Letters

Cambridge 02138

Green energy options, foreign policy, medical errors, military jurist...

May-June 2008

Features

Making Credit Safer

It is impossible to buy a toaster that has a one-in-five chance of bursting into flames and burning down your house. But it is possible to...

George Bancroft

Brief life of a public historian: 1800-1891...

Shedding Light on Life

The scenes are familiar from biology textbooks. A long string of DNA is copied to form a matching strand. A virus infects a cell by stealing through its membrane.

by Courtney Humphries

Light Makes a Comeback

Today’s high-powered light microscopes bear little resemblance to the iconic instruments of high-school biology labs. This revolution...

Home of the Humanities

At a serene Harvard outpost, scholars find fertile ground for Byzantine, pre-Columbian, and landscape studies...

by Elizabeth Gudrais

RIGHT NOW Harvard research and ideas

Treasure in the Genome’s Trash

The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard often grabs headlines for its discoveries about the genetics underlying such diseases as cancer, heart...

Outside-In Ur-banism

Evidence of ancient urbanism at the Mesopotamian settlement of Tell Brak....

The Aging Brain

Looking at the effects of aging on healthy people's brains...

Climate Change Solutions?

Electrochemcial weathering: a new CO2 mitigation strategy...

Flocking to Finance

Recent graduates may take for granted the migration of one-fifth of their classmates into finance-sector jobs, but things haven’t always...

John Harvard's Journal University news

Good-bye to HMI

There is a revolution afoot in international healthcare. Wealthy foreigners still come to the United States—to the Mayo Clinic, say, or to...

John Chervinsky

Photograph by Stu Rosner John Chervinsky Like many people, John Chervinsky takes his work home. But what this lab engineer takes home may one...

Art of the Future?

The Fogg and Busch-Reisinger Museums at 32 Quincy Street will close their doors on June 30 for five years (see “Art Museum...

Open Access

In an historic vote, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) moved to make the articles that its members publish in scholarly journals freely...

University People

College Dean Designated Rose Lincoln/Harvard News Office Evelynn M. Hammonds Rosenkrantz professor of the history of science and of African...

Race in a Genetic World

“I am an African American,” says Duana Fullwiley, “but in parts of Africa, I am white.” To do fieldwork as a medical...

Markers, Male and Female

Genetic tests have limits, even as tools for tracing ancient migrations. Because men don’t move around as much as women do in patriarchal...

Prescription: Music

Besides sharing their love of music, the Longwood Symphony Orchestra donate the proceeds from their concerts to nonprofit organizations...

Yesterday's News

1928 Following Harvard’s first spring reading period, the College Library reports about 650 more visitors than in the previous year. 1933...

Scanning the Social Sciences

Letters have gone out inviting senior faculty members from across the University, nominated by the deans of their respective schools, to...

Connecting with China

China disorients the visitor. The scale and bustle of its cities—propelled by the greatest economic growth and urban migration in...

Brevia

Green Goals A new task force, appointed by President Drew Faust on February 27, will examine Harvard’s greenhouse-gas emissions and...

Getting My Feet Wet

I remember many things from my cousin’s wedding—my poofy bridesmaid’s dress, the humidity, how pretty the small church looked...

Leap, Arch, and Tuck

Citius, Altius, Fortius—that’s the Olympic motto: faster, higher, stronger. Altius is Becky Christensen’s specialty. The...

Questions about Recruiting

An article alleging that Harvard had lowered academic standards for recruits to its men’s basketball program, and might also have skirted...

Hockey Wrap-Up

Women’s Hockey The top-ranked icewomen (32-2, 22-0 Ivy) dominated the East all season but fell to fourth ranked Wisconsin in the NCAA...

Montage Books, creative arts, performance and more

Sleuths in Love

Screenwriter turned novelist Eric Lerner ’71 finds his voice...

A Scatter of Acorns

Excerpt from Nicholas Dawidoff ’85 memoir The Crowd Sounds Happy: A Story of Love, Madness, and Baseball...

Two Centuries of Sound

Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra: celebrating a fabled orchestra’s origins...

Underground Party

Commuters making their way through the underground corridors of the sprawling Times Square subway station in Manhattan now have some...

Off the Shelf

Yeltsin: A Life, by Timothy J. Colton, Feldberg professor of government and Russian studies (Basic Books, $35). A monumental biography of the...

Freeing Speech

Anthony Lewis’s Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment offers a lucid and engaging overview of American...

Solar Sculptor

Michael Kapetan’s sundials don’t do “clock time”...

Chapter & Verse

Michael Comenetz asks if the phrase “Galloping Gordon,” sometimes applied to British prime minister Gordon Brown, originated with...

Almuni Harvardians far and wide

Fishing for Answers

Photograph by Ralf-Finn Hestoft Neil Shubin and Tiktaalik In 2005, parents and school officials in Dover, Pennsylvania, were locked in a...

Centennial Salute

One hundred years ago, Henry Lee Higginson, class of 1855, founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and donor of Soldiers Field and other gifts...

Vote Now

This spring, alumni will choose five new Harvard Overseers and six new elected directors for the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) board. The...

Comings and Goings

University clubs offer a variety of social and intellectual events, including Harvard-affiliated speakers (please see the partial list below)...

A New Radcliffe Room

The College Club of Boston, 117 years old, calls itself the oldest such women’s club in America. Radcliffe was represented among the 19...

Above and Beyond

Beyondorders.org helps U.S. service members “rise above the call of duty” to aid Iraqi civilians. Tin-Yun Ho ’07 (’08)...

New Year's Summiteers

Photograph courtesy of Pamela Wolfe Crimson hikers (from left) Anne Walston ’67, Éva Borsody Das ’63, and Ken Moller...

Identity Seeker

Sergio Troncoso ’83 showed up in Cambridge in 1979 with a suitcase full of T-shirts brought from his hometown on the Texas-Mexico border...

Rebuilding Churches

In college, Tim McCarthy ’93 was deeply involved in public service—as a Big Brother and head of the Freshman Urban Program steering...