Featured series 
Year: 2009
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Campus & Community
Harvard unleashes a historic sacred cow
Retiring Harvard professor Harvey Cox, who for 44 years has held the oldest endowed chair at a US university finally lay claim to the Hollis Professor of Divinity’s centuries-old right to graze his cow in Harvard Yard, which a colleague of his said was the equivalent of parking privileges in the 1700s.
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Campus & Community
The first tailors? Researchers find ancient fiber
“Making strings and ropes is a sophisticated invention,” said Ofer Bar-Yosef, a professor of prehistoric archaeology at Harvard University. “They might have used this fiber to create parts of clothing, ropes, or baskets — for items that were mainly used for domestic activities.” The fibers were discovered in an analysis of clay deposits in Dzudzuana…
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Campus & Community
Guidance Office: Answers From Harvard’s Dean, Part 1
Over the last two days, The Choice has fielded nearly 900 questions for William R. Fitzsimmons, the longtime dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard.
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Campus & Community
Harvard Management Company announces fiscal 2009 results
Harvard University’s endowment declined 27.3 percent during the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009, one of the most challenging periods in modern times for financial markets.
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Campus & Community
Fundraising results signal continued strength
Despite a global economic downturn, Harvard University raised $602 million through fundraising efforts in fiscal year 2009.
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Arts & Culture
Oldest-known fibers to be used by humans discovered
A team of archaeologists and paleobiologists has discovered flax fibers that are more than 34,000 years old, making them the oldest fibers known to have been used by humans.
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Science & Tech
China could meet its energy needs by wind alone
A team of environmental scientists from Harvard and Tsinghua University has demonstrated the enormous potential for wind-generated electricity in China.
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Health
Wilson, Watson reflect on past trials, future directions
A conversation between DNA discoverer James Watson and biologist E.O. Wilson was moderated by Robert Krulwich. They reflected on their lives and careers and talked about the future of biology at Sanders Theatre in Memorial Hall at Harvard University.
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Campus & Community
Does Infection Boost Prostate Cancer Risk?
In the new study, Jennifer Stark of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and colleagues analyzed blood samples from 673 men with prostate cancer who participated in the Physicians’ Health Study, a large, ongoing study examining a variety of health issues.
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Campus & Community
Business not ready for flu, study says
Many American businesses are unprepared to deal with widespread employee absenteeism in the event of a swine flu outbreak, a Harvard School of Public Health study says. The survey, released yesterday, found that two-thirds of more than 1,000 businesses questioned said they could not maintain normal operations if half their workers were out for two…
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Nation & World
Designs for enduring structures
As the hurricane bears down on the village, the people do what many all over the world do: head to the local school for shelter. A place of learning in normal times becomes a place of refuge during disasters.
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Health
Drug for MS reactivates virus causing deadly brain disease
The virus responsible for progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), a rare brain disease that typically affects AIDS patients and other individuals with compromised immune systems, has been found to be reactivated…
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Nation & World
Getting justice right
The Institute of Politics hosts the first public discussion of Michael Sandel’s new book, “Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?” coming out later this month.
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Campus & Community
Seasonal flu vaccine available at UHS
Taking early action to prepare for flu season, University Health Services (UHS) has begun administering the seasonal flu vaccine free of charge to Harvard students, faculty, and staff.
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Health
Genome of Irish potato famine pathogen decoded
A large international research team has decoded the genome of the notorious organism that triggered the Irish potato famine in the mid-19th century and now threatens this season’s tomato and…
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Campus & Community
Severe problems in forecast for H1N1 outbreak
Four-fifths of businesses foresee severe problems maintaining operations if significant H1N1 flu outbreak occurs.
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Campus & Community
Strong effort by Crimson not enough
Mikaelle Comrie, Taylor Docter, and Anne Carroll Ingersoll each had 14 kills on Sept. 8 against UConn, but the Crimson still fell to the Huskies in five sets by a score of 3-2.
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Campus & Community
Donations to cancer institute hit $1b
A Dana-Farber Cancer Institute fund-raising campaign has hit the $1 billion mark a year earlier than expected – despite the ragged economy – setting what is believed to be a record for New England health care institutions. The drive’s success, which will be announced today, appears to have few national parallels, although at least one…
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Campus & Community
Harvard students fight foreclosures
Harvard Business School students have joined the fight against foreclosures. The Homeownership Preservation Foundation has teamed up with Harvard MBA students to support the nonprofit’s mission of preventing foreclosure and preserving homeownership.
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Campus & Community
Sharing ‘Justice’ with the world
Harvard University has teamed up with WGBH Boston to produce a new television series and interactive Web site that will take viewers inside one of the University’s most popular courses. “Justice” will premiere on public television stations nationwide in mid-September.
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Campus & Community
Hasty Pudding Club Forms at Harvard: September 8, 1795
On this day in 1795, 21 Harvard students gathered in a dorm room and formed a secret social club to cultivate “friendship and patriotism.” Members agreed to take turns providing a pot of hasty pudding for the meetings. Thus did the Hasty Pudding Club, the nation’s oldest dramatic institution, get its name…
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Campus & Community
Insured, but Bankrupted Anyway
Dr. David Himmelstein is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a primary care doctor at the Cambridge Hospital in Massachusetts. “Our most recent study found that nearly two-thirds of Americans who declared bankruptcy cited illness or medical bills as a significant cause of their bankruptcies. And of the medically bankrupt, three-quarters…
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Campus & Community
Being young, here, now
Harvard’s Humanist Chaplaincy, a community for agnostics, atheists, and the nonreligious, started a free, open-to-all group this year that practices different forms of meditation, including Buddhist and Quaker, said Zachary Alexander, 26, the group’s founder.
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Campus & Community
Oklahoman’s book project archive Harvard-bound
The university’s Houghton Library recently purchased the archive he developed for his 1989 book, “What Should We Tell Our Children About Vietnam?” “It is still hard for me to believe that something that came from my head and hands will end up being preserved forever between the walls of such a great institution,” said McCloud,…
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Campus & Community
PCB risk feared at older N.E. schools
“It’s contradictory . . . because you don’t have to test, but if you do and you find it over 50 parts per million, then this whole cascade of regulatory requirements kicks in,’’ said Robert Herrick, senior lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health…
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Campus & Community
Welcoming Gen Ed
In a celebratory forum in Lowell Lecture Hall Sept. 3, Harvard President Drew Faust and others explain and extol Harvard’s new General Education requirements, which take effect this year with the Class of 2013.
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Nation & World
Public service gets personal
Four HKS graduates took part in a panel on public service on Sept 2. The alumni discussed their time at HKS and their work in both the public and private sectors.
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Campus & Community
Harvard opens its research repository
Harvard University this week unveiled its open database of faculty research, with more than a third of its arts and sciences faculty members participating so far. Since the faculty of the main undergraduate college voted in February 2008 to support the system known as Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard, in which professors’ scholarly works…
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Campus & Community
Medical grants a boon for Mass.
Massachusetts biomedical researchers are seeing a windfall from federal stimulus money, with the state receiving more in grants from the National Institutes of Health than all others but California.