be inaugurated University President Drew Faust. The…

  • Campus & Community

    University is accountable to past, future

    Gusts of wind shook raindrops from the trees and fluttered the fall’s first yellow leaves onto the heads and shoulders of the Tercentenary Theatre crowd below, but in spite of…

  • Arts & Culture

    ‘Ethiojazz’ sets feet to tapping

    A masinko is about as simple as a stringed instrument can get — a wooden box with a neck protruding from one corner and a single string stretched across its face. The one Setegn Atanaw plays is the amplified version, airbrushed in red and yellow like a Fender Stratocaster.

  • Arts & Culture

    Provocative Civil War exhibit at Fogg to coincide with inauguration

    An exhibition opens at the Fogg Art Museum this Saturday (Oct. 6) that will have lots of people talking.

  • Campus & Community

    This month in Harvard history

    Oct. 6, 1642 Oct. 24, 1656 Oct. 9, 1737

  • Campus & Community

    Police reports

    Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending Oct. 1. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.

  • Campus & Community

    In brief

    The Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics is now accepting applications from graduate students for its 2008-09 fellowship in ethics. Also As part of its evolving emergency communications procedures, Harvard University is making available text message alerts to students, faculty, and staff to be used only in the event of an extreme, campus-wide, life-threatening…

  • Campus & Community

    Newsmakers

    Renowned Egyptian activist Nawal El Saadawi has been selected by the Harvard Committee on African Studies to deliver its annual Distinguished Harvard African Studies Lecture. Balkanski Professor of Physics and Applied Physics Eric Mazur and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, 300th Anniversary University Professor, were recently named Phi Beta Kappa (PBK) Visiting Scholars for the 2007-08 academic…

  • 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.

  • 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…

  • 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.

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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:

  • 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…

  • 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.

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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…

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.”

  • 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…

  • 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.