Year: 2007

  • Nation & World

    Learning about early learning

    On a recent cold Monday morning, the Gutman Conference Center looked more like a kindergarten classroom than a high-end meeting facility. Construction paper, glue sticks, scissors, colored pencils, and crayons covered most of the room’s six round tables. And working at those tables was not a group of intent 5-year-olds but 33 adults busily crafting…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Treasures of Dental School’s old museum opened wide at exhibit

    The Harvard Dental Museum once held 14,000 specimens, everything from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s dentures to a prehistoric mastodon’s tusk measuring 11 feet in length and weighing 300 pounds.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Is doing the right thing hard-wired?

    What gives people the ability to tell right from wrong? Is the moral sense instilled in us by God? Is it inculcated through religious training? Or does moral judgment vary according to the culture in which we were raised?

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    NAS elects five Harvard faculty members

    The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) announced this past Tuesday (May 1) the election of five Harvard affiliates among its 72 new members and 18 foreign associates. Members are chosen in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Lizards shed light on species diversity

    Some people are drawn to majestic racehorses, melodious songbirds, or cuddly puppies. Jonathan Losos has had a lifelong love affair with reptiles.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Too much water can be life-threatening for marathoners

    Runners who consume too much water or sports drinks during a marathon can develop a life-threatening condition called exercise-associated hyponatremia (EAH). Beyond drinking, however, researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital report in the May 2007 issue of the American Journal of Medicine that this complication during endurance exercise is also the result of a hormonal stress…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Beijing restrictions offer case study in emissions of key atmospheric gases

    The Chinese government’s restrictions on Beijing motorists during a three-day conference last November — widely viewed as a dress rehearsal for efforts to slash smog and airborne pollutants during the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing — succeeded in cutting the city’s emissions of one important class of atmospheric gases by an impressive 40 percent.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Learning while we sleep and dream

    Suppose you have a lot of information and you want to put it together so it makes sense. Here’s a suggestion from psychologists at Harvard Medical School — sleep on it.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Doing well while doing good is doable

    “What better place,” observed social entrepreneur and philanthropist Catherine Reynolds, “to describe a new paradigm than here at Harvard?”

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    KSG to launch Acting in Time Initiative that examines long-term challenges

    Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government (KSG) is launching a new School-wide initiative intended to inspire discussion, research, and ideas to overcome the incapacity of governments and others to act in time to prevent catastrophic events. The Acting in Time Initiative is designed to harness the expertise and insight of KSG and the University with the…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Faust, Nowski recognized with Harvard honors

    Drew G. Faust, president-elect of Harvard University, dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and Lincoln Professor of History, has been named the recipient of the 2007 Harvard College Women’s Professional Achievement Award. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Women’s Leadership Awards.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Fellows recognized for exemplary work

    Since the Presidential Instructional Technology Fellowship (PITF) program was launched in summer 2004. More than 200 graduate and undergraduate students have provided services to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), Harvard Divinity School (HDS), Harvard Law School (HLS), Harvard Medical…

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Freshman advising draws lively crowds

    Students and administrators have declared Advising Fortnight a success. The two-week event organized by Harvard College marked the beginning of pre-concentration advising for the Class of 2010. First-years flocked to advising events — scores of them — held by every academic department and degree program, with attendance approaching 3,000.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Teaching excellence honored at College

    When Benedict Gross was a graduate student in mathematics at Harvard, there was no Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. Teaching fellows who wanted to know what was the most effective way to help undergraduates understand their course work were pretty much on their own.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Iranian rights abuses systemic

    “Iran has a constitution and specific laws that on closer scrutiny turn out not to be laws at all, because they can be interpreted in any way to the advantage of the rulers.”

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Peabody teams will scan other endangered monuments

    By January, the Peabody Museum’s Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions Program hopes to be in Copán, Honduras, scanning the imposing but fragile hieroglyphic stairway, the longest inscription in the New World.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    NAS elects five Harvard faculty members

    The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) announced this past Tuesday (May 1) the election of five Harvard affiliates among its 72 new members and 18 foreign associates. Members are chosen in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Fourteen faculty named to 2007 class of AAAS fellows, honorary members

    The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) on Monday (April 30) announced the election of 203 new fellows and 24 new foreign honorary members. Included among this new field of fellows and honorary members are 14 Harvard faculty members.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    FBI director underlines importance of National Security Letters

    At the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum Thursday (April 26), Federal Bureau of Investigation director Robert S. Mueller III outlined terrorism threats, described how the FBI was fighting them — and how at the same time the agency was protecting civil liberties.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Scholar: Cave paintings show religious sophistication

    A picture may be worth a thousand words, but for Catherine Perlès, cave paintings provide a link to understanding thousands of years of human history and thought. In examining cave paintings in Western Europe and archaeological sites in the Near East, Perlès said that the similarities and differences between the artifacts shows that, contrary to…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Humanists gather with evangelical fervor

    A priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk into a … humanist conference.

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    This month in Harvard history

    April 1965 – April 30, 1975

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Police reports

    Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending April 23. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    In brief

    ‘Women at the Top’ to examine first female presidents of Ivy League Third Eye Blind to headline Yardfest on April 28 A.R.T.’s ‘Harvard Night’ features food, talk Upcoming Arts First set to light up Harvard Square Arts First volunteers wanted Take a quick tour of ancient Egypt, Israel during Arts First Stressing stress: BHAC event…

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Newsmakers

    Berger lands Rome Prize Knoll to receive Wollaston Medal Blackstone Street, Cott awarded LEED Platinum Certification

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    William White Howells

    At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on April 10, 2007, the Minute honoring the life and service of the late William White Howells, Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, was placed upon the records. Howells is best known for his work on human cranial variation and the analytical use of multivariate statistical techniques.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Thomas Edward Cheatham Jr.

    At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on April 18, 2006, the Minute honoring the life and service of the late Thomas Edward Cheatham, Jr., Gordon McKay Research Professor of Computer Science, was placed upon the records. Cheatham’s research and teaching bridged the divide between software theory and practice.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Grillo memorial service set for May 3

    A celebration of the life of Hermes C. Grillo, professor of surgery emeritus, will be held May 3 at 3 p.m. in Memorial Church. Grillo died in Italy in October 2006.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    OFA names Arts First grant winners

    OfA grants for dance OfA grant for literature OfA grants for multidisciplinary arts OfA grants for music OfA grants for theater OfA grant for traditional cultural arts OfA grants for visual arts

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    OfA announces undergraduate prize winners

    The Office for the Arts at Harvard (OfA) and the Council on the Arts at Harvard, a standing committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, have announced the winners of the annual undergraduate arts prizes presented in recognition of outstanding accomplishment in the arts for the 2006-07 academic year.

    6 minutes