Harvard was one of seven college and universities recently honored by the EPA with Food Recovery Challenge Achievement Awards. “These New England colleges and universities are setting a great example by preventing more than 2528 tons of food scraps from disposal by using them for higher and better uses, including food donation and composting,” said…

A report released April 2, 2013 by the Center for American Progress found that states with the highest rates of gun violence have the weakest gun laws. The findings reinforce those of previous studies, said Deborah Azrael, director of research at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. Alaska ranked first in gun deaths — 20.28 deaths…

As nations struggle with the health consequences associated with physical inactivity — 5.3 million deaths per year, according to a 2012 study published in Lancet and led by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researcher I-M Lee — they may gain insight from China’s longstanding support for bicycling, which can provide an affordable way to get exercise. Anne Lusk,…

EdX, the not-for-profit online learning enterprise founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Stanford University announced a collaboration to advance the development of edX’s open source learning platform and provide free and open online learning tools for institutions around the world. The agreement is expected to lead to new features and…

When Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Bartholet ‘65 and Jessica Budnitz ’01, HLS lecturer on law, founded the Child Advocacy Program at Harvard Law School more than eight years ago, they intended the program to serve as a model for other law schools. They intended the program to educate law students about the importance of…

The Board of Veterans’ Appeals denies a soldier’s claim for disability benefits for an injury to his lower extremities. But the decision is handed down while the soldier is serving in Afghanistan, and he doesn’t realize he has the right to appeal until after he returns from his deployment—after the appeal deadline has passed. For…

Harvard Law School Professor I. Glenn Cohen ’03 and Gideon A. Schor ’89 recently filed an amicus brief on behalf of Eric S. Lander in a pending Supreme Court case that will address whether human genes are patentable. The case, Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, No. 12-398, which will be argued on April…

Alzheimer’s disease is a devastating neurodegenerative disorder that directly affects 5.4 million Americans. In 2013, the direct costs of caring for those with Alzheimer’s will total an estimated $203 billion, including $142 billion in costs to Medicare and Medicaid. Despite advances in drug research, Alzheimer’s is the only leading cause of death in the U.S.…

The U.S. health sector and the health of Americans will suffer numerous adverse effects from budget “sequestration,” writes Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) health care policy expert John McDonough in a March 20, 2013 article in the New England Journal of Medicine. Under this “sequestration”—the result of the inability of Congress and President Barack Obama to agree…

Through edX/HarvardX, the famed Harvard College General Education course, “Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science,” is coming to a kitchen near you. Led by David Wetiz and Michael Brenner at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the class will explore how everyday cooking and haute cuisine can illuminate basic principles…

Vinothan Manoharan, chemical engineer and expert in the physics of self-assembly, has been granted tenure at Harvard University. He holds a joint appointment at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and in the Department of Physics as Gordon McKay Professor of Chemical Engineering and Professor of Physics. Manoharan’s research focuses on understanding how some…

When Arnold Epstein meets Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) alumni on his frequent travels in the U.S. and abroad, he’s often asked about Marc Roberts, professor of political economy emeritus. “They always want to know how Marc is, and they always want to tell me anecdotes about how he had a really important impact on what they…

The Harvard Club of Australia Foundation has announced recipients of its 2013 fellowships. They include four Harvard researchers intending collaborative scientific research in Australia and three Australian researchers headed to Harvard. As in previous years, the foundation’s grants will assist with travel and living expenses. On this occasion, some awardees are required to await mid-year…

The global taste for salt — seventy-five percent of the world’s population consumes nearly double the daily recommended amount of sodium — may have been responsible for 2.3 million heart-related deaths worldwide in 2010, according to Harvard School of Public Health researchers. The findings were presented at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology and Prevention/Nutrition, Physical…

Women who experienced physical, emotional, or sexual abuse as children are more likely to have a child with autism than women who were not abused, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). Those who experienced the most serious abuse had the highest likelihood of having a child with autism —…

New Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) research suggests that roughly 180,000 obesity-related deaths worldwide—including 25,000 Americans—are associated with the consumption of sugary drinks. The abstract, presented at an American Heart Association scientific conference in New Orleans, linked drinking sugar-sweetened beverages to 133,000 diabetes deaths, 44,000 deaths from cardiovascular diseases, and 6,000 cancer deaths. The…

This fall, nine undergraduates and five graduate students took a new Harvard history course called “The Modern Persian Gulf Region: Politics, Economy and Society.” Developed and taught by Arbella Bet-Shlimon, a recent graduate of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies’ joint Ph.D. program in history and Middle Eastern studies, the course is one of few…

The Lagakos Distinguished Alumni Award has been established in memory of Stephen Lagakos, a faculty member and former chair of the Department of Biostatistics who passed away in a tragic automobile accident in 2009. Professor Lagakos was a leader in the department, the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), and more broadly, in the international…

While Jordan has accommodated more than 350,000 refugees since the start of the Syrian conflict in March 2011, it is routinely and unlawfully rejecting Palestinian refugees, single men, and undocumented people seeking asylum at its border with Syria, according to Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic and Human Rights Watch. On March 21, the…

Forty years after the Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision in Roe v. Wade, the backlash it generated continues to shape the public discourse, says Harvard Law School Professor Michael Klarman, an expert on constitutional law and constitutional history. “The justices who decided Roe almost certainly did not expect the kind of political backlash…

In 1983, Evan Wolfson ’83 authored a prescient third year paper titled “Samesex Marriage and Morality: The Human Rights Vision of the Constitution.” Thirty years and countless examinations of the constitution later, two cases regarding gay marriage, Hollingsworth v. Perry (challenging California’s Proposition 8) and United States v. Windsor (challenging the Defense of Marriage Act)…

Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) helped welcome more than 750 reporters, editors, and news producers to Boston for the Association of Health Care Journalists’ annual conference, held March 14-17, 2013. HSPH co-sponsored the event, which offered skill-building workshops as well as presentations by HSPH researchers and others on a variety of current health care…

It’s estimated that about five million children in India are addicted to tobacco. They’re lured in by small, brightly colored packs of chewing tobacco—very popular in India—that cost just pennies a pack and are available everywhere, often close to schools. Frequently, children start using chewing tobacco, then graduate to cigarettes as they get older. To…

There is wide variation in the rate of cesarean sections performed at different hospitals across the U.S. and one explanation has been that hospitals with higher c-section rates serve greater numbers of women at high risk for the procedure. Now, a new study by researchers from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the Massachusetts…

Harvard Law School student Haben Girma ’13 was recently named a White House Champion of Change for her advocacy on behalf of deafblind individuals and her efforts in promoting educational excellence for African Americans. Each week, the White House Champions of Change Program honors ordinary Americans doing extraordinary things in their communities. Girma, who is…

On March 14, the Harvard Law School Environmental Law Society presented its annual Horizon award to Bruce Babbitt ’65, who previously served as secretary of the interior and governor of Arizona. The award is a means of recognizing great people who have accomplished great things in the field of environment and natural resources law, and…

New research from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) shows that one year after the federal government passed a law banning word descriptors such as “light,” “mild,” and “low” on cigarette packages, smokers can still easily identify their brands because of color-coding that tobacco companies added to “light” packs after the ban. These findings suggest…

During flu season, sufferers are advised to prevent spreading the virus by covering their mouths when coughing or sneezing and by washing their hands. But these methods may not be enough, according to a new study by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers and colleagues. According to the study, which was published March 7, 2013 in PLOS…

New York Times Reporter Sam Dolnick has won the 2012 Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Journalism for his eye-opening three-part series Unlocked: Inside New Jersey’s Halfway Houses. His exposé of New Jersey’s privately run halfway houses uncovered a broken and horribly flawed correctional system in which gang activity, drug use, sexual assaults and other violent…

Public health resources in Africa have long been devoted to infectious diseases such as AIDS and malaria and, for women, reproductive health services. But while these services are vital, the health needs of a growing population of African women who are living longer are not being met, says Allan Hill, Andelot Professor of Demography at Harvard…