Year: 2016

  • Nation & World

    Humanities offer marketability in a competitive world

    Harvard sophomore finds support for his concentration in Ancient History (Greek and Roman), which allows him to pursue his passions “while maintaining marketability in an increasingly competitive world.”

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Slavery’s chilling shadow

    Toni Morrison delivered the first of six Charles Eliot Norton Lectures to an adoring crowd at Sanders Theatre on Wednesday. Morrison is the 58th scholar given the Charles Eliot Norton Professorship of Poetry.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Study that undercut psych research got it wrong

    A study last year claiming that more than half of all psychology studies cannot be replicated turns out to be wrong. Harvard researchers have discovered that the study contains several statistical and methodological mistakes, and that when these are corrected, the study actually shows that the replication rate in psychology is quite high.

    11 minutes
  • Nation & World

    My buddy

    Juniors Fatima Bishtawi and Amanda Mozea made lasting connections through the Best Buddies program.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Aspirin found to reduce overall cancer risk

    An analysis of data from two long-term epidemiologic studies has found that regular use of aspirin significantly reduces the overall risk of cancer, an effect that primarily reflects a lower risk of colorectal cancer and other tumors of the gastrointestinal tract.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Philip Blackett tells teens what follows failure

    Magnetic Interviewing founder and CEO Philip Blackett, an M.B.A. candidate at Harvard Business School, shared his failures and what can follow with students from Cambridge Rindge and Latin.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Seeing more

    In his weekly 90-minute lectures, Professor Robin Kelsey brings historical awareness and contextual experience to 13 technologies that have transformed visual communication.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    $1M in grants to support 10 climate research projects

    Ten research projects driven by faculty collaborators across six Harvard Schools will share over $1 million in the second round of grants awarded by the Climate Change Solutions Fund, an initiative launched last year by President Drew Faust to encourage multidisciplinary research around climate change.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    President Faust’s climate initiative awards $1M in grants

    The recipients of grants awarded by the Climate Change Solutions Fund, an initiative launched last year by President Drew Faust, were announced. The 10 winning projects are purposely diverse in focus, ranging from policy and law to science and health. Several use Harvard’s campus as a “living laboratory” — when possible — for testing and…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The shifts from climate change

    Grasslands across North America will face higher summer temperatures and widespread drought by the end of the century, a study says, but those negative effects should be offset by an earlier start to the spring growing season and warmer winter.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The costs of inequality: A goal of justice, a reality of unfairness

    America’s prison system houses huge numbers of inmates, many of them serving lengthy mandatory sentences, but research finds little evidence that it produces criminal deterrence.

    24 minutes
  • Nation & World

    In GOP race, rage is all the rage

    Harvard analysts discuss the deep roots of Republican anger driving this confounding and historic 2016 election.

    8 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Harvard joins in filing NLRB brief

    Harvard joins other private universities in legal brief asking NLRB to keep prior ruling avoiding graduate student unions.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    ‘Ways with Words’ conference will spark conversation

    The Radcliffe Institute will host “Ways with Words: Exploring Language and Gender,” a conference on March 3-4 that explores the interplay of gender, language, and why Facebook now offers three pronouns.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Faculty Council meeting held Feb. 24

    On Feb. 24 the members of the Faculty Council met. Their next council meeting is March 9. The next meeting of the faculty is March 1.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Clean Power Plan’s legal future ‘a mess’

    The future of the President Obama’s Clean Power Plan hangs in the balance with the Supreme Court vote to freeze the plan in place, halting implementation while legal issues are decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and, likely, by the Supreme Court itself.

    13 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Variations on racial tension

    Weatherhead Center panelists highlighted striking contrasts in how nations perceive and grapple with racial inequality.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Case for reparation gains international force

    Distinguished scholar and activist Sir Hilary Beckles, who is leading the international effort to seek restitution from European nations that engaged in the slave trade in the Caribbean, made the case for reparations during a talk at Harvard Law School this week.

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Business as usual

    Evelyn Krache Morris, an associate with the International Security Program of the Belfer Center, assesses the Mexican drug trade in the wake of the arrest of El Chapo, the world’s most powerful trafficker.

    8 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Blended voices, each with a personal charge

    Five poets are celebrated in “‘A Language to Hear Myself’: Feminist Poets Speak,” a Schlesinger Library exhibit running from Feb. 29 to June 17, with an accompanying performance March 1.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Kleckner receives Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal

    Nancy Kleckner, the Herchel Smith Professor of Molecular Biology, has been awarded the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal by the Genetics Society of America in recognition of her many significant contributions to our understanding of chromosomes and the mechanisms of inheritance.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Ever-present Orwell

    “What’s intriguing about bringing ‘1984’ back now is that some of those questions are out there again,” said Ash Center director Anthony Saich, an expert on Chinese politics. The Ash Center is co-sponsoring, with the A.R.T., a series of discussions on “topics that spark out of ‘1984.’” The next in the series of discussions is…

    11 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Election spotlight turned on media

    Veteran political journalists Jill Abramson, formerly of The New York Times, and CNN’s Sam Feist discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly of the 2016 presidential election coverage.

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Where runners go wrong

    A new study out of Harvard Medical School and the National Running Center at Harvard-affiliated Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital examined why runners get injured so often.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    High poverty’s effect on childhood leukemia

    Children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia who live in high-poverty areas are substantially more likely to suffer early relapse than other patients, according to a new study.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The costs of inequality: Money = quality health care = longer life

    National health insurance is just a first step to solving the divide between America’s well-off healthy and its poorer, sicker people, Harvard analysts say.

    20 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Futuristic PIVOT app serves up Harvard history

    Harvard University formally launched its official interactive online tour app last week. PIVOTtheWorld is a free app that allows visitors to visually experience the history of Harvard with a swipe — or pivot — of their smart phone.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Lucy Liu applauds students for honoring cultural diversity

    The Harvard Foundation honored Lucy Liu as its 2016 Artist of the Year.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Egyptian-style handiwork with a digital past

    Harvard is behind the re-creation of a chair from a 4,500-year-old tomb.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Morrison’s first Norton Lecture set for March 2

    Toni Morrison will deliver the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, which will be held throughout March and April at Sanders Theatre. Hosted by the Mahindra Humanities Center, Morrison is the 58th scholar to be given the arts and humanities honor, officially named the Charles Eliot Norton Professorship of Poetry.

    3 minutes