Year: 2008

  • Nation & World

    ‘For the Bible Tells Me So’

    The plight of families who struggle to reconcile their religious beliefs with their children’s sexuality is the focus of the film “For the Bible Tells Me So,” which was screened recently (Feb. 12) in the Thompson Room at the Barker Center for the Humanities.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Theron takes roast in stride

    A feisty Charlize Theron proved a match for her kidders at this year’s Woman of the Year award ceremony as the tall, slender, striking blonde gave as good as she got during the annual roast by Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    This month in Harvard history

    February 1943 — Animator Walt Disney visits Harvard to consult with Anthropology Department Chair Earnest A. Hooton about a forthcoming Technicolor film ridiculing Adolf Hitler’s racist theories. On the steps of the Faculty Club, Disney tells the Boston press that he plans to leave Hitler “out of the picture,” since “too much attention has already…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Police reports

    Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending Feb. 11. 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

    Hysen trumpets ‘No Vote, No Voice’ before NASS, Undergrad grants available through Schlesinger Library, ‘Visions of Spring’ seeks artists

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Newsmakers

    Three faculty elected to NAE, Linnean Society of London honors Wilson, Arthur Kleinman serves as Cleveringa Professor, Faculty earn Smith Breeden Prize, Pair wins prestigious NSF award, ‘Father of World Wide Web’ to receive Pathfinder Award

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Hauser Center appoints executive director

    The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations based at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) has announced the appointment of Aviva Luz Argote as its new executive director.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    MacLeod, retired director of accounting, passes away

    Donald MacLeod, former director of accounting at Harvard University, passed away at his home in Lexington, Mass., on Feb. 2 after a brief illness.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Frank Henry Westheimer

    At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on December 11, 2007, the Minute honoring the life and service of the late Frank Henry Westheimer, Morris Loeb Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus, was placed upon the records. Westheimer was one of the key figures in twentieth-century chemistry.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Commencement Exercises 2008

    Commencement 2008 notice

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Free flu shots still available at University Health Services

    With the flu season currently at its peak (and the season often lasting through April), there is still plenty of time and good reason to get immunized if you have not already. Following immunization, it takes approximately 10 days to develop antibodies and be protected.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Crimson still gritty in pink

    Perhaps to the shock of the Union and Rensselaer women’s hockey teams, the color of the Crimson’s jerseys this past weekend (Feb. 8-9) failed to soften the club’s ferocious play. Donned in specifically designed pink jerseys for the Pink at the Rink campaign, the No. 1 nationally ranked Harvard squad shut out the visiting squads,…

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    B.C. drops lid on Beanpot search

    Whenever one of the nation’s most prolific offenses dukes it out with one of collegiate hockey’s top defenses, the results are electrifying. But in the land of the Beanpot, the outcome of this exact setup — a 6-5 overtime win by shot-happy B.C. over the stoic Crimson — is, if not exactly ho-hum, pretty standard…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Local superintendents, Faust share ideas

    Harvard President Drew Faust met with public school superintendents and professional associates from Boston area schools on Feb. 8 to share ideas about, among other things, educational leadership, teaching and learning, and preparing students from preschool through college and beyond.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Daffodil Days, Harvard team up to fight cancer

    The first flower of spring, the daffodil has long been a symbol of hope and renewal. It has also become a powerful tool in the American Cancer Society’s efforts to treat patients.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Newly identified gene variants associated with prostate cancer risk

    Three studies presenting newly identified genetic variants that are associated with increased susceptibility to prostate cancer were published recently (Feb. 10) on the advance online site of Nature Genetics. The 10 gene variants double the number of known variants associated with risk of the disease and are the result of genomewide association studies.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Anxiety linked to overestimation of breast cancer risks

    Elevated levels of anxiety may cause women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), the most common form of noninvasive breast cancer, to overestimate their risk of recurrence or dying from breast cancer, suggests a study led by researchers at Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Infants are able to recognize quantity

    By looking at infant brain activity, researchers have found that babies as young as 3 months old are sensitive to differences in numerical quantity. Additionally, the scientists were able to see that babies process information about objects and numbers in different, dissociated parts of the brain, which is also the case in older children and…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Web technology allows health experts from around globe to kibitz

    It was close to midnight one day this week in Durban, South Africa, when Harvard AIDS researcher Bruce D. Walker switched on his computer and made a visit to 104 Mt. Auburn St. in Cambridge.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    BWH-led tuberculosis research project receives $14M NIH grant

    Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Partners In Health (PIH) have received a grant of $14 million over five years from the National Institutes of Health to study multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB). The goal of the project is…

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Making statistics not just palatable, but delicious

    Money, love, health, innocence or guilt — even finding the right wine. Who doesn’t want to know more? “Real-Life Statistics: Your Chance for Happiness (or Misery),” offered this semester by Harvard’s Department of Statistics, will explore the critical tools to make good judgments in matters large and small.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    How brain cells make good connections

    Harvard neuroscientist Venkatesh N. Murthy has a sunny second-floor office on Divinity Avenue, where he is a professor in Harvard’s Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. In one corner is a set of weights and a soccer ball — both untouched in over a year, he said, because of an intensely busy schedule.

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Shorenstein Center announces Goldsmith finalists

    Six entries have been chosen as finalists for the 2008 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting awarded each year by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government (HKS). The winner of the $25,000 prize will be named at a March 18 awards ceremony at the John…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Mossavar-Rahmani Center names fellows

    Two regulatory affairs executives from an Italian energy company, the president of the Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute, and a Vietnamese professor of economics are among the incoming fellows being welcomed this spring at the Kennedy School of Government’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government (M-RCBG).

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Golden to deliver Morris Lecture at Nieman

    Tim Golden, senior writer for The New York Times, will present the 2008 Joe Alex Morris Jr. Memorial Lecture at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard on Feb. 21, 2008.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Liberian president to address HKS graduates

    Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first elected female leader on the African continent, will deliver the 2008 graduation address at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS). She will speak to graduates and their families on Class Day (June 4) at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    H-Link will connect students in same classes

    In response to student requests and the evolving ways students are using technology to communicate with each other, Harvard University is creating H-Link, a Web application that connects students’ courses and classmates with their Facebook accounts, which will be available starting Feb. 25. Facebook is an Internet “social utility” very popular among high school and…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Calderón cites nation’s progress

    The election that put Felipe Calderón Hinojosa into office as the president of Mexico was a real squeaker — the closest vote in the modern history of his country. It took a couple of months for the federal electoral tribunal to certify him as the winner. Even then his chief opponent wouldn’t concede. An hour…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Ethicists, philosophers discuss selling of human organs

    In nearly every country in the world, there is a shortage of kidneys for transplantation. In the United States, around 73,000 people are on waiting lists to receive a kidney. Yet 4,000 die every year before the lifesaving organ is available.

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Security chief cautions against complacency

    If Michael Chertoff, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, was politically wounded by his department’s response to Hurricane Katrina, he showed no sign of it during his forceful lecture Feb. 6 at the Kennedy School of Government.

    4 minutes