Year: 2012

  • Nation & World

    Molecular motion in detail

    In a critical breakthrough in unraveling how molecular “motors” ferry proteins and nutrients through cells, Harvard scientists have produced high-resolution images that show how the chemical “foot” of dynein — one of the most complex, but least understood such motors — binds to microtubules, the cellular structures it travels on.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Wendell prize offers opportunities

    More than 100 sophomores finalized applications for the Jacob Wendell Scholarship Prize this week. Established in 1899, the prize is awarded without reference to financial need, and the recipient is free to spend the $17,000 award as he or she sees fit.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    An issue that’s bigger in Texas

    During an Askwith Forum discussion on college affirmative action, highlighted by the pending Supreme Court case of Fisher v. University of Texas, the speakers said that any decision should include as its backdrop a sense of that Southern state’s history.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    President Faust sustainability message

    Harvard University President Drew Faust speaking on the University’s commitment to sustainability and the release of its first Sustainability Impact Report (http://www.green.harvard.edu/report).

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    ‘Hidden Lake’

    Josh Bell, Briggs-Copeland Lecturer on English, reads his poem “Hidden Lake.”

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    ‘While Josh Sleeps’

    Josh Bell, Briggs-Copeland Lecturer on English, reads his poem “While Josh Sleeps.”

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    For whom Josh Bell tolls

    Poet Josh Bell, the new Briggs-Copeland lecturer, calls on the spirit of rocker Vince Neil in his latest poems.

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Making a sustained impact

    Harvard has released a sustainability impact report that provides a University-wide snapshot of the progress that has been made by students, staff, and faculty to reduce the environmental footprint and increase the operational efficiency of Harvard’s campus.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    When it’s best to do nothing at all

    A new study by Harvard University researchers, soon to be published in the journal Ecology, yields a surprising result for large woodlands: When it comes to the health of forests, native plants, and wildlife, the best management decision may be to do nothing.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The making of a stellar president

    For all of their differences, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney share an important quality: their outsider status as politicians. But as Harvard Business School’s Gautam Mukunda argues in a new book, the very trait that makes them likely to be high-impact leaders also makes them unpredictable.

    10 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Chinese cities, by design

    A new three-year, three-city course at the Harvard Graduate School of Design gives students an immersive learning experience in some of China’s fast-growing frontier cities.

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    All kinds of content

    Gary Knell, CEO of NPR, described the station’s efforts toward a multimedia future in a talk at Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Extension School extends its reach

    For nearly five years, Harvard Extension School Dean Michael Shinagel and groups of 9- and 10-year-olds from a suburban Chicago elementary school have been great friends — by way of the U.S. Postal Service — and it’s the envy of the entire school.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Paperwork for a new future

    Harvard University has submitted a new development agenda for Allston, detailing nine projects slated for development in the next decade. The projects will complement planned activity on the Health and Life Science Center and the residential and retail development envisioned for Barry’s Corner.

    8 minutes
  • Nation & World

    In on the act

    More than 30 collaborators, including four Harvard undergrads, take the stage in the American Repertory Theater’s (A.R.T.) production of “The Lily’s Revenge,” at Oberon through Oct. 28.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Evidence of greatness

    “A Storied Legacy: Correspondence and Early Writings of Joseph Story,” online and at Harvard Law School, goes deep into the life and work of the scholar, best-selling author, and Supreme Court justice.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The narrative of cancer

    Medical experts are coming to see cancer not as a disease of cells or even of genes, but as an “organismal disease,” Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning cancer history “The Emperor of All Maladies,” told a Harvard Medical School audience on Oct. 11.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    HarvardX marks the spot

    Harvard has rolled out its first two courses on the new digital education platform edX, with more than 100,000 learners worldwide signing on.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Separated after birth

    Researchers at Harvard University and the SETI Institute are proposing a new spin on the giant-impact model to match the observed composition of the moon and its relationship to Earth.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Seeking to connect on water issues

    The U.S. lacks a national water policy, resulting in pushing and pulling by a wide array of competing interests in managing the nation’s water supply, said experts at a Radcliffe symposium.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Learning experience for parents

    Freshman Parents Weekend, Oct. 12-13, offered parents another view of college life and the challenges their children face. “Freshmen feel like they really change during these first few months at college,” said Anya Bernstein Bassett, director of undergraduate studies.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Row, row, row your shells

    The Harvard men’s and Radcliffe women’s rowing crews will be out in full force during this year’s Head of the Charles Regatta, taking place Oct. 20-21 along the Charles River. A video interview with Harry Parker, the Thomas Bolles Head Coach for Harvard Men’s Crew, explores the love of the sport.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Applied physics as art

    Harvard researchers spray-paint ultrathin coatings that change color with only a few atoms’ difference in thickness.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The art of saving art

    Works by Le Corbusier and Joan Miró are back at the Carpenter Center after painstaking repair work by conservators at the Weissman Preservation Center.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Update on labor talks

    A Q-and-A with Harvard officials Marilyn Hausammann and Bill Murphy on the status of contract negotiations with the University’s largest union.

    8 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A celebration of community

    More than 1,000 Cambridge and Allston-Brighton residents turned out for the 23rd Community Football Day.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The rise of medical tourism

    In his new book, I. Glenn Cohen, a Harvard Law School assistant professor and a Radcliffe Fellow, explores the lucrative and legal dimensions of the growing practice of traveling to another country for health care.

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Noncancerous cells carry weight

    In recent years Harvard investigators have discovered that breast tumors are influenced by more than just the cancer cells within them.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Well, that’s debatable

    Four Harvard experts — on voice, movement, public speaking, and trial law — critique the last presidential debate and offer the candidates their tips for the next matchup.

    8 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Cortés receives service award

    Ernesto Cortés Jr. received the Robert Coles “Call of Service” Award for his efforts to empower people to improve their lives and circumstances.

    4 minutes