Campus & Community

All Campus & Community

  • Talk to the hand (it’s for a good cause)

    Bakang Komunyane (from left), Rangarirai Miambo, Saritha Komatireddy, Monica Soni, and Aimee Miller practice a dance routine in preparation for Changing the Tide, a performance to raise funds for areas devastated by the recent tsunami in South Asia. The event takes place Saturday (Feb. 19), at 8 p.m. in Sanders Theatre. For tickets, call the Harvard Box Office at (617) 496-2222.

  • The Big Picture

    Five years ago, Jennifer Shultis was a competitive equestrienne who rarely ran, had never mountain biked, and had what she calls a normal fear of heights.

  • Newsmakers

    Real Fundación de Toledo awards Márquez prize Arthur Kingsley Porter Research Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures Francisco Márquez was awarded the Premio Especial by the Real Fundación de Toledo…

  • In brief

    Film Archive to remember Malcolm X this month In memory of the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X this month, the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and…

  • Research in brief

    New treatment for chronic myelogenous leukemia Using rational drug design strategies, investigators at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Novartis Pharmaceuticals in Basel, Switzerland, have created a targeted therapy for chronic myelogenous…

  • No consolation

    Crimson goalie Dov Grumet-Morris 05 makes a diving save on a shot by B.C.s Stephen Gionta in the consolation Beanpot game at the FleetCenter on Feb. 14. The Eagles beat the Crimson, 4-1.

  • Sports in brief

    Men’s squash nabs Ivy League title The No. 2 Harvard men’s squash team captured its 36th outright Ivy League title with a 6-3 win over visiting Yale this past Saturday…

  • Make it seven

    The pace of Tuesdays (Feb. 15) womens Beanpot championship game at Northeastern Universitys Matthews Arena was decidedly fast and frantic. For the Boston College womens hockey team, the whole ordeal mustve been a bit infuriating as well.

  • Older doctors less likely to follow current standards for care

    Harvard Medical School (HMS) researchers report in the Annals of Internal Medicine that older physicians may be less likely to deliver currently accepted standards of care. The studys findings show that the number of years a doctor has been in practice may decrease the likelihood of the doctor providing technically appropriate care.

  • FAS, HLS to renovate Hemenway Gymnasium

    Harvard Universitys Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) and the Harvard Law School (HLS) will collaborate to renovate Hemenway Gymnasium in a project slated to run from late May to September of this year. The two schools will split the cost of the top-to-bottom interior rehabilitation of the 28,000-square-foot recreational fitness facility, which will be closed during construction.

  • Sever slated for major facelift

    Sever Hall, the Henry Hobson Richardson-designed building that anchors the east side of Tercentenary Theatre in Harvard Yard, will undergo a major exterior restoration. Also, the buildings fourth floor will be renovated to create space for the Visual and Environmental Studies (VES) film program. Work is slated to begin in June and conclude in September.

  • Key to dental enamel formation found

    Scientists at Harvard-affiliated Forsyth Institute have found and replicated a key aspect of the mechanism by which dental enamel is formed.

  • In China, gems used as tools millennia earlier than thought

    Researchers have uncovered strong evidence that the ancient Chinese used diamonds to grind and polish ceremonial stone burial axes as long as 6,000 years ago – and incredibly, did so with a level of skill difficult to achieve even with modern polishing techniques. The finding, reported in the February issue of the journal Archaeometry, places this earliest known use of diamond worldwide thousands of years earlier than the gem is known to have been used elsewhere.

  • Wuthering Hall

    Memorial Hall looks decidedly spooky as a combination of midwinter light and shadow performs its haunting visual magic.

  • Office for the Arts announces spring grants recipients

    More than 1,800 students will participate in nearly 60 projects in dance, music, theater, and multidisciplinary genres at Harvard this spring, sponsored in part through funding from the Office for the Arts (OFA). Selected by the Council on the Arts at Harvard, the projects include visual art and multimedia pieces, theater productions, concerts, and dance performances, among others.

  • Spring memorial service set for Mayr

    A memorial service for Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology Emeritus Ernst Mayr will be held April 29 at 2 p.m. in the Memorial Church. Widely considered the worlds most eminent evolutionary biologist, Mayr joined Harvards Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 1953 and led Harvards Museum of Comparative Zoology from 1961 to 1970.

  • Are economic choices rational?

    Traditional economic theory assumes that humans make rational choices aimed at maximizing their economic well-being. But anyone who has ever splurged on some alluring trinket even though the rent check might bounce as a result knows that this assumption does not always hold true.

  • Kuwait Program accepting grant proposals

    The John F. Kennedy School of Government (KSG) has announced the eighth funding cycle for the Kuwait Program Research Fund. With support from the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences, a KSG faculty committee will consider applications for small one-year grants (up to $30,000) to support advanced research by Harvard faculty members on issues of critical importance to Kuwait and the Persian Gulf. Grants can be applied toward research assistance, travel, summer salary, and course buyout.

  • Economies in Asia: The dragon vs. the elephant

    In the race between Asias two major developing nations, Chinas dragon is, by most indicators, beating Indias elephant, hands down. Its gross domestic product (GDP) is growing at a rate almost double that of Indias, and the aisles of Wal-Mart are cluttered with products made in China. But the United States and the rest of the world had better keep an eye on the elephant and resist temptation to declare the dragon the victor quite yet, says a Harvard Business School (HBS) professor.

  • Psychic healing

    With more than 150,000 dead and countless more injured, severely traumatized, and homeless, Decembers tsunami disaster is shaping up to be the greatest natural catastrophe in living memory. Even those familiar with the worst wartime destruction say that they have never seen anything comparable to the coastal cities and towns utterly flattened by the massive waves.

  • Democracy, freedom always right choice

    Almost as soon as it happened, Western leaders forgot the lesson of the Soviet Unions fall: that freedom, democracy, and human rights go hand in hand with security, according to former Soviet dissident and current minister in the Israeli government Natan Sharansky.

  • Lasers produce slow, cold antiatoms

    A new way to make colder atoms of antimatter has been found. It could help bring scientists closer to understanding why we, and everything else, are made out of matter instead of antimatter.

  • HBS’s Teresa Amabile ‘tracks creativity in the wild’

    If you were paid more money, would you produce more creative work? If that report languishing on your desk for months were suddenly due by the end of the week,…

  • Male body image

    Asian men show less dissatisfaction with their bodies than males in the United States and Europe, according to a Harvard study. This may explain why anabolic steroid abuse is much…

  • Warming world would see fewer summer breezes

    A group of climate researchers has shown that a warming globe over the next 50 years could result in fewer appearances of summer’s cleansing winds over the Northeast and Midwest…

  • Efficiency program saves money, energy

    An energy-efficiency program in Harvard-managed buildings has University real estate managers smiling at savings of more than $700,000 annually. Larry McNeil, senior facilities engineer with Harvard Real Estate Services’ University…

  • A bit of Baker Street

    A faux gas lantern in Harvard Yard recalls London at the turn of the last century.

  • Ernst Mayr, giant among evolutionary biologists, dies at 100

    Ernst Mayr, the Harvard University evolutionary biologist who has been called the Darwin of the 20th century, died on Feb. 3 at a retirement community in Bedford, Mass. A member of the Harvard faculty for more than half a century, he was 100.

  • Task forces on women established

    Recent public discussion about women and science has brought renewed attention to long-standing issues concerning the representation of women in the faculty ranks at Harvard and in other top research universities. In response, Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers has announced the establishment of two University-wide task forces to develop concrete proposals to reduce barriers to the advancement of women faculty at Harvard and in academic careers more broadly.

  • Harvard community donates $553,132

    The Harvard University community has donated $553,132 to 26 nonprofit organizations supporting relief efforts related to the Dec. 26 tsunami in South Asia. Through a program established by Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers last month, the University matched up to $100 of donations from 3,359 faculty, staff and students. Individual contributions totaled $307,255 the University matched $245,877 of those donations.