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Science & Tech
How to move out and stay green at same time
With the end of the academic year fast approaching, the temptation to purge all obsolete office and school materials is stronger than ever. But to maintain Harvard’s impressive 50 percent recycling rate, Harvard’s University Operations Services (UOS) wishes to remind the community to continue recycling all materials whenever possible. All old documents, books, folders, magazines,…
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Science & Tech
Costa Rican minister outlines plan to achieve carbon neutrality through reforms
Costa Rica’s environment minister outlined the Central American nation’s plans to become carbon neutral by 2021 through green reforms in energy, transportation, government, and private industry sectors.
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Science & Tech
Undergrads create ‘dirt-powered’ light for Africa
A team composed of Harvard students and alumni was among the winners of the World Bank’s Lighting Africa 2008 Development Marketplace competition, held in Accra, Ghana, from May 6 to 8, 2008. The team’s innovation, microbial fuel cell-based lighting systems suitable for sub-Saharan Africa, netted the Harvard group a $200,000 prize.
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Science & Tech
Ashton: A legacy written in trunk, limb, and leaf
They were in a bind, no doubt about it.
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Health
Recent longitudinal study: Smoking is addictive, quitting is contagious
Over the past 30 years, the number of smokers in the United States has steadily decreased — a tribute to the efforts of public-health workers everywhere. And while this fact is indisputable, less obvious are the social and cultural forces that lead an individual to kick the habit.
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Campus & Community
Around the world in eighty (or fewer) clicks
Want to see where in the world Harvard is working? Beginning this week, it will take just the click of a mouse.
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Campus & Community
A human look at ‘brinkmanship island’
In 1958, many Americans viewed the island of Quemoy (or “Jinmen,” as it is called in Mandarin) as the “lighthouse of the free world,” the last bastion of resistance to Mao Zedong’s communist advances in China. Today, professors often cite 1958 Quemoy as a classic example of brinkmanship, a case study for high-pressure diplomacy in…
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Campus & Community
Stem cell policy may change, but money still a problem
Embryonic stem cell research will likely have a more sympathetic ear in the White House after November’s presidential election, but a panel of speakers said Tuesday (May 20) that an era of tight budgets may limit the practical changes researchers see.
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Campus & Community
Study: Israeli Jews and Arabs want peace
A new study released May 15 finds strong support for coexistence efforts among a majority of Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel. The findings may buoy hopes for long-term peace in the region.
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Campus & Community
Diane Paulus appointed artistic director of the American Repertory Theatre
Harvard University and the American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T.) announced today (May 16) the appointment of Diane Paulus as artistic director.
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Science & Tech
Zittrain speculates on Web’s trajectory
Jonathan Zittrain is a man with a passion for cyberspace and a concern for its future.
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Health
Experiment advances understanding of cell reprogramming
The announcement last year by scientists in Japan, at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI), and at the Whitehead Institute that they had each — independently — coaxed adult cells into reverting to an embryonic stem cell-like state was arguably the biggest news in developmental biology since the cloning of Dolly the ewe. This creation…
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Science & Tech
Presidential election will bring change in federal stem cell policy
Embryonic stem cell research will likely have a more sympathetic ear in the White House after November’s presidential election, but a panel of speakers said last night that an era of tight budgets may limit the practical changes researchers see. Warren Wollschlager, founding chair of the Interstate Alliance on Stem Cell Research and chief of…
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Science & Tech
New journal highlights undergraduate research
Spanning topics as diverse as cancerous tumors and the overfishing of grouper in the Turks and Caicos Islands, a new journal aims to highlight the serious scientific research regularly undertaken by Harvard undergraduates. Editors of the glossy magazine — launched last month and called “THURJ” for “The Harvard Undergraduate Research Journal” — plan to print…
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Health
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center joins forces with Google Health
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) is expanding options for users of its secure PatientSite portal by joining forces with Google to offer a new way to safely exchange medical records and other health data through Google Health, which launched to the public today at a media event at Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA.…
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Science & Tech
Study identifies food-related clock in the brain
In investigating the intricacies of the body’s biological rhythms, scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) have discovered the existence of a “food-related clock” which can supersede the “light-based” master clock that serves as the body’s primary timekeeper. The findings, which appear in the May 23 issue of the journal Science, help explain how…
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Campus & Community
Cohen named new chair of Department of Architecture
Mohsen Mostafavi, dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD), recently announced the appointment of Preston Scott Cohen as chair of the Department of Architecture, effective July 1.
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Arts & Culture
Photographs reveal tiny leaf details
The sense of loss Amanda Means felt is exposed in a new exhibit of her unusual photographs of leaves at the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Called “Looking at Leaves,” the exhibit is the third in a series of photographic exhibitions at the museum that explore the intersection of art and science by inviting visitors…
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Arts & Culture
Yearlong search for the ‘human’ concludes with Bhabha address
The series “Rethinking the Human,” a yearlong exploration of the very nature of what it means to be human, sponsored by the Harvard Divinity School’s Center for the Study of World Religions, concluded last week (May 12-13) with a two-day symposium.
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Arts & Culture
Bhabha named senior adviser
Homi K. Bhabha has just been named senior adviser on the humanities to the president and provost. The position, a first for the University, takes effect July 1.
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Arts & Culture
Reminiscences of Maxim Gorky
In 1895, Russian journalist Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, a onetime shoemaker’s apprentice who had quit school at 10, adopted a new name: Maxim Gorky. After that, literary fame came fast and furious for this self-taught, fresh-voiced grandson of a Volga boatman. Gorky — the name means “bitter” — could tell a story, remember everything he read…
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
May 6, 1945 — At noon a novel contraption appears on high as a helicopter hovers over Harvard and lands on the riverbank in front of the Business School. A Coast Guard pilot and another officer alight from the craft to present a letter from the president of the Lexington Chamber of Commerce to a…
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Campus & Community
Police reports
Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the week ending May 12. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor, and is available online at http://www.hupd.harvard.edu/.
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Campus & Community
Yivo institute honors Summers
The YIVO Institute for Jewish research honored Charles W. Eliot University Professor Lawrence H. Summers on May 13 at its 83rd annual benefit dinner. The ceremony was held at the Center for Jewish History in New York City.
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Campus & Community
Faculty Council
At its 12th and final meeting of the year on May 14, the Faculty Council reviewed the Ph.D. program in African and African American Studies and approved the Student Handbook and Courses of Instruction for 2008-2009.
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Campus & Community
Kieffer awarded International Reading Fellowship
Michael Kieffer, an advanced doctoral student in language and literacy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is the recipient of the International Reading Association’s (IRA) Jeanne S. Chall Research Fellowship.
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Campus & Community
Weatherhead names grant recipients
Sixteen Harvard College students have received summer travel grants through the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs to support their senior thesis research.
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Campus & Community
Harvard Magazine selects two Ledecky Fellows
Harvard Magazine’s Berta Greenwald Ledecky Undergraduate Fellows for the 2008-09 academic year will be Brittney Moraski ’09 and Christian Flow ?????10, who were selected after a competitive evaluation of writing submitted by student applicants.