U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has announced the appointment of an advisory committee on Massachusetts judicial nominations to solicit, interview, and comment on applications for federal District Court vacancies in Springfield and Boston. Warren will review the work of the committee and will ultimately recommend judicial nominees to President Obama. The advisory committee is composed of…

Several members of the Harvard Law School faculty and more than a dozen alumni were named to The National Law Journal’s list of 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America. In publishing its first list since 2006, the journal said its goal was to identify members of law’s power elite. The list recognizes the 100 lawyers…

International conference “Painting Beyond Itself: The Medium in the Post-Medium Condition,” held last weekend at the Sackler Museum, was a smashing success with overflowing attendance during the conference’s two days. Plans for a book about the conference are in the works. The event was organized by Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, the William Dorr Boardman Professor of Fine…

Harvard School of Public Health Dean Julio Frenk joined hundreds of scientists, doctors, and technical experts from around the world to launch the Scientific Declaration on Polio Eradication on April 11. The world is closer than ever to eradicating polio, with just 223 cases in five countries last year. To capitalize on this time-limited opportunity to finally end the…

Contrary to popular belief, women generally experience the same coronary artery disease (CAD, or cardiovascular disease) symptoms — including chest pain, pressure, and/or tightness — as men, Catherine Kreatsoulas, research fellow in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), said in an interview with MedPage Today on April 8,…

In the largest-ever study of its kind, an international collaboration of hundreds of scientists has uncovered 74 new genetic markers linked to three common hormonal cancers—breast, prostate, and ovarian—thus setting the stage for new treatments, targeted screening, and a greater understanding of how these diseases develop. The findings were outlined in a series of 13…

David J. Mooney, Robert P. Pinkas Family Professor of Bioengineering at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, has been named among five recipients of the 2013 Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award. Presented by the Harvard Graduate Student Council on April 10, the award honors members of the faculty “who go above and…

Keith Richburg, fellow at the Institute of Politics and China correspondent for The Washington Post from 2009-13, recalled his first trip to China in 1985 and said that the biggest difference between China then and now is the Internet. “The Internet has really changed everything,” he said at a Shorenstein Center event on Tuesday, “particularly…

National Public Health Week (NPHW), being celebrated during the first week of April, focuses on what U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin calls the “extraordinary” returns that come from investments in public health initiatives. In a video marking the beginning of NPHW—organized by the American Public Health Association to raise awareness about public health—Benjamin cited examples such as routine…

The François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard organized a conference on Monday, April 8, that brought to light many of the challenges facing the Roma in Europe. Panelists addressed issues of violence, discrimination, and segregation, and brought together scholars, practitioners, and advocates – many of whom were Roma themselves. The…

An online engineering course in circuits and electronics — created by MIT as an MITx course for the edX platform and offered to San Jose State students for the first time last fall — will be made available to as many as 11 other CSU campuses. The expansion will benefit thousands of students from nearly…

Death rates are rising at rural hospitals that serve many poor and elderly people—and the reason may be their inability to provide the most up-to-date treatment, according to a new Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) study. Given this finding, HSPH researchers say the hospitals may need further help to provide care for these vulnerable…

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…