Year: 2003

  • Nation & World

    For many, prenups seem to predict doom

    In the event of divorce – statistically, the reality for nearly half the marriages in America – a prenuptial agreement has the potential to save the divorcing couple anguish, arguments, and thousands of dollars. It may represent an exit agreement far closer to their wishes than the court-ordered divorce. A good prenuptial agreement can even…

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Blocking the road to extinction

    A widely cited estimate is that at current rates of deforestation, orangutans will be extinct in the wild in 20 years. But Assistant Professor of Anthropology Cheryl Knott, who heads…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Worth more than the paper they’re written on

    According to Beth Simmons, a professor of government at Harvard, governments care what others think of them. They want to be admired and can be publicly embarrassed, just like like…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Breast cancers tied to brain survival

    A gene produces a protein that evidently protects cancer cells in the same way it shields brain cells from damage caused by diseases like Alzheimer’s and strokes. “The same substance…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Innate signal sparks homing of T cells

    The results of three studies published together in the Aug. 31, 2003 online edition of Nature Immunology help explain the uncanny ability of T cells to home to problem areas…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Compound traces brain plaques in real time

    Alzheimer’s disease is notoriously difficult to diagnose. Though sophisticated functional and cognitive tests can help, they often fail to distinguish between Alzheimer’s and other non-amyloid-based dementias, particularly frontotemporal dementia. The…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Ducks, sheep, and chickens, oh my…

    Science let its hair down in Harvards Sanders Theatre Thursday night (Oct. 2), laughing at its own foibles as it skewered dubious but real scientific achievements through the awarding of the annual Ig Nobel Prizes.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Harvard wins $10M NIH Center of Excellence grant

    Harvard University has been awarded a $10 million Center of Excellence grant to establish the Harvard Center for Chemical Methodologies and Library Development (HCMLD). The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded the grant.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Harvard Foundation honors two WWII vets

    The Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations will host two veterans of World War II, one black and one white, as honorary guests on Oct. 16. The remarkable story of these two men – both former U.S. Army Air-Corps pilots – has recently come to light through reports from NBC News and the History…

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The Big Picture

    Wine is in Paul Malagrifas blood. His grandfather, an Italian immigrant, made wine in his East Boston basement. I always said that I was going to carry on the family tradition, says Malagrifa, who has been playing with wine for nearly two decades.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Portrait of a scholar

    Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan (above right) and Byrne Professor of Administrative Law Emeritus Clark Byse unveiled a portrait of Archibald Cox, Carl M. Loeb University Professor Emeritus and the first Watergate special prosecutor, Wednesday (Oct. 8). In addition to his long and celebrated career as a teacher and scholar, Archibald Cox was able…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    This month in Harvard history

    Oct. 7, 1642 – By order of the Great and General Court, a reorganized Board of Overseers becomes a permanent part of College governance. Oct. 14, 1763 – At the…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    The high road

    A pedestrian waits for the traffic to abate before crossing Massachusetts Avenue from the Holyoke Center to the Yard.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Beatrice Blyth Whiting, anthropologist, dies at 89

    Beatrice Blyth Whiting, a leading anthropologist of childhood and professor emerita of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, died on Sept. 29 of pneumonia at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge. She was 89.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    HBS assumes mantle of renewable power pioneer

    A new solar power installation on top of Harvard Business Schools Shad Hall has made the School a renewable energy pioneer and, supporters said, provide a concrete case study of the affordability of clean solar energy.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Graham charts course for oldest grad school

    The secular and the divine at Harvard, once so intertwined as to be indistinguishable, have drifted apart throughout the Universitys history. It was, in part, concern for things divine that motivated Harvards founders, who anticipated the inevitable demise of the colonys English-educated clergy and dread[ed] to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches.

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Allston-Brighton Family Football Day scores with fans

    Nearly 400 Allston-Brighton residents and their families joined the Harvard Crimson at the 14th annual Allston-Brighton Family Football Day on Saturday (Oct. 4). Sponsored by the Office of Government Affairs and the Department of Athetics, the event offers Allston-Brighton football fans, young and old, complementary tickets and lunch at a football game each season.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Cross-town showdown highlights D

    With two such highly explosive football teams, Saturdays (Oct. 4) match-up between Harvard and Northeastern had all the makings of a scoring free-for-all. After all, the cross-town showdown featured two of the nations most offensively potent teams in Division IAA football (lest you forget, the Huskies racked up 72 points in their season opener, while…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Radcliffe marks Schlesinger’s 60th with conference

    Gender and race shared the stage at a Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study conference marking the 60th anniversary of the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America Friday (Oct. 2), a nod to the Schlesingers considerable holdings of African-American womens papers. The daylong event, Gender, Race, and Rights in African…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    HFA hosts ‘Mystic River’ homecoming

    Hollywood came to Cambridge Monday night (Oct. 6), as the area premiere of the Boston-bred film Mystic River festooned Sanders Theatre with more glitz than is customary on a weeknight in Harvard Square. But at the event, a benefit for the venerable Harvard Film Archive (HFA) on its 25th anniversary, Boston and Cambridge outshone the…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    John Dunlop, esteemed scholar, dies at 89

    John Dunlop, a distinguished Harvard scholar and administrator who played significant roles as a labor negotiator and government official, died Thursday morning (Oct. 2) at Brigham and Womens Hospital. He was 89.

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Window on the world

    The Lowell House windows provide an elegant frame to a recent rainy day scene in Cambridge.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    In brief

    Docents sought for Semitic Museum The Semitic Museum at Harvard University is looking for volunteers to guide tours for the upcoming exhibit “The Houses of Ancient Israel: Domestic, Royal, Divine,”…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Joining ‘the battle for America’s future’

    Programs for city children before, during, and after school are the battleground for the nations future, and the quality of those programs will determine what kind of country we will be, Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers said Friday (Oct. 3).

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Making Harvard modern

    This fall two exhibitions and a symposium commemorate the 50th anniversary of the appointment of Josep Lluis Sert as dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD).

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Thomas W. Lentz named new director of HUAM

    Provost Steven E. Hyman announced the appointment today of Thomas W. Lentz as Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director of the Harvard University Art Museums, effective Nov. 15. Lentz is currently director of international art museums at the Smithsonian Institution.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Sharon Salzberg to teach meditation at Memorial Church

    The Memorial Church will host one of Americas most popular Buddhist teachers, Sharon Salzberg, for a two-day meditation workshop. Salzberg will present Meditation in the Memorial Church on Oct. 24, from 7 to 10 p.m., and Oct. 25, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Praised by the Dalai Lama as a psychologically skillful accessible teacher,…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    HMNH launches career-spanning photography exhibit

    In his long lifetime, Brad Washburn 35 has ascended heights most of us dont even dream of. Since scaling Europes highest peaks at age 16, hes mapped the now-standard route up Alaskas Mt. McKinley, created definitive maps of that mountain plus Mt. Everest, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and, in a reverse of altitude,…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Newsmakers

    HBS Press, RHK form venture Harvard Business School Press (HBS Press) and Random House Kodansha (RHK) recently announced that they will form a partnership to co-publish a select number of…

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Summers opens office door to students Nov. 3

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

    1 minute