Alaska Airlines flight attendants began reporting symptoms such as itchy eyes, rashes, and shortness of breath soon after the company introduced new uniforms in 2011. Although the uniforms were replaced three years later, the company didn’t acknowledge a possible connection between the introduction of the uniforms and the spike in health complaints. The National Institute…

Most of us are familiar with recycling paper and plastic, but did you know electronics can be recycled, too? Because many of our old phones, computers, and other electronics contain small amounts of heavy metals or old personal data, it is especially important to make sure the data is securely destroyed and the items safely…

Music critic and MacArthur Fellow Alex Ross will give the Harvard University Department of Music’s 2018 Louis C. Elson Lecture, “Wagner, Hitler, and the Cult of Art.” Ross  has been contributing to The New Yorker since 1993, and he became the magazine’s music critic in 1996. He writes about classical music, covering the field from the Metropolitan…

By Jeffrey Blackwell, Memorial Church Communications For freshman Wassim Marrakchi, the Student Oasis on the ground level of the Memorial Church is a secret sanctuary for study, for quiet socializing and for making slatetblankit, a dish from his Tunisian homeland, for his Canaday housemates. “This place has been a really great place for me to…

From Tupinambá anthropophagi to ‘bloodthirsty Aztecs’ or ‘child-killing Incas,’ American (human) sacrifices flooded the European imagination in the 16th century. In Europe, these images interacted with a heated debate about salvation, the Eucharist, and the role of sacrifice within Christianity. Far from being restricted to universities, monasteries, or courts, this debate penetrated European societies at every…

The Harvard Innovation Labs, a three-lab ecosystem that supports Harvard students and select alumni in exploring innovation and entrepreneurship, announced that applications are open for Launch Lab X. This accelerator was designed from the ground up to help grow high-potential Harvard alumni-led ventures from seed-stage startups to sustainable, disruptive businesses with real-world impact. “Many Harvard…

Laboratories are the most energy intensive spaces at Harvard, and a new Green Lab certification program being rolled out at the University’s Longwood campus — and available as an educational resource to anyone — seeks to encourage researchers and lab staff to address this challenge with a framework for tangible sustainability actions. There is approximately five million square…

Multi-year Harvard research collaboration with Aetna will assess well-being across numerous dimensions of health and wholeness What does it mean to be well? Not just “not ill,” but really thriving? Researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and at Aetna are embarking on a collaborative, multi-year study of well-being intended both to advance…

Lead poisoning experts are worried that a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) plan to lower the minimum blood lead level considered safe for children may actually make it harder for kids with the highest blood levels of lead to get the interventions they need, and obscures the real need: removing lead paint…

Studies that have looked at whether consuming a diet rich in monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) leads to reduced risk of heart disease have shown mixed results. But according to new findings from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, it makes a difference whether the MUFAs come from plant or animal products. In the first…

The Office of the Vice Provost for Research and the Office of the Vice Provost for International Affairs are pleased to announce the 2018 awardees of the Lemann Brazil Research Fund. “We had the largest and most competitive applicant pool yet in the history of the Fund,” said Rick McCullough, vice provost for research and…

The Cuba Studies Program of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University is pleased to announce that the Harvard Library has begun an important process of digitization of some of its most important Cuba-related resources. The digitization of the José Augusto Escoto Cuban History and Literature collection, ca. 1574–1920, is now underway. The Harvard Library…

Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor Chaya Czernowin’s choices of composers and works for this year’s Fromm concert centers on individuality, integrity, and artistic focus. Some of this year’s Fromm program is, clearly, ostentatiously political. The Prince Myshkins — whose inclusion on this concert is, to say the least, an innovation — feed on the Orwellian absurdity…

The legacy of the late Mason Hammond (1903-2002), Pope Professor of Latin Languages and Literature in the department of the Classics, will be honored at a ceremony In Palermo, Sicily, on Saturday, March 24, by the Superintendent’s Office for Cultural and Environmental Patrimony of Palermo. Professor Hammond, a Lt. Col in the U.S. military from…

A resurgence of mumps in the U.S. among vaccinated young adults appears to be due to waning of vaccine-induced immunity, according to a new analysis from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Researchers found that vaccine-derived immune protection against mumps persists an average of about 27 years after the last dose. The findings suggest…

Gerald L. Neuman, co-director of the Human Rights Program (HRP), and the J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law at Harvard Law School, discussed HRP’s upcoming conference, “Human Rights in a Time of Populism,” with Natalie McCauley, J.D. ’19. The conference, which is free and open to the public, takes place this…

Couples in supportive marriages appear less likely to gain weight and become obese in middle age, according to a new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Researchers asked roughly 2,650 people who were married or in long-term marriage-like relationships about their levels of marital support and strain, as well as the overall…

Harvard University will welcome Professor Eduardo Matos Moctezuma on April 10 to deliver the lecture, “Eduardo Matos Moctezuma Discovers Himself: Excavations of the Great Aztec Temple,” at 6 p.m., at the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St. This is the first lecture on campus as part of the five-year Eduardo Matos Moctezuma Lecture Series; the inaugural…

Susan Murphy, professor of statistics and computer science and Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at the Radcliffe Institute, will receive a Luminary Award at the Precision Medicine 2018 World Conference for her work developing innovative data science methods to improve mobile health care for patients with chronic disease. In recognition of the “highly significant impact” of her…

With speakers ranging from an environmental activist to a former Secretary of the U.S. Navy, the Advanced Leadership Initiative’s (ALI) Climate Change Deep Dive presented a multi-faceted look at the causes, consequences, and potential solutions for climate change. ALI Faculty Co-Chair Forest Reinhardt of Harvard Business School (HBS) led the 2018 Deep Dive, a two-day conference bringing…

Staff, faculty, and academic appointees reaching key milestones in their service at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health were honored at the 19th annual “Celebration with the Stars” on Feb. 28 in Kresge Cafeteria. Senior faculty and staff members expressed appreciation for the honorees who were celebrating five, 10, 15, or more years of service at the School…

Grab your sneakers on Friday, March 23 and join the Harvard community for a University-wide fun run. This free, untimed 5K will do three loops around historic Harvard Yard and the northern Law School campus. Harvard students, faculty, and staff, along with their friends and families are welcome to participate. Registration, refreshments, and activities will…

The $25,000 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting from the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School has been awarded to Nina Martin of ProPublica and Renee Montagne of NPR for their investigative reporting series Lost Mothers. The United States has the highest rate of maternal deaths in the developed world; NPR and ProPublica found at…