All articles


  • Health

    Over-the-counter pain relievers increase the risk of high blood pressure in men

    Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have found that the three most commonly used drugs in the United States, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and aspirin, increase the risk of developing high blood pressure in middle-aged men. These findings are published in the Feb. 26 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

  • Science & Tech

    Medieval Islamic architecture presages 20th century mathematics

    Intricate decorative tilework found in medieval architecture across the Islamic world appears to exhibit advanced decagonal quasicrystal geometry – a concept discovered by Western mathematicians and physicists only in the 1970s and 1980s. If so, medieval Islamic application of this geometry would predate Western mastery by at least half a millennium.

  • Health

    Harvard athletes grow bigger, better hearts

    Strenuous exercise can cause a heart to grow as much as 10 percent and its chambers to enlarge, Harvard researchers have discovered after testing the University’s athletes. What they are learning from these studies could someday be applied to advising nonathletes about caring for their hearts.

  • Campus & Community

    College announces new sophomore advising plan

    Harvard College has announced a new preconcentration advising program to help rising sophomores. As the former freshmen are being welcomed into House life, advisers will help them choose their concentration.

  • Campus & Community

    New York City mayor to receive award, deliver remarks at KSG

    Michael R. Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, will receive the Pathfinder Award Friday (March 2) from the Leadership for a Networked World (LNW) Program at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG). Bloomberg will also deliver remarks before an audience of invited guests at the School’s Wiener Auditorium beginning at 4 p.m. and will be…

  • Science & Tech

    Jackson raps abundance of ‘experts’

    In 1973, Shirley Ann Jackson became the first black woman to receive a Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Decades – and 38 honorary degrees – later, Jackson is the president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York. Her resume includes time as a university researcher (in theoretical elementary particle physics);…

  • Arts & Culture

    Tackling tradition and taboos

    Mary Gitagno plainly remembers the pain of her traditional Tanzanian tribe’s female circumcision ritual. It is a pain she determined her own daughters would never feel. In the years since, Gitagno went far beyond sparing her daughters from female genital mutilation, beginning a nonprofit organization to lobby the government and educate the public about the…

  • Nation & World

    Rethinking Islam from Pakistan to Texas

    Two Harvard professors are spearheading a new initiative aimed at defeating “a clash of ignorances,” a clash, they affirm, that perpetuates misunderstanding, prejudice, and fear between Muslim and Western societies.

  • Campus & Community

    Donella Rapier to step down as vice president for alumni affairs and development

    Donella M. Rapier, vice president for alumni affairs and development, announced today (Feb. 26) that she will step down from her position effective June 30, 2007.

  • Campus & Community

    ‘There’s Something About Ben’

    In three decades of acting, Ben Stiller admits that he’s had some challenging roles. “‘There’s Something About Mary.’ There were some tough scenes in there,” he told a very young questioner at Harvard tonight (Feb. 23). “Don’t see it, though.”

  • Arts & Culture

    Boym turns chance errors into chancy art

    Svetlana Boym leads a double life. Her faculty Web page identifies her as the Curt Hugo Reisinger Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Professor of Comparative Literature. She is the author of several scholarly books and teaches courses with titles like “Memory and Modernity” and “Russian Culture from Revolution to Perestroika.”

  • Arts & Culture

    Fishburne feted at Cultural Rhythms

    The phrase “rich ethnic and cultural diversity” seemed like an understatement at last Saturday’s (Feb. 24) Cultural Rhythms extravaganza. This year’s event was energized by the appearance of the Artist of the Year Laurence Fishburne, the mightily accomplished actor, director, producer, and humanitarian.

  • Arts & Culture

    Urban design, strategic architecture

    When Eve Blau speaks of Milan Lenuci, the city surveyor of Zagreb in the late 19th century, a note of reverence enters her voice. “He’s one of our great heroes,” she says. Lenuci’s finest accomplishment was the “Green Horseshoe,” a U-shaped series of parks and promenades surrounding Zagreb’s center and providing a refreshing refuge from…

  • Campus & Community

    This month in Harvard history

    This month in Harvard history

  • Campus & Community

    Police reports

    Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending Feb. 26. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.

  • Campus & Community

    Arts of the Islamic World: A Workshop for Children

    In conjunction with the exhibition “Overlapping Realms: Arts of the Islamic World and India, 900-1900,” the Sackler Museum is offering a workshop in Islamic art for children ages 9 to 12. Children will learn to recognize several elements of design in Islamic art including tessellations, linear repeat patterns, and arabesques. The workshop will include a…

  • Campus & Community

    MAC renovations update

    Following the closing of the Malkin Athletic Center (MAC) the week of March 19, MAC equipment will be made available to recreational users at the QRAC (66 Garden St.) and the Gordon Indoor Track and Tennis facility (65 N. Harvard St.).

  • Campus & Community

    Daffodil orders taken through tomorrow

    Daffodil Days, one of the University’s most popular and colorful fundraisers, is accepting orders through Friday (March 2). Bouquets cost $7 each and include 10 stems. For $25, the bouquet includes a limited edition, collectible Boyds Bear teddy bear.

  • Campus & Community

    Take a lunch break to ancient Israel

    The Semitic Museum is sponsoring a free, docent-led tour of “The Houses of Ancient Israel: Domestic, Royal, Divine” on March 8 at 12:15 p.m.

  • Campus & Community

    Lemann Professor nominated young global leader

    The World Economic Forum (WEF) recently nominated Tarun Khanna, an authority on strategy and emerging markets and Harvard Business School’s Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor, as a Young Global Leader 2007.

  • Campus & Community

    NSP names Harvard senior Josh Bolian top volunteer

    Harvard senior Josh Bolian has been selected Volunteer of the Year out of 550 candidates by the National Student Partnerships (NSP). The nation’s only year-round, student-led service organization, NSP works one-on-one with low-income community members by providing intensive on-site and referral services.

  • Campus & Community

    Kaplan elected to Accounting Hall of Fame at Ohio State

    Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard Business School Robert S. Kaplan recently joined the select group of academic, business, and government experts who have been elected to the Accounting Hall of Fame.

  • Campus & Community

    Sports in brief

    Women’s hoops swoop up share of league title Men rock Yale at CSA consolation Above and beyond: Tracksters named All-Ivy

  • Campus & Community

    CC Wang

    CC Wang of the Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital died peacefully at his home in Lincoln, MA on the evening of December 14, 2005. Dr. Wang was 83 years old at the time of his passing.

  • Campus & Community

    Howard Wilson Emmons

    Howard Wilson Emmons, Gordon McKay Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Emeritus, and Abbott and James Lawrence Professor of Engineering, Emeritus, the father of and a leading contributor to modern home fire research, died in his 86th year on November 20, 1998.At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on May 16, 2006, the Minute…

  • Campus & Community

    Harvard Foundation names Laurence Fishburne the 2007 Artist of the Year

    Actor, producer, and director Laurence Fishburne has been named the 2007 Artist of the Year by the Harvard Foundation. Fishburne, the unanimous choice of the selection committee, will be awarded the foundation’s most prestigious medal at Harvard’s annual Cultural Rhythms ceremony on Saturday afternoon (Feb. 24) at Sanders Theatre.

  • Arts & Culture

    The evolution of the blues

    Paul Oliver, probably the world’s foremost scholar of the blues, first heard African-American vernacular music during World War II when a friend brought him to listen to black servicemen stationed in England singing work songs they had brought with them from the fields and lumber camps of the Deep South. Oliver was enthralled by the…

  • Campus & Community

    This month in Harvard history

    This month in Harvard history

  • Campus & Community

    Police reports

    Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending Feb. 19. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.

  • Campus & Community

    Arts of the Islamic World: A Workshop for Children

    In conjunction with the exhibition “Overlapping Realms: Arts of the Islamic World and India, 900-1900,” the Sackler Museum is offering a workshop in Islamic art for children ages 9 to 12.