Year: 2008

  • Nation & World

    Researchers successfully track voyage of single stem cell

    The title of the letter in the Dec. 3 edition of the journal Nature — “Live-animal tracking of individual haematopoietic stem/progenitor cells in their niche” — doesn’t begin to describe it, this real-life, real-time view of a single stem cell making its way to its ultimate home inside the bone-marrow cavity of a living mouse.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Dybul urges partnering with governments, communities to fight AIDS

    In honor of World AIDS Day (Dec. 1), Ambassador Mark Dybul, the U.S. global AIDS coordinator who is leading the implementation of the $48 billion President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), spoke Dec. 4 in Sever Hall.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Rights, AIDS, past and future

    Sixty years after the United Nations declared health care a basic human right, the AIDS epidemic highlights how much work remains to be done as the disease rages on among populations with little access to quality care.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Research may lead to treatment for retinitis pigmentosa

    Rods and cones coexist peacefully in healthy retinas. Both types of cells occupy the same layer of tissue and send signals when they detect light, which is the first step in vision.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Of Neanderthals and dairy farmers

    Harvard Archaeology Professor Noreen Tuross sought to rehabilitate the image of Neanderthals as meat-eating brutes last week, presenting evidence that, though they almost certainly ate red meat, Neanderthal diets also consisted of other foods — like escargot.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    ‘Form follows function’

    Officially complete this month, Harvard’s ambitious new Northwest Science Building — located just north of the Harvard Museum of Natural History — houses some 520,000 square feet of laboratories, classrooms, and offices.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Class, war, and discrimination in 1812 Korea

    Sun Joo Kim’s laugh is as easy as it is infectious. Her cheery nature no doubt comes in handy when she’s conducting her intensive research in three complex languages.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Zimbabwean student is Harvard’s 4th Rhodes Scholar

    A Harvard College senior from Zimbabwe has become the fourth Harvard student to be named a Rhodes Scholar this year, accepting the prestigious award to study at Britain’s Oxford University.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A half-century of life at Harvard

    Simon: What drew you to Harvard as a young graduate student in the early 1950s?

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Celebrating the life and career of Stanley Hoffmann

    One could measure Stanley Hoffmann’s achievements in book publications (more than 18), academic titles (University Professor, chair, co-founder of the Center for European Studies) or honors (Commandeur in the French Legion of Honor, to name one). But the broad smiles and teary eyes at the Center for European Studies last Friday (Dec. 5) indicated the…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Panel looks at ‘the crime of all crimes’

    On Dec. 9, 1948, the United Nations adopted a convention that for the first time in history provided a legal definition for genocide. Organized mass murder with the intention of destroying an ethnic or national group, a legacy of World War II, was still a fresh world memory — just as it is fresh today,…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    ‘Is Afghanistan Lost?’

    At a panel discussion Monday at the Harvard Kennedy School, Maleeha Lodhi evoked Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat to describe the situation on the ground in Afghanistan.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Hailing an unfulfilled promise

    Harvard marked the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Wednesday (Dec. 10), highlighting both the document’s power and its unfulfilled promise through theater, song, and ideas.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Hormone therapy for prostate cancer does not appear to increase cardiac deaths

    Treating prostate cancer patients with drugs that block hormonal activity does not appear to increase the risk of death from cardiovascular disease, according to a study led by Harvard Medical…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Task Force Releases Report on the Arts

    A concerted effort should be made to put the arts at Harvard University on par with the study of the humanities and sciences, according to a report released today (Dec. 10) by a University-wide task force that examined the role the arts play in campus life.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Connie Cepko

    In some ways, Connie Cepko’s job has gotten easier. The Harvard Medical School genetics professor is working to uncover the mysteries of the eye, to understand how it develops and…

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Fresh insight into retinitis pigmentosa

    Rods and cones coexist peacefully in healthy retinas. Both types of cells occupy the same layer of tissue and send signals when they detect light, which is the first step…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Having happy friends can make you happy

    If you’re happy and you know it, thank your friends — and their friends. And while you’re at it, their friends’ friends. But if you’re sad, hold the blame. Researchers…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Some blood-system stem cells reproduce more slowly than expected

    A research collaboration lead by Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has found a subpopulation of hematopoietic stem cells, which generate all blood and immune system…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Thinking globally and mapping locally

    Akiyuki Kawasaki thinks globally and maps locally. To do that, the Japanese researcher, who is spending the academic year as a visiting scholar at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied…

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Another step forward in ALS and stem cell research

    A Harvard Stem Cell Institute research team has succeeded in deriving spinal motor neurons from human embryonic stem cells, and has then used them to replicate the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) disease process in a laboratory dish.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    This month in Harvard history

    Dec. 29, 1627 — John Harvard enters Emmanuel College, Cambridge University, England.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    ‘The health of poetry’

    As a graduate student at Oxford, Gwyneth Lewis wrote her dissertation on 18th century literary forgery. But as a working poet for three decades — and this year as a Radcliffe Fellow — she is as far from that fraud as conceivable.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Patricia Cornwell endows conservationist at Straus Center

    Harvard Art Museum announced the establishment of the Patricia Cornwell Conservation Scientist position at the museum’s Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies. Funded by a $1 million commitment from best-selling author Patricia Cornwell, the Cornwell Conservation Scientist will play a key role in the analytical laboratory and beyond.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Making connections: A special evening for Harvard faculty

    “The arts are something we all care deeply about, whether we are artists ourselves, whether we are social scientists, or whether we are scientists,” Senior Vice Provost Judith Singer told an audience of about 120 Harvard faculty of all stripes and ranks gathered at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Police reports

    Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending Dec. 1. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    In brief

    FAS Supply Swap; HRO plays Weber, Yannatos, Mahler; New lab to open at HKS

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Newsmakers

    Obama names Summers director of National Economic Council; Honorary degree awarded to Professor Wei-Ming Tu; Retsinas honored by the Affordable Housing Hall of Fame; Lu wins grand prize in the 2008 Collegiate Inventors Competition; Business School’s Kanter receives honorary degree from Aalborg University

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Faculty Council

    At its fifth meeting of the year on Dec. 3, the Faculty Council discussed the Summer School course list for 2009, undergraduate foreign language requirements, and the finances of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The council next meets on Jan. 7. Due to the holiday schedule, the preliminary deadline for the Jan. 13 Faculty…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Money Mondays to help staff

    The Office of Human Resources will be offering a special series of “HARVie chats” on banking, benefits, investing, and other financial topics. Harvard staff are invited to visit http://harvie.harvard.edu/chats/upcomingchats.shtml to get information that may help in navigating through the current economic downturn.

    1 minute