Year: 2014

  • Nation & World

    Seeing what leaders miss

    Max Bazerman, a leadership and applied behavioral psychology expert at HKS and HBS, writes that successful leaders must seek out what they don’t know to overcome the human tendency to turn a blind eye to unethical behavior.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The rise of ISIS

    A question-and-answer session with political scientist Harith Hasan al-Qarawee on the rise of the Sunni extremist group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

    9 minutes
  • Health

    Progress against ALS

    Studies begun by Harvard Stem Cell Institute scientists eight years ago have led to a report that may be a major step in developing treatments for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The big share

    Harvard Business School professor Nancy Koehn weighs in on the importance and the future of the sharing economy.

    10 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Making hay while sun shines

    Students at HGSE are hard at work building new companies they hope will someday transform learning and young lives.

    6 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Cheap and compact medical testing

    Harvard researchers have devised an inexpensive medical detector that costs a fraction of the price of existing devices, and can be used in poor settings around the world.

    5 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    20 countries, one camp

    The Boston Refugee Youth Enrichment summer camp, one of 12 Summer Urban Program camps offered by the Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA), is helping dozens of immigrant children feel more…

    3 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    A new view of gentrification

    Researchers used Google Street View to conduct a study of gentrification in Chicago.

    4 minutes
  • Health

    Viral load as an anti-AIDS hammer

    Harvard researchers have joined with counterparts in the U.S. and Botswana governments to conduct a major evaluation of AIDS treatment targeted specifically to reduce infectivity.

    7 minutes
  • Health

    New hope for ‘bubble boy’ disease

    Children born with so-called “bubble boy” disease have the best chance of survival if they undergo a hematopoietic stem cell transplant as soon after birth as possible, according to a detailed analysis of 10 years of outcome data by researchers at the Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center.

    4 minutes
  • Health

    Help for halting autism symptoms

    A new study shows that boosting inhibitory neurotransmission early in brain development can help reverse deficits in inhibitory circuit maturation that are associated with autism.

    3 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    Lessons in craft

    A group of young students from Boston are working with members of the American Repertory Theater to craft short plays based on themes from “Finding Neverland.”

    1 minute
  • Campus & Community

    Common Threads: Summer in the Yard

    The heat is on at Harvard, but it’s summer students, faculty, and international guests are keeping — and looking — quite cool.

    4 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Dining alfresco

    The 39th Annual Senior Picnic celebration welcomes Cambridge seniors to Harvard Yard.

    2 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    The unsinkable Alex Calabrese

    A staff profile of Alex Calabrese, who splits time between working as a lifeguard at Harvard and performing with his band, Neversink.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Chinese economists zero in on crises

    Economist Lawrence Summers and foreign policy expert Graham Allison talk about lessons learned from a Chinese research team’s comparison of the conditions around the Great Depression and the recession of 2008.

    7 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Wyss Institute’s organs-on-chips develops into new company

    The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University announced on Monday that its human organs-on-chips technology will be commercialized by a newly formed private company to accelerate the development of pharmaceutical, chemical, cosmetic, and personalized medicine products.

    3 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Marc J. Roberts, 71

    Marc J. Roberts, a longtime professor at the Harvard School of Public Health whose former students run health systems across the country and around the world, died suddenly on July 26 at his home in Cape Cod.

    5 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Destination: Doom

    A novella co-authored by Professor Naomi Oreskes imagines the long-term consequences of inaction on climate change.

    4 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Adam Cohen receives 2014 Blavatnik Award

    Adam Cohen, professor of chemistry and chemical biology and of physics, has been named one of three winners of the 2014 Blavatnik National Awards, which honor young scientists and engineers who have demonstrated important insights in their respective fields and who show exceptional promise going forward.

    3 minutes
  • Health

    New treatment for depression shows immediate results

    In a study at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital, individuals with major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder who received low-field magnetic stimulation (LFMS) showed immediate and substantial mood improvement.

    3 minutes
  • Health

    Cheese-based research

    Bauer Fellow Rachel Dutton has identified three general types of microbial communities that live on cheese, opening the door to using each as a “model” community for the study of whether and how various microbes and fungi compete or cooperate as they form communities, as well as what molecules and mechanisms are involved in the…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A virtual analysis

    A new analysis of four blended-format courses taught last fall offers practical guidance for faculty members interested in fresh pedagogical approaches. The pilot study led by the Bok Center for Teaching and Learning placed a premium on person-to-person interaction, and found redundancies between in-class and online instruction.

    7 minutes
  • Arts & Culture

    ‘The choicest of their kind’

    A look back at Harvard’s role in World War I, from the men and women who entered as volunteers after the first shot was fired to the thousands of graduates and students who joined the fighting in the American phase of the conflict.

    15 minutes
  • Health

    ‘Broken genes’ for a broken system

    To David Altshuler, the recent discovery of a genetic mutation that protects against type 2 diabetes offers hope in fighting more than just diabetes. It also illustrates how using the…

    4 minutes
  • Health

    Untangling spider webs

    The largest-ever phylogenetic spider study shows that, contrary to popular opinion, the two groups of spiders that weave orb-shaped webs do not share a single origin.

    4 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Dual appointment for O’Neil Outar

    Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Michael D. Smith and Vice President for Alumni Affairs and Development Tamara Elliott Rogers have announced O’Neil A.S. Outar will become the new senior associate dean and director of development for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) effective Sept. 8.

    3 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Funding international science research

    Six Harvard faculty members received Human Frontier Science Program awards to fund international collaborative science research.

    4 minutes
  • Science & Tech

    Targeting alien polluters

    New research by theorists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) shows that we could spot the fingerprints of certain pollutants under ideal conditions. This would offer a new approach in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).

    3 minutes
  • Campus & Community

    Deep in the beat

    Teens from The Hip Hop Transformation program visited the Hutchins Center’s Hiphop Archive and Research Institute at Harvard to learn about the culture’s history and make their own music.

    3 minutes