Featured series 
Year: 2008
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Health
Eating meat led to smaller stomachs, bigger brains
Behind glass cases, Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology displays ancient tools, weapons, clothing, and art — enough to jar you back into the past. But the venerable museum offered a jarring moment of another sort in its Geological Lecture Hall last month (March 20). Paleoanthropologist Leslie Aiello delivered a late-afternoon talk on diet, energy, and…
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Health
Common aquatic animals show resistance to radiation
Scientists at Harvard University have found that a common class of freshwater invertebrate animals called bdelloid rotifers are extraordinarily resistant to ionizing radiation, surviving and continuing to reproduce after doses of gamma radiation much greater than that tolerated by any other animal species studied to date.
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Science & Tech
Laser precision to help find new Earths
Harvard scientists have unveiled a new laser-measuring device that they say will provide a critical advance in the resolution of current planet-finding techniques, making the discovery of Earth-sized planets possible.
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Campus & Community
Medical School to reduce student debt burden with new financing plan
Harvard Medical School (HMS) Dean Jeffrey Flier announced March 21 that the School is taking steps to reduce the cost of a four-year medical education by up to $50,000 for families with incomes of $120,000 or less.
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Health
Scientists learn what’s ‘up’ with retinal cells
Harvard University researchers have discovered a new type of retinal cell that plays an exclusive and unusual role in mice: detecting upward motion. The cells reflect their function in the physical arrangement of their dendrites, branchlike structures on neuronal cells that form a communicative network with other dendrites and neurons in the brain.
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Nation & World
Hospital brings hope to Haiti
A hospital opened in January where a year earlier cows grazed. There were banners and bands that bright day in the tiny community of Lacolline, Haiti.
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Campus & Community
Shapiro named Young Global Leader by World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum has selected Daniel L. Shapiro as a 2008 Young Global Leader. The founder and director of the Harvard International Negotiation Initiative and associate director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, Shapiro is on the faculty at Harvard Law School and Harvard Medical School/McLean Hospital.
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Campus & Community
Gellman, Becker are awarded Goldsmith Prize
The $25,000 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting has been awarded to Barton Gellman and Jo Becker of The Washington Post for their investigative report “Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency.” The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy administers the award.
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Nation & World
From Law School to Business School — evolution of the case method
On a recent Wednesday morning, 90 high achievers from around the world prepared to get down to cases. Their professor buzzed through the classroom like a worker bee. Armed with large, multicolored pieces of chalk, he organized his notes, copied pastel-coded facts and figures on the blackboard, and set up a film screen. Soon his…
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Science & Tech
Laser precision added to search for new Earths
Harvard scientists have unveiled a new laser-measuring device that they say will provide a critical advance in the resolution of current planet-finding techniques, making the discovery of Earth-sized planets possible.…
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Health
Louise Ivers: ‘I can’t sleep at night because of the things that I see.’
Louise Ivers gently lifted the 7-month-old by his forearms, hoping he would pull himself up as a healthy child a third his age might. But his head hung limply back,…
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Campus & Community
A record pool leads to a record-low admissions rate
A record applicant pool of 27,462 has led to an admission rate of 7.1 percent, the lowest in the history of Harvard College. Traditional admission letters (and e-mails) were sent on March 31 to 1,948 students. Last year 2,058 applicants were admitted from a pool of 22,955.
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Health
Newly discovered class of mouse retinal cells detect upward motion
Harvard researchers have discovered a previously unknown type of retinal cell that plays an exclusive and unusual role in mice: detecting upward motion. The cells reflect their function in the…
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Campus & Community
Jane Mendillo to lead Harvard Management Company
Jane Mendillo will become the new president and chief executive officer of Harvard Management Company (HMC), effective July 1, 2008, the HMC board of directors announced today.
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Science & Tech
Common aquatic animals show extreme resistance to radiation
Harvard scientists have found that a common class of freshwater invertebrate animals called bdelloid rotifers are extraordinarily resistant to ionizing radiation, surviving and continuing to reproduce after doses of gamma…
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Nation & World
Web of care
Lake Peligre fills the valley floor, its dark blue waters a relief to the eye after hours winding through central Haiti’s hot, treeless hills on the dusty, potholed road that passes for National Route 3.
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Science & Tech
Harvard Medical School to reduce student debt burden
Harvard Medical School (HMS) Dean Jeffrey Flier today announced that the school is taking steps to reduce the cost of a four-year medical education by an average of $50,000 for…
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Nation & World
Public interest lawyers come home to HLS
Last weekend (March 13-15), current and future lawyers at Harvard Law School (HLS) discussed how to change the world. The first “Celebration of Public Interest” at HLS brought together hundreds of the School’s alumni involved in public service careers to discuss their work, share their stories, and engage with the next generation of lawyers considering…
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Arts & Culture
Symposium held on ‘Olympic’ architecture
The Olympics are never just about sport. This summer’s Beijing Olympics have been emphatically about architecture, too. In preparation for the games this August, the Chinese capital is undergoing an urban transformation unprecedented in recent history.
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Health
Satcher’s goal: To help ‘people who have been left out’
David Satcher — the 16th U.S. surgeon general and co-author of “Multicultural Medicine and Health Disparities” (McGraw-Hill, 2006), was in Boston (March 13) to deliver the fourth in a 2007-08 series of lectures in Public Health Practice and Leadership sponsored by the HSPH’s Division of Health Practice.
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Arts & Culture
Arts In brief
A.R.T. PRODUCTION UP FOR TOP AWARD LOCKWOOD, JUILLIARD STRING QUARTET TO EXPLORE BEETHOVEN
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Arts & Culture
The story behind ‘Storied Walls’
In March 2001, Bill Saturno, a newly minted Harvard Ph.D., was in Guatemala searching for recently uncovered hieroglyphics as a research associate of the Peabody Museum. It turned out that his guides were overbooked and his planned expedition had to be canceled. As a sort of consolation prize, the company offered Saturno a three-hour Land…
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Campus & Community
RMJM gift supports integrated design program at GSD
Despite the current building boom, many recent graduates from architecture and engineering schools are choosing to pursue more lucrative careers in high-tech and management consulting, rather than building and design. This trend, according to design professionals, could have major consequences for the construction industry. As part of an effort to address it, a recent $1.5…
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Arts & Culture
Panel discusses paucity of designing women
Women in Design, a student group at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) that aims to increase the visibility of women in the field, kicked off its four-part spring symposium, “Progress in Process,” Thursday night (March 13) with a panel discussion on where women in architecture are now and where they are headed. Department…
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Arts & Culture
With old forms, improvisation, Bielawa creates ingenious anachronism
Manhattan composer Lisa Bielawa is a Radcliffe Fellow this year. Her tiny studio on Concord Avenue is spartan: white walls, a piano, a violin, two chairs, a table strewn with music staff paper. On one side is the glow of a computer. On the other is a single window, with a blur of trees beyond.…
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
March 13, 1944 — Between matinees at Boston’s RKO Theatre, composer-pianist Duke Ellington visits Paine Hall to give a 20-minute lecture on the blues (“Negro Music in America”). At the keyboard, Ellington illustrates his talk with “Sophisticated Lady,” “Subtle Slough,” “Dancers in Love,” “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” and “Mood Indigo.”
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Campus & Community
Police reports
Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending March 3. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.
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Campus & Community
Sharma to attend Clinton’s Global Initiative University
Ankush Sharma, a graduate student in the Health Careers Program at Harvard University, attended the inaugural Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) conference at Tulane University March 14-16.
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Campus & Community
Shapiro selected as 2008 Young Global Leader
The World Economic Forum recently named Daniel L. Shapiro a 2008 Young Global Leader. The director of the Harvard International Negotiation Initiative and a lecturer on law, Shapiro joins leaders across a wide range of fields who are under 40 years of age to be chosen to pursue solutions to global-scale issues including education, government,…