Your independent source for Harvard news since 1898 |

May-June 2009

Back Issues
  • Untangling the Brain
    Three Harvard scholars trained in chemistry and physics pursue innovative approaches and tools that address problems in neuroscience.
  • Vistas of Perfection
    A profile of writer James Agee, at Harvard and beyond
  • Andy Borowitz
    April Fool Every Day
    Comedian Andy Borowitz ’80 has moved from Hollywood success to a multifaceted life as a humorist in New York.
  • Caroline Farrar Ware
    A brief profile of the activist and scholar

Explore More

Ancestral Influences

View images of Phillip Charette’s masks alongside masks from the Smithsonian Institution holdings that inspired him.
4.20.09

Science and Song

Listen to songs written by assistant professor of organismic and evolutionary biology Pardis Sabeti, performed with her alternative-rock band, Thousand Days.
4.15.09

Montage

The Windmill Movie

Filmmaker Alexander Olch has made an biographical documentary based on footage left behind by his mentor, Richard Rogers.
Pete Seeger, shown singing in an undated photo, traveled light, always ready to make music.

The Bible and the Almanac

How Pete Seeger got his start: an excerpt from Alec Wilkinson’s new biography, The Protest Singer
<em>The City Square,</em> 1937, a scene design by Natalia Goncharova for <em>Le Coq d’Or</em>

Diaghilev and His Geniuses

The Harvard Theatre Collection opens an exhibition and hosts a symposium on Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes.
In Yup’ik lore, the crane—depicted in the mask above—connotes stealth, power, and insight. The human face on the bird’s belly represents its <em>yua,</em> or spirit—the part of the animal that understands, and can relate to, humans. The porcelain “teeth” that border the face are a reminder to use one’s innate gifts to good effect, or risk being consumed by them. The porcelain “bones” hanging from the wings ward off evil spirits; wooden rings represent this world and the spirit world.

Mnemonic Masks

Inspired by his Yup’ik heritage, Phillip Charette educates through his art.

Letters

Right Now

Perseus in 3-D

New three-dimensional PDF technology allows Harvard astronomers—and you—to explore worlds hundreds of light-years away.
Particulate matter that is 2.5 microns or less in diameter (PM2.5), the kind emitted from smokestacks and tailpipes, is known to be especially harmful. Reductions in such pollution lead to increased life expectancy. In Boston between 1980 and 2000, for example, as PM2.5 concentrations dropped from 18 to 11 micrograms per cubic meter, local average life expectancy climbed four years. Of that increase, four-tenths of a year—or 10 percent of the total gain—was attributable to improved air quality.

Clean Air, Longer Life

Controls on fine particle pollution extended average lifespan in the United States by five months between 1980 and 2000.

"Dissing Evolution"

Energy is the key to understanding human evolution—and to saving ourselves and our planet, says Daniel Lieberman.

Commencement and Reunion Guide

Roger Fu in the Science Center’s Loomis-Michael Observatory, where he shows fellow students the skies

Glimpses of Senior Life

The Harvard College experiences of three imminent alumni: Roger Fu, Marta Figlerowicz, and Tamara Jafar

John Harvard's Journal

Pardis Sabeti

Pardis Sabeti

For this systems biologist, the interaction of science and music is multiplicative.
The Rythmeter, circa 1944, came with a more complicated set of instructions than the earlier “scientific prediction dial” (see next image), reflecting increasingly precise knowledge of human reproduction—knowledge that Rock played no small part in advancing.

A Pioneer in Family Planning

A new exhibition honors John C. Rock, the Harvard Medical School professor whose research and advocacy were instrumental in the development of modern fertility treatments and contraception.

Brevia

News of the University and the Harvard community

Parenting, Redux

Junior Parents’ Weekend brings The Undergraduate a new perspective on the future.

Class on the Grass

Golfer Emily Balmert, and the women’s varsity team, have reached milestones.

Alumni

Plugged In

Charlene Li urges businesses to embrace social technologies.

Cast Your Vote

Overseer and Harvard Alumni Association director slates

The SIGnboard

Celebrate with Shared Interest Groups during Commencement

Treasure

The College Pump