Campus & Community

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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,…

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…

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…

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

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.

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.

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.

At its seventh meeting of the year (Feb. 9) the Faculty Council discussed with Dean Benedict Gross (Harvard College and mathematics) a proposed requirement that all spring term evaluations for the Committee on Undergraduate Educations Course Evaluation Guide be submitted online. David Heitmeyer, manager of Web and Applications Development, and David Sobel, senior manager of Client and Web Services, demonstrated the evaluation procedure, and Dean Stephanie Kenen and Ms. Deborah Green, both from the Office of Academic Programs were also present to answer questions. Deans Kirby and Gross discussed the spring term schedule for the Harvard College Curricular Review, and Professors Stuart Shieber (Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences) and Everett Mendelsohn (History of Science) introduced discussions of the length, frequency, and conduct of Faculty Meetings.

Feb. 10 – Woman of the Year Please note: The parade has been cancelled due to inclement weather. See http://www.hastypudding.org/new/ for details. 3:30 p.m. – Roast and presentation of Pudding…

February 1943 – With an eye toward the postwar world, the Business School launches a research project on the role of local radio advertising in the marketing of peacetime products…

Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending Feb. 7. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor.

President Lawrence H. Summers will hold office hours for students in his Massachusetts Hall office on the following dates:

Pigeon netting in the windows of the Memorial Hall tower casts a filmy grid over the Science Center and environs.

It’s the first descriptive word on David Rodowick’s Harvard Web page, coming immediately after his name and before “Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies.”

Stavins appointed chair of new EOEA advisory board Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government Robert Stavins has been appointed chair of the newly created scientific advisory board at the…

IOP funding for thesis research The Institute of Politics (IOP) is offering awards to Harvard undergraduates for summer research and fieldwork relating directly to a senior thesis or a comparable…