Featured series 
Year: 2007
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Nation & World
Eggs, nests make colorful bedfellows at HMNH
Large and small, plain and colored, splotched and dotted, eggs from the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology’s vast collection are on display at the Harvard Museum of Natural History in a new exhibition of eggs and nests.
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Nation & World
‘I want to know what it is to be a human being’
One day earlier this month, Sean Dorrance Kelly was at work in his sunny Emerson Hall office. On one side of his desk were books — a ceiling-high, room-wide stack of tomes ranging from Greek editions of Homer and contemporary works of neuroscience to books on twenthieth-century French, German, and Anglo-American philosophy.
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Nation & World
In a first, scientists develop tiny implantable biocomputers
Researchers at Harvard and Princeton universities have taken a crucial step toward building biological computers, tiny implantable devices that can monitor the activities and characteristics of human cells. The information provided by these “molecular doctors,” constructed entirely of DNA, RNA, and proteins, could eventually revolutionize medicine by directing therapies only to diseased cells or tissues.
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Nation & World
Vogel hopes to help expedite Sino-Japanese détente
In 1978, Deng Xiaoping visited Japan. Although the trip made little impression on the West, Ezra Vogel calls it one of the greatest meetings between national leaders of the 20th century. In fact, it was the first meeting between top leaders of the two countries in 2,500 years.
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Nation & World
Tehran’s building murals recreated
When Fotini Christia, a Ph.D. candidate in public policy at the Kennedy School, first arrived in Tehran to study Persian, she was struck by the enormous murals that dominated the city.
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Nation & World
A long way from summer camp — building hope for refugees in settlement
How much can a few college students really accomplish during two months in Africa? Turns out, quite a lot.
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Nation & World
Harvard, Cambridge establish Joint Center for History and Economics
Crossing academic disciplines and the Atlantic Ocean, the Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) and King’s College, Cambridge, have established the Joint Center for History and Economics (JCHE). The JCHE will facilitate and encourage interdisciplinary research and learning in the social sciences and the humanities.
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Nation & World
Amartya Sen talks about the importance of ethics in academe
In 1976, in the education journal Change, President Derek Bok famously asked, “Can ethics be taught?” At the time, few universities and even fewer faculty specialized in ethics; philosophers rarely applied their moral insights to real-world problems; and doctors, lawyers, businesspersons, and policymakers usually had little or no ethics training, even as the world was…
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Nation & World
Robert Darnton named Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and director of the University Library
Robert Darnton, currently the Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of European History at Princeton University, will become Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and director of the Harvard University Library, effective July 1, 2007, Provost Steven E. Hyman announced today (May 22).
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Nation & World
Longtime employee, teaching assistant, student Carroll dies at 65
Charles “Chuck” Carroll, longtime Harvard Division of Continuing Education (DCE) employee and a Harvard graduate, died on May 21, after succumbing to a rare blood disease. He was 65.
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Nation & World
A tale of two scholars: The Darwin debate at Harvard
Few people have left a more indelible imprint on Harvard than Louis Agassiz.
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Nation & World
Yield for the Class of 2011 nears 80 percent
Nearly 80 percent of the students admitted to the Class of 2011 will enter Harvard in September, identical to last year’s Class of 2010. The yield may rise slightly once the final returns are in, including about 35 students who will be admitted from the waiting list over the coming weeks.
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Nation & World
At CGIS, attorney Amsterdam blasts Russian Federation, others
“We’ve got to stop blaming Vladimir Putin,” Robert Amsterdam told his listeners at the Center for Government and International Studies Tuesday morning (May 15). “That does us no good.
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Nation & World
Italian government provides $1.5M for Sustainability Science Program at CID
The Italian Ministry for the Environment, Land, and Sea has made a $1.5 million gift to support the Fund for Sustainable Development at Harvard’s Center for International Development (CID), it was announced earlier this month. A document-signing ceremony was held May 9 at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG).
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Nation & World
Making days longer than 24 hours
People at a research hospital in Boston have been living 24-hour, 39-minute days. They were part of an experiment to show that the 24-hour human sleep-wake cycle can be adapted to other biological rhythms like the longer days on Mars.
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Nation & World
FAS approves new General Education curriculum
The Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences approved Tuesday (May 15) a motion that sets the stage for the implementation of the first complete overhaul of general education for undergraduates in nearly 30 years. By voting to put in place a new program in General Education, the FAS is replacing the Core Program established…
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Nation & World
Addiction illuminates concept of ‘free will’
Whether humans possess free will or whether their actions are determined by something outside their conscious control is one of the most persistent problems in philosophy.
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Nation & World
Water solutions
The pictures — of children with sunken eyes and shriveled skin; oxen being herded across a river where women clean their clothes and fill their pitchers; an African villager sipping water from a shallow puddle — made the point like no words could at the May 11 Center for International Development symposium “The Impact of…
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Nation & World
GSD students troubleshoot local problems
Back in March, at Cambridge’s King Open School, Matthew Gillen and José Terrasa-Soler asked fifth-graders how to make the city a nicer place to live in.
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Nation & World
Harvard wins Cambridge Go Green Award for Blackstone project
Harvard University has been awarded a city of Cambridge Go Green Business Award, which recognizes business and institutional leaders for their efforts to create a more sustainable city.
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Nation & World
Heavyweights battle
The Harvard heavyweight crew scored a three-for-one this past Sunday (May 13) at the 62nd annual Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges (EARC) Sprints. In capturing three gold and a pair of silver medals, Harvard seized the Rowe Cup (given for the best-overall team), reclaimed the Worcester Bowl (given to the winner of the varsity eight…
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Nation & World
Sports briefs
Black and White heavies to vie for national title The NCAA rowing committee has named the Radcliffe heavyweight crew as one of a dozen squads to receive a team-bid to the national championships May 26-27 at Melton Hill Lake in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Coming off a 10-5 dual racing season and a fourth-place finish at…
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Nation & World
Commencement exercises June 7
Morning Exercises To accommodate the increasing number of those wishing to attend Harvard’s Commencement Exercises, the following guidelines are proposed to facilitate admission into Tercentenary Theatre on Commencement Morning:
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Nation & World
Phillips Brooks House Assoc. celebrates public service and honors seniors with awards
The Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) held its sixth annual Public Service Celebration on May 7 in the masters’ residence of Lowell House. A capacity crowd of 240, including PBHA public service leaders and volunteers, Harvard faculty and staff, and invited guests, attended the ceremony. The keynote address — traditionally comprising the reflections of three…
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Nation & World
Professors Goldin, Sampson, students honored by AAPSS
The American Academy of Political and Social Science (AAPSS) recognized its new group of fellows for 2007 at an April 29 ceremony held in Washington, D.C. The 2007 fellows include four Harvard students and Harvard faculty members Claudia Goldin, the Henry Lee Professor of Economics, and Robert J. Sampson, the Henry Ford II Professor of…
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Nation & World
Center for Public Interest launches program for NYC youth
Eleven Harvard undergraduates will embark on an intense internship experience this summer, working alongside New York’s most innovative nonprofit organizations and government agencies to solve challenging problems facing children today.
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Nation & World
Senior, junior named Joseph L. Barrett Award recipients
Two Harvard students were recently named Joseph L. Barrett Award recipients. Administered by the Bureau of Study Counsel (BSC), the award commemorates Barrett (Class of ’73) and is given in recognition of promising young people at Harvard College who have enhanced the learning of others “with the vigor and openness so characteristic of Joe.”
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Nation & World
Daniel Gilbert’s ‘Stumbling on Happiness’ lands top book prize
Daniel Gilbert’s pursuit of the scientific basis of happiness has won him the Royal Society Prize for Science Books, it was announced on Tuesday (May 15). “Stumbling on Happiness,” which draws on psychology and neuroscience, as well as personal experience, explores the various ways people attempt to make themselves happy. Gilbert, who is a professor…
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Nation & World
Weissman Program names interns for ’07
The Weissman International Internship Program, established by Paul (’52) and Harriet Weissman in 1994, provides sophomores and juniors with the opportunity to intern abroad in a field of work related to their career and academic goals. The Weissman Program enables students to develop a richer understanding of the global community in which they live and…