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  • Kit Reed introduces an exhibition at the Harvard Museum of Natural History that reveals the different roles color plays in the animal and plant kingdoms.
  • Richard Wilbur
    Craig Lambert profiles the poet Richard Wilbur.
  • William P. MacKinnon profiles the early war correspondent who covered the Utah War against the Mormon government of Brigham Young.
  • Elizabeth Gudrais reports on how discoveries in genetics, cell metabolism, and the study of small molecules point the way to new therapies and perhaps a cure for diabetes.

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Diabetes: A Looming Epidemic—and Solutions

Multimedia extras: an animated illustration of the fattening United States; a “virtual wok” to design healthy meals; a body-mass-index calculator; a diabetes risk quiz; audio interviews; and more
11.1.08

The Maximalist

After a childhood spent playing the classics, cellist Matt Haimovitz has devoted himself to new music.
11.1.08

Montage

The Maximalist

After a childhood spent playing the classics, cellist Matt Haimovitz has devoted himself to new music.
Weaver ants (<i>Oecophylla smaragdina</i>) cooperate as they construct their leaf-tent nests.

Stinging the Dinosaurs

An excerpt from The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies, by Bert Hölldobler and E. O. Wilson
The artist holds <i>Summer Salt Marsh</i> (2008).

Photos in Thread

Fabric artist Linda Liu Behar stitches embroideries atop her own photographs.
Interior of the finished Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts.

Carpenter Center's Craftsman

A new book, Le Corbusier Le Grand, pulls together the career of Le Corbusier, with material on Harvard’s Carpenter Center.
Cynthia Saltzman &rsquo;71, <i><a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/30264/biblio/9781436255837">Old Masters, New World: America&rsquo;s Raid on Europe&rsquo;s Great Pictures, 1800-World War I</a></i> (Viking, $27.95)

Art as Chattel

James Cuno reviews Old Masters, New World: America’s Raid on Europe’s Great Pictures, by Cynthia Saltzman
Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore, <em><a href="http://www.powells.com/partner/30264/biblio/9780385526197">Blindspot</a></em>,  (Random House, $24.95)

Blindspot: A Novel

History professor Jill Lepore is the coauthor, with Jane Kamensky, of the historical novel Blindspot, set in colonial Boston.

Letters

Right Now

The slave trade shipped Africans to the Americas, the Middle East, and Asia; where victims ended up depended in part on which trade route their captors used. In total, the four routes ferried nearly 20 million people out of Africa.

Slavery’s Sway

Interdisciplinary economist Nathan Nunn explores the problem of African underdevelopment by drawing on—and unearthing—historical data about slavery.

What Makes the Human Mind?

Biological anthropologist Marc Hauser seeks to isolate the aspects of human thought that account for what he terms “humaniqueness,” the difference between animal and human thought.
Images from the Encyclopedia of Life include these examples. James Hanken plans to allow amateur ecologists to upload their own photographs to the catalog. Above, a smooth snake (<em>Coronella austriaca</em>)

World-Wide Web of Life

James Hanken of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology and other scientists launch an ambitious project to chronicle all life on earth.
Mechanical engineer Emilie Dressaire

A Durable Bubble

Mechanical engineering student Emilie Dressaire studies tiny bubbles that can last up to a year and replace fat droplets in ice cream.

New England Regional

Architect Maryann Thompson M.Arch.-M.L.A. &rsquo;89 at the &ldquo;Zero Impact House&rdquo;

Keeping It Green

Profiles of Maryann Thompson, who practices sustainable architecture; Sarah Beatty, who founded a green building-supplies company; and David Hamilton, who works to preserve farmland
The &ldquo;Crunchy Roll&rdquo; with salmon, tuna, and mango sauce.

Sushi Deluxe

A review of a Japanese restaurant, Douzo, in Boston

John Harvard's Journal

Tarun Khanna

Tarun Khanna

Harvard Business School professor Tarun Khanna seeks to integrate Western business models into emerging markets.

Probing Policing

Recent complaints about the Harvard University Police Department have prompted a special presidential review committee charged with improving the department’s relationship with the community.
Viral delivery of a three-transcription-factor cocktail has transformed pancreatic exocrine cells (blue) into scattered insulin-producing beta cells (red). A preexisting islet, or grouping of beta cells, is outlined at the upper left.

Stem-Cell Progress

Harvard researchers at the Stem Cell Institute achieve major breakthroughs.

Powerful Conversations

Ariel Phillips and Abigail Lipson head the Success-Failure Project at the Harvard Bureau of Study Counsel.

In the Black

A summary of the Harvard University Financial Report for fiscal year 2008

Brevia

Short takes on recent news at Harvard

Youthful Dreams

The Undergraduate reflects on how good and bad dreams shape the way we grow up.
Francine Polet

Seeing the Field

Francine Polet brings international experience and tactics to the Harvard field-hockey team.

Crimson in Beijing

How Harvard athletes fared at the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games

Bumps in the Road

A report on the first half of the Harvard football season. And: The Harvard football team has a fancy new locker room.

The Force Was With Them

Kevin Rafferty has made a documentary film, Harvard Beats Yale 29-29, about the 1968 football game.

Men's Basketball Exonerated

The Ivy League exonerated men’s basketball head coach Tommy Amaker and an assistant coach following allegations of improper recruiting and lowered admissions standards for the men’s team.

Alumni

William Thomas, M.D. &rsquo;86

At Home with Old Age

William Thomas, founder of the Eden Alternative and the Green House Project, reimagines nursing homes and residential living for the elderly.

Job Notices

Programs that match Harvard College students with jobs and internships

Well Done

Recipients of the 2008 Harvard Alumni Association Awards

Treasure

The Children of Noah

A map showing “The Dispersal of the Children of Noah,” in an exhibit at the Andover-Harvard Theological Library, reflects dispute by Puritan theologian Hugh Broughton about biblical chronology, touched off by the publication of his book A Concent of Scripture.

The College Pump

Oddments

Comments about swinging doors and energy conservation, David Roy Shackleton Bailey, brain aging and a defunct drinking fountain, and the love of learning and of one’s colleagues