Featured series 
Year: 2007
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Health
New science provides compelling framework for early childhood investment
A remarkable convergence of new knowledge about the developing brain, the human genome, and the extent to which early childhood experiences influence later learning, behavior, and health now offers policymakers an exceptional opportunity to change the life prospects of vulnerable young children, says a new report from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard…
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Health
Sensory organ differentiates male/female behavior in some mammals
For years, scientists have searched in vain for slivers of the brain that might drive the dramatic differences between male and female behavior. Now biologists at Harvard University say these efforts may have fallen flat because such differences may not arise in the brain at all.
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Health
Broken hearts found to mend themselves
Stem cells apparently try to mend hearts damaged by heart attacks or high blood pressure. But they do not refresh hearts run down by aging. Evidence for this heartening and disheartening news comes from experiments with mice done at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
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Health
Youngest girls spirited to brothels show highest HIV rates
Girls forced into the Indian sex trade at age 14 or younger show significantly higher rates of HIV infection than older girls and women similarly forced into prostitution, according to a new study that highlights for the first time the increased HIV risks faced by sex trafficked Nepalese girls and women.
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Health
Risk genes for Multiple Sclerosis Uncovered
A large-scale genomic study has uncovered new genetic variations associated with multiple sclerosis (MS), findings that suggest a possible link between MS and other autoimmune diseases. The study, led by…
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Health
Obesity is contagious
Public health officials have been working hard to account for the dramatic rise in U.S. obesity rates. Many obvious factors, such as poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle, certainly contribute…
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Campus & Community
National Weather Service calls Harvard ‘StormReady’
Every year Harvard braces for a storm of applications. Now it’s ready — officially — for storms of the natural variety. In a brief ceremony July 20, federal officials certified Harvard as the first university in New England, and the first Ivy League school, to receive a “StormReady” designation from the National Weather Service (NWS).
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Campus & Community
‘To instruct and delight’
Hyacinth M. Young, a Jamaica native with a flair for cool sunglasses and flashy blouses, teaches high school English in California. She’s at Harvard for three weeks (July 2-21) to study poetry in a summer seminar sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Joining her are 14 other teachers from around the country.
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Arts & Culture
Life lessons
On a sultry August day three decades ago, historian Jean Strouse ’67 stopped in Harvard Square to buy daisies. She walked on to the nearby grave site of diarist Alice James, who died in 1892.
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Arts & Culture
Light Prop shines again
This Saturday (July 21), one of the Busch-Reisinger Museum’s most unusual artworks will get a new lease on life.
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Arts & Culture
In brief
‘HUCTW Creates’ showcases range of talents “HUCTW Creates: The Visual Arts,” a group art exhibit featuring visual artist members of the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW) will be up through July 31 at Gutman Library, 6 Appian Way. The closing reception will be held July 31 from 5 to 7 p.m.
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Campus & Community
Chandler memorial service upcoming
A memorial service for Alfred D. Chandler Jr., the Isidor Straus Professor of Business History Emeritus at Harvard Business School, will be held at the Memorial Church in Harvard Yard on Oct. 19. Chandler died May 9, 2007, at the age of 88.
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Campus & Community
Nussbaum dies at 81
Retired Associate Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology Alexander Leopold Nussbaum of Newton, Mass., died June 22, 2007. He was 81.
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Campus & Community
IOP announces fall fellows
Located at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG), the Institute of Politics (IOP) recently announced the selection of an experienced group of individuals for resident fellowships this fall. Resident fellows interact with students, participate in the intellectual life of the community, and pursue individual studies or projects throughout an academic semester.
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Campus & Community
Dept. of Music announces fellowship, award winners
Harvard’s Department of Music recently announced its fellowship and award recipients. Close to $220,000 will go toward fellowship and award programs for the department’s graduate and undergraduate students.
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Campus & Community
GSD award winners named
The following awards were presented at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) during June Commencement.
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Campus & Community
Gates receives European Culture of Peace Award
Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. has been awarded the European Science and Culture Award from the City for the Cultures of Peace in Berlin. The award is given in recognition of his fight against the abuse of human rights, racism, and discrimination, and efforts on behalf of the victims of oppression. Gates, the Alphonse…
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Campus & Community
Law Schoolís Mack named Fletcher Fellow
Alphonse Fletcher Jr. í87, chairman and CEO of Fletcher Asset Management Inc., recently announced the selection of the 2007 class of Alphonse Fletcher Sr. Fellows, which includes Harvard Law School Professor Kenneth Mack. Created in 2004 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Courtís landmark decision, Brown v. Board of Education, the fellowship program…
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Campus & Community
Steinitz retires from GSD, plans to pursue research, part-time teaching
Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) Alan Altshuler recently announced that Carl Steinitz has retired from his tenured professorship to become the Alexander and Victoria Wiley Research Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning (effective July 1). In this role, Steinitz will remain active in research and will continue to instruct part-time at…
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Campus & Community
Martha Schwartz named tenured professor at GSD
Alan Altshuler, dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD), recently announced that Martha Schwartz has been promoted to professor in practice of landscape architecture, with tenure (effective July 1). Since 1987, Schwartz has held positions of design critic and adjunct professor in the GSD, where she has taught options studios, portions of…
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Campus & Community
Blodgett Pool school seeks novice swimmers, divers
Each fall and spring, Harvard Swim School provides swimming and diving lessons for children and adults. Held at Blodgett Pool, the Saturday morning lessons will commence Sept. 22 and run through Oct. 27 (lessons will be suspended during the week of Oct. 13). For more information, contact Keith Miller at (617) 496-8790, or visit http://www.athletics.harvard.edu/swimschool/.
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Campus & Community
Crew captures Ladies Plate
Harvard crew returned to the top of the podium at the Henley Royal Regatta (July 5-8) with a win in the Ladies Challenge Plate. It was one of three victories for Harvard-affiliated rowers on the final day of the regatta in Henley-on-Thames, England.
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Campus & Community
‘The Wave of Change’
High school students from six states gathered at Harvard Divinity School (HDS) in June for a conference on religious diversity and tolerance. Co-sponsored by the Interfaith Action’s Youth Leadership Program and Harvard University’s Pluralism Project, the daylong conference, called ‘T.I.D.E. (Teenage Interfaith Diversity Education): The Wave of Change,’ featured workshops, dialogue, games, and other activities.
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Campus & Community
Double dose of good green news
Harvard and City of Cambridge officials on Tuesday (June 19) used the penultimate day of spring to celebrate a double dose of sunny news.
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Health
Teen diets can hurt their lungs
For most teenagers in the United States and Canada, fish and fruit are not high on their delicious list. Also, many of them — about 20 percent of those under 18 — cough, wheeze, and suffer from asthma and bronchitis. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have found a connection between these…
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Science & Tech
Harvard astronomers share dark prize
Two teams who upset everyone’s ideas about how the universe works and its future will share the $500,000 Gruber Cosmology Prize for discovering that 70 percent of the universe is nothing but a strange form of energy.
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Health
Getting to obesity’s bottom line
Hunter-gatherer instincts set loose in a world of modern food abundance are at the root of today’s obesity crisis, according to a Harvard psychologist.
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Health
Researchers look at antidepressants and risk of suicide among kids
Which is more likely to push a depressed child to suicide: not taking antidepressant drugs or taking antidepressant drugs? Medical experts have struggled with this question at least since 1990 when Harvard researchers reported that six people developed suicidal feelings soon after taking Prozac (fluoxetine). This was the first of the now widely prescribed serotonin…
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Health
Sex differences in brains reflect disease risks
Women’s brains are different from men’s. That’s not news. What is news is that the differences are smaller than most people believe. They are not big enough to say that one sex is smarter or better at math than the other.
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Science & Tech
Harvard launches major initiative to help design international climate agreements
Harvard University announced in early July a two-year project to help identify key design elements of a future international agreement on climate change, drawing on the ideas of leading thinkers from academia, private industry, government, and advocacy organizations, both in the industrialized world and in developing countries.