Featured series 
Year: 2009
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Campus & Community
Mark Kisin joins Harvard as professor of mathematics
Mark Kisin, one of the world’s most promising young number theorists, has been named professor of mathematics in Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), effective July 1.
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Science & Tech
Molecular secrets in atomic nuclei
For Navin Khaneja, spinning nuclei are like atomic spies. With a little coaxing, they will tell the secrets of the molecules in which they sit.
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Science & Tech
Nectar nurtures pitcher plant’s eating habits
New research from the Harvard Forest shows that carnivorous pitcher plants use sweet nectar to attract ants and flies to their water-filled traps, not color, as earlier research had indicated.
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Science & Tech
Vocal mimicking, sense of rhythm tied
Researchers at Harvard University have found that humans aren’t the only ones who can groove to a beat — some other species can dance, too. The capability was previously believed to be specific to humans. The research team found that only species that can mimic sound seem to be able to keep a beat, implying…
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Health
Lack of sleep is easier on older adults than others
In a recent sleep study testing alertness and performance in sleep-deprived adults, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) determined that healthy older adults handle sleep deprivation better than younger adults. The findings appeared online on May 3, in an advance online edition of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
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Health
Lessons from past explored to expedite future research
People, knowledge, communication, and capitalism were front and center last week as authorities on innovation sought to shed light on ways to speed up the development of new medical treatments from discoveries in the lab.
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Science & Tech
Life in the universe? Almost certainly. Intelligence? Maybe not
We are likely not alone in the universe, though it may feel like it, since life on other planets is probably dominated by microbes or other nonspeaking creatures, according to scientists who gave their take on extraterrestrial life at Harvard last week.
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Nation & World
Nieman presents Louis M. Lyons Award to Fatima Tlisova
The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard will present the Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism to current Nieman Fellow Fatima Tlisova Thursday (May 7).
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Nation & World
‘Paging God: Religion in the Halls of Medicine’
What happens when a Buddhist monk visiting the United States is hospitalized, terminally ill with liver cancer? Does religion interfere with his medical care? What about his Buddhist brethren, unable to join him bedside? Who will provide the appropriate services and ceremonies? Well, says Wendy Cadge, that’s where hospital chaplains come in.
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Campus & Community
Faust at UMass Boston: Local research universities power region
The unique collection of research universities, biotech and pharmaceutical firms, and science and engineering startups linked by the MBTA Red Line is an economic powerhouse that is going to pull Massachusetts through the current financial crisis and help drive the nation toward recovery, Harvard President Drew Faust told those attending the opening of a new…
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Nation & World
‘Enormous changes’ in thirty years
In Chinese culture, the 60th birthday is an auspicious event. At that age, it is said that a person is at ease.
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Nation & World
Geneticist ‘who doesn’t believe in God’ offers new conception of divine
The Paul Tillich Lecture, offered annually at Harvard since 1990, commemorates the memory of a public intellectual who was once “the largest theological figure in our orbit,” said The Rev. Peter J. Gomes.
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Nation & World
Obama and the art of the possible
With the passing of Barack Obama’s 100th day in office, journalists and pundits are posing a simple but all-important question: How is the president doing? Robert Kuttner, author and political commentator, gave his own evaluation of the Obama presidency for the 2009 Lowell Lecture on April 30 in Emerson Hall.
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Arts & Culture
Oldest living Holocaust survivor speaks at Harvard
Aided by a wheel chair, his slight frame bent in part by a curvature of the spine since birth, in part by the passage of time, a man who endured unspeakable cruelty 70 years ago told his story of survival to a Harvard audience.
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Nation & World
Looking horror in the face
Imani was just 15 when soldiers from the rebel group Interahamwe found her on the road in a remote region in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
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Science & Tech
Carol Robinson: Pushing a technology’s boundaries
The distinguished chemist Carol Robinson has used mass spectrometry throughout her career to tackle increasingly complex problems in biology. When she delivered the Radcliffe Institute’s first Lecture in the Sciences…
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Health
Cancer chemotherapy: An unfolding story
To launch his lecture on cancer chemotherapy, Luke Whitesell ’79, RI ’06 displayed an image of an origami crab: a double visual metaphor. The crab is the traditional symbol of…
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Health
Older adults found to fare better under sleep deprivation than younger adults
In a recent sleep study testing alertness and performance in sleep-deprived adults, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) determined that healthy older adults handle sleep deprivation better than younger…
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Arts & Culture
Up Close, part 1
In stone, bronze, iron and oils the artistic and architectural details on campus boast a dizzying array of fine craftsmanship – both ornamental and functional – ranging over the centuries.
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Health
Outwitting mutating flu during a pandemic
In a global influenza pandemic, small stockpiles of a secondary flu medication – if used early in local outbreaks – could extend the effectiveness of primary drug stockpiles, according to…
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Health
Survey: Nearly half of Americans concerned they or their family may get sick from swine flu
Following the declaration of a public health emergency due to the new H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, the Harvard Opinion Research Program (HORP) at the Harvard School of…
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Arts & Culture
Harvard has new poetry Web site
On an abnormally sweltering spring day, one would expect to see patches of Harvard students sunbathing in the Yard, not reading poetry inside Lamont Library. But a throng of students, faculty, and staff gathered inside the modest-sized Woodberry Poetry Room on a sultry Tuesday (April 28) evening to celebrate the release of Poetry@Harvard, a new…
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Arts & Culture
Harvard Review contributors receive literary honors
For the seventh year in its eight-year history, Harvard Review has had contributors selected for inclusion in the highly selective “Best American” series and have been nominated for a prestigious Pushcart Prize.
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Arts & Culture
Evolution of a sacred text made visible at Houghton
When Jane Cheng ’09 arrived at Harvard four years ago, her interest in book conservation led to a job at the Weissman Preservation Center, and it was that job that led her to the medieval text that would become the subject of both her senior thesis and a new exhibition organized by Cheng at Houghton…
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Arts & Culture
Symposium, exhibition on Conan Doyle at Houghton
A new exhibition, “‘Ever Westward’: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and American Culture,” opening May 5 at Houghton Library, hopes to paint a fuller picture of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s contributions to world literature, which range from historical fiction to personal memoir to science fiction and beyond.
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Campus & Community
Arts First fete takes center stage
More than 3,000 Harvard students take to the streets with the 17th annual Arts First celebration, one of the nation’s largest university arts festivals. More than 225 music, theater, dance, film, and visual arts events comprise the four-day extravaganza, which takes place April 30-May 3 across the Harvard campus.
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Arts & Culture
Play space
The Adams House Pool Theatre sits in the heart of Westmorly Court, one of the several “Gold Coast” dormitories that now make up Adams House. Originally built as a pool, the space has become home to unconventional, spirited productions and has gained a reputation as an alternative venue on campus.
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
April 6-7, 1951 — The Law School holds an Institute for Practicing Lawyers focusing on legal problems of mobilizing for the Korean conflict.